Lion is a very beautiful big cat, currently mainly living in the African savannah and a small part of Asia, mainly divided into two subgroups, namely African lion group and Asiatic lion group, 8 subspecies, namely Congolese lion, Angolan lion, South African lion, East African lion, West African lion, Asiatic lion, Barbary lion and Cape lion, of which the Cape lion and Barbary lion were extinct in 1858 and 1925 respectively. At present, all lions in Asia are protected animals, but in Africa, there are still many poaching incidents.
8 lion subspecies
The survival status of lions is better than the tiger of the same level of big cats, although it is a little better, but it is also not optimistic, once the Asiatic lion throughout Southwest Asia, occupying most of the Mediterranean to India, but later under the influence of human activities, once endangered, fortunately, people woke up in time, the remaining all the lions are all captured for artificial breeding, the Asian lion This bloodline can be completely preserved, and now the Asiatic lion, although the number is small, but also has a good home, Live carefree inside the Gil Forest National Park.
Distribution map of lions
Whether for biodiversity or other purposes, the benefits of protecting lions are self-evident, so humans have a mission and an obligation to protect this big cat. So what exactly to do? Usually for endangered animals, people have established protected areas for artificial breeding, but at present, many lion subspecies have not reached this point, and although the wild number is not optimistic, it is not so negative, so from this level, Tanzania's approach is worth learning.
Marseille lion
In the living area of the Maasai people, lions and humans used to clash very frequently, due to human activities, resulting in the survival of lions continue to shrink, the direct consequence of this situation is that lions, leopards and other carnivorous beasts will often hunt livestock, and the Maasai people will kill lions as a revenge for its hunting of livestock, due to years of killing, and lack of prey, habitat loss, African lions in the past 30 years or so in the past 30 years greatly reduced, compared to 1980, a decrease of about 40,000 heads.
The traditional fence of the Maasai people
Although the Maasai people have always lived in the anti-animal fence, but the traditional anti-animal fence is generally composed of acacia thorns, they use this fence to enclose the residential area and the wall yard to block the lion and other beasts, but the acacia thorn is easy to wither in the sun, and over time it becomes useless, the beasts easily pass through the fence into people's living areas, where they hunt livestock, and sometimes even hurt people, which undoubtedly enters a dead cycle, the lion more and more predators livestock, The more frantic the people became, the more they retaliated.
In fact, this is partly caused by the habits of lions, because the big cat is a very intelligent animal, just as the man-eating tiger must be killed, the difficulty of preying on livestock is far lower than that of predatory wild animals, after tasting the sweetness of the beasts, they will form a survival experience, this experience spreads within the group, it will further aggravate the situation of predators preying on livestock, if you want this kind of thing to no longer happen or decrease, only when the last individual who knows this knowledge dies, this knowledge will be cut off between the populations. Until the new individual tastes the sweetness again.
New and improved fence
Back to the point, what exactly is Tanzania doing to protect lions? As mentioned earlier, the traditional Maasai fence was made of acacia thorns, and the drawbacks of this fence were obvious until later environmentalists and locals upgraded this device, in addition to the acacia thorn, trees were planted on the outer layer and fenced with barbed wire to strengthen the fence. In fact, this practice has really worked, neither lions nor leopards and other beasts can cross, so that people's living areas and the activity areas of the beasts are separated.
Staff build fences inside Tarangire National Park
In The Tarangire National Park in northern Tanzania, there are 62 such fences, which isolate humans from lions, and according to Marseille observers, since the construction of the wall, there have only been two beast attacks in the 10 years from 2003 to 2013, which means that this type of fence plays an important role, and its blocking success rate is above 99%, which not only protects people from lions and other predators, but also protects wild animals from human interference, so that they can better live.
Traditional Maasai kill lions
Looking at the above practice, it is not difficult to think of the principle of this, mainly to reduce the conflict between lions and humans, there are more than a dozen communities in the Marseille steppe, before the installation of this fence, there will be a large number of predator attacks on livestock every year, and more than 80 lions will be killed in the hands of humans every year, but since the installation of the fence, the Maasai people living in the fence have stopped their retaliation against lions, they did not kill any lion or leopard, Hyenas and other beasts of prey.
South China Tiger
In fact, many of the world's large carnivores are endangered because of too much conflict with humans, the simplest example is the South China tiger, in the early years because of the "human-tiger conflict" serious, thus the rise of a "tiger pest" movement, directly led to the wild extinction of the South China tiger. So Tanzania's approach is a big step forward for humans to save wildlife, because it almost fundamentally solves this problem, of course, the protection of lions has to do much more than that, which requires the joint efforts of people all over the world.
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