Do you remember Cecil the lion, the bold, wild and archetypally handsome big cat at Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park? With a glorious flowing mane and a royal swagger, Cecil was the star attraction at the reserve for more than a decade. He was also a dominant male and established three prides, one of them 22-lions strong.
But in July 2015, Cecil, who was named by a University of Oxford research team studying him and his pride, was lured outside the safety of Hwange’s border and killed by a trophy hunter.
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Some weeks later, US comedian Jimmy Kimmel, with tears in his eyes, spoke about Cecil’s death on his popular TV chat show. This lit a touchpaper, sparking an unprecedented global response to a wildlife story. Social media channels and mainstream media outlets were jammed with comments about Cecil. Quite simply, Cecil set the internet alight.
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There was, of course, outrage about the manner of Cecil’s death, but it also shone a light on lions more widely. People were shocked to learn that lions in Africa were in desperate decline. Panthera leo, the fabled king of beasts, an animal assumed to be invincible, was in trouble – big trouble.
Lions in freefall
Across most of Africa, lion numbers were in freefall. Lions had actually been listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN since 1996, with estimates that no more than 29,000 individuals roamed the continent. In the north, lions were long gone, and in West Africa lion numbers were so low the IUCN categorised them as Critically Endangered. In all of Africa, the only lions doing relatively okay were some populations in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Ten years on from Cecil’s death, the IUCN continues to categorise most lions as Vulnerable. The overall population trend is still one of decline, with lions in West Africa remaining listed as Critically Endangered, as no more than a couple of hundred lions remain in a tiny splinter – just 1 per cent of their former range. Hanging on by the most fragile of whiskers, these are the least protected and most endangered lions of all. Lions here have been described as the living dead, their populations so small and so fragmented there seems little hope for recovery.
But these lions have not been forgotten – far from it. There are signs of recovery and evidence that population collapse is being resisted. In south-east Senegal, in the Niokolo-Koba National Park, this could be down to a lioness called Florence. Caught on a camera-trap in 2023, she was a much longed-for sighting of a rare lion. But the even better news was that Florence wasn’t alone: she had three cubs with her.
Florence has had nine cubs. This may not seem like a large number, but Florence is actually responsible for almost a third of the park’s lion population. Her offspring are part of a growing population that has tripled since 2011, when 10 individuals were estimated to live here. By 2030, it’s predicted this number could rise to 100.
New hope for Africa's lions
Around 90 per cent of West Africa’s lions are found at the W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) Complex, a vast and critically important protected area comprising Pendjari National Park in Benin, Arly National Park in Burkina Faso and W National Park straddling the border between Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. While lion numbers here aren’t increasing, against the odds – the area is affected by ongoing violence – the population is now stabilising and looks set to stay this way.
Andrew Loveridge, lion programme director at global wild cat conservation organisation Panthera, and part of the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), has extensive lion conservation experience in West Africa. He is encouraged by these good-news stories. “There’s real scope for lions to recover here. There’s certainly enough land. We have the will and the knowledge,” he says. “In the right conditions, with the right funding, lions can bounce back. They are a resilient species.”
There has been positive news in central Africa, too. In Chad, lions are benefitting from safe passage, using wildlife corridors that link protected areas. In 2024, in Chad’s Sena Oura National Park, a healthy lioness of breeding age was caught on a remote camera – the first lion seen in the park for 20 years. It’s thought she travelled here from neighbouring Bouba Ndjida National Park in Cameroon, where lion numbers are gradually increasing.
There is other good news for free-roaming lions in Chad. In 2022, a radio-collared male left Zakouma National Park in the south-east of the country and travelled 160km to Siniaka Minia National Park. A year earlier, a different radio-collared male made it safely to another protected area 40km away. Both lions were looking to establish prides in new territories.
There’s lion-shaped hope, too, in South Sudan’s conflict-affected Southern National Park. For years, scientists had been looking for lions, then out of the blue in 2022 a lion was captured on a camera trap. Just a year later, a pride seven lions strong was caught on cameras elsewhere in the park. Tracks were also spotted and roars heard at night. Some optimistic scientists tentatively estimate that perhaps up to 50 lions could be present here.
In Mozambique, there are similar signs of lion recovery. In 2021, a male lion appeared in the country’s Zinave National Park – the first lion seen here in 30 years. A year later, this was followed by a sighting of a female and her cub, now settled at the park.
In some areas where lions haven’t turned up under their own steam, they have been successfully reintroduced. In Malawi, lions were locally extinct from Majete Wildlife Reserve and Liwonde National Park. In 2012, Majete was first to hear lions roar again after an absence of three decades. In 2018, Liwonde welcomed the return of lions. Both areas now have populations described as flourishing, numbering more than 115 lions.
In 2018, 24 lions were translocated from South Africa to the Zambezi Delta region in Mozambique. In just two-and-a-half years, the new population reached around 64 individuals. And in Rwanda, where lions became extinct in the late 1990s, around 60 lions now thrive since an initial reintroduction of four lions in 2015.
The 'lion defenders'
Elsewhere in Africa, community-led projects have empowered local people to help keep their remaining lions safe. In more remote regions, especially those outside of protected areas, conflict between big cats and people is an ongoing challenge. In East Africa, at least one lion a week is killed – shot, speared or poisoned – for taking livestock.
In Kenya and Tanzania, conservation initiatives such as Lion Landscapes have been helping pastoral communities to find more lion-friendly methods of safeguarding their livestock and livelihoods against lion predation. In both countries, Lion Landscapes has employed and trained community liaison teams such as ‘lion defenders’ to reduce human-lion conflict and the killing of lions.
They help local people better protect their animals from lions, including reinforcing livestock enclosures (bomas), taking advantage of lion-detection warning systems and using special flickering lights to deter big cats from bomas. They have also developed community benefit initiatives, directly linked to wildlife presence. “I have chosen to protect the lion because they help make many things like roads, hospitals and schools,” says Mandela, a lion defender from Tanzania. “This money comes because of the presence of lions.”
In Zimbabwe, in 120 remote villages outside Matusadona National Park, there are community guardians who are employed and trained by Wildlife Conservation Action (WCA). They’ve had a significant impact in reducing retaliatory lion killings. Like the lion defenders, community guardians promote easy-to-operate methods for farmers to successfully protect their livestock from lion assaults. Such approaches have been adopted by more than 5,000 homesteads, reducing the killing of lions by 61 per cent. “Lions are part of our land and our culture. I protect them because I want my children to see them too,” says community guardian Custardy Siachema. “With lion lights and mobile bomas, we can keep our livestock safe. They help us live peacefully with the lions.”
Underpinning the practical measures used to prevent retaliatory killings, community-awareness programmes have helped people affected by lions to reframe how they view these predators. In many places, lions are now no longer seen as a threat but rather as creatures of value that can bring many benefits.
In Kenya and Tanzania, where Maasai and Barabaig communities have hunted and killed lions for cultural reasons, lion defenders have been able to stop or prevent dozens of cultural lion killings. They enable young warriors to gain income and status from engaging in conservation rather than killings. This shift in cultural attitudes towards lions is vital, as support from local people is crucial for lion recovery. Without their positive involvement, the breakthrough lions recolonising West and Central Africa, the reintroduced lions in Mozambique, Malawi and Rwanda, and lions navigating ever-increasing threats all over the continent don’t stand a chance.
For lion conservationist Amy Dickman, joint CEO of Lion Landscapes and director of Oxford’s WildCRU, lions are best served by local people working at the heart of lion conservation. “The increasing focus on community-led conservation gives me hope,” she says. “There are exciting cases of lion populations recovering and local people seeing lions as a benefit rather than a threat.”
Cecil the lion's legacy
These aren’t the only stories of hope for lions in Africa. All over the continent, projects big and small are making a difference. Lions are reclaiming their share, turning up where least expected, often in the most dangerous of places, and finding protection against some of the complex threats they face. They’re also benefitting from the tolerance demonstrated by many pastoralist communities who share the land with them.
These tentative signs of lion recovery likely owe something to Cecil. When his death went viral, people responded generously and donated unheard of sums of money to conservation charities to help slow the decline of lions in Africa. Cecil’s death also inspired people to join lion conservation projects or, even, like Moreangels Mbizah, set up their own lion-protection initiative.
Mbizah knew Cecil. She was part of the Oxford University research team at Hwange National Park and had studied the cat for three years. Mbizah was devastated by Cecil’s death, describing it as a ‘turning point’ in her life. For Mbizah, the vulnerability of lions was heartbreaking. She had an overwhelming need to do something to safeguard the species.
“Inspired by Cecil’s death,” she says, “I went on to form my own organisation, Wildlife Conservation Action (WCA), in my home country of Zimbabwe with a clear mission: strengthening the capacity of local communities to mitigate human-wildlife conflict.” And WCA’s community guardians programme has been a success: as a direct consequence of Cecil’s death, lions here are safer than ever before.
In some ways, Cecil’s death acted as a catalyst for lion conservation, something Loveridge describes as a ‘silver lining’. The lions showing up in Central and West Africa and elsewhere are evidence of this. For the momentum to continue, additional funding is needed – for more protection, for more community education and for more research.
Then hope for lions can become tangible. Lions that now exist in their tens and their hundreds could instead be counted in their thousands. And, above them all, Cecil’s star can continue to shine brightly on.
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Top image: Cecil the lion at Hwange National Park in 2010. Credit: Daughter#3, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons