According to a new study in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, there may be as few as 406 West African lions remaining. The study, conducted by Dr. Philipp Henschel of Lion Program Survey Coordinator for Panthera and team of international researchers, claims that the lions are now critically endangered.

“When we set out in 2006 to survey all the lions of West Africa, the best reports suggested they still survived in 21 protected areas. We surveyed all of them, representing the best remaining lion habitat in West Africa. Our results came as a complete shock; all but a few of the areas we surveyed were basically paper parks, having neither management budgets nor patrol staff, and had lost all their lions and other iconic large mammals,” said Dr. Henschel.

The researchers concluded that West African lions now live in only five countries, including Senegal, Nigeria, Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso. This is thought to be only a tiny fraction of the lion’s former range.

West African Lions are genetically distinct from their more famous Southern and Eastern counterparts. They are thought to be more closely related to Asian lions. The population of West African lions has decreased over the years due to a number of factors. Among these are hunting and poaching of the lions themselves and their prey, an increasing human population, the expansion of farming in the lions’ native habitat and a lack of funding for conservation efforts.

“Lions have undergone a catastrophic collapse in West Africa. The countries that have managed to retain them are struggling with pervasive poverty and very little funding for conservation. To save the lion – and many other critically endangered mammals including unique populations of cheetahs, African wild dogs and elephants – will require a massive commitment of resources from the international community,” said report co-author and Pantera President Dr. Luke Hunter.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defines critically endangered in the following way: “a taxon is Critically Endangered when it is facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future.” While West African lions seem to meet that criteria, it remains to be seen what if anything can or will be done to protect the animals.

Source: Panthera