Until now, it was thought that the critically endangered West African lion did not form prides. But in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park, Florence, a lioness wearing a radio collar, was lying next to another lioness in the pride. Photography: JOHN WENDLE
Writing: JOHN WENDLE
The screams of a warthog echo from the speakers in the woods as Kris Everatt attempts to lure a lion into a radio collar. He pressed pause and the team continued to wait in the truck, exhausted.
We heard a crunching sound coming from nowhere, the sound of paws on dry leaves nearby. We stayed here all night, keeping an eye on the bait, and suddenly became very sober.
Then there was silence. Everatt, a Canadian, is a biologist with Panthera, a wild cat conservation organization, and has worked in Africa for more than ten years. His expression was blank and focused, as if he was observing everything around him with his ears.
To my surprise, he started purring like a contented lion. The ploy worked, as the unseen animals feasted on the bait (a chunk of meat and offal tied to a tree 30 meters away). In the darkness we heard tendons tearing and bones cracking.
Rangers at a poacher's camp in the northern part of Diochanio Colo-Coba National Park. Here, poaching of prey such as antelope threatens the survival of lions. PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN WENDLE Mouhamadou Ndiaye, a Senegalese field technician with Panthera, a wild cat conservation organization, shows us the horns of an antelope that was killed by a lion in the park. The antelope can grow to more than 270 kilograms and is the favorite prey of lions and the target of poachers. Photography: JOHN WENDLE
We are in the remote southeastern corner of Senegal, in the little-known Nyokolo-Koba National Park. This is a 9,060 square kilometer protected area that was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1981. The National Park Service and Panthera are here in a race against time to save 30 critically endangered West African lions from local extinction.
Only recently have scientists discovered that West African lions are more closely related to the Asiatic lions of India than to the lions of the savannas of southern Africa. In fact, compared to their close relatives, West African lions are taller and stronger and don't have their trademark luxurious manes.
The last remaining lions in Nyokoro-Coba National Park are threatened by poaching of antelopes, buffaloes and other prey. Conservationists worry that lions themselves are also vulnerable: their skins, teeth, claws and meat all fetch high prices, with the main markets in Africa and Asia; their bones are used in traditional medicine as the increasingly rare wild tiger bones replacement of.
In the Nyokolo-Coba National Park, The Gambia River is the main water source for lions and other wildlife. Photography by JOHN WENDLE
It’s difficult to say how many West African lions have been lost to poaching. What we do know is that the West African lion has shrunk by 99% of its original range, according to the International Union for Nature Conservation, the agency responsible for determining species' conservation status.
In Neocolo-Coba National Park, due to poaching, agricultural expansion, and frequent wildfires, UNESCO listed the park as an endangered world heritage site in 2007.. At the same time, nearby artisanal gold mining has also added considerable pressure.
"There are a lot of problems to solve," says park director Jacques Gomis: "We want to take the park off the red list. The target is 2024."
Pancera regional director and leader of the Nyocolo-Coba project Philipp Henschel has conducted a survey of lions in the park since 2011; he said that there are only 121 to 374 adult lions in the entire West African region. In addition to Senegal’s lions, there are also some who live in the conflict-ridden W-Arly-Bangari transnational reserve, at the junction of Niger, Benin and Burkina Faso; Nigeria There are also some in a very small park.Henschel said that when he began studying the lions of Neocolo-Coba (he has conducted two surveys so far), he estimated there were only about a dozen lions, and that park rangers had never even seen them.
“We feel dangerous when we see lions disappearing in small groups,” Henschel said of West African lions. “There are only some lions left in southern Africa.” In the past 20 years, Africa has The total number of lions has dropped by half. It's hard to know the exact number of lions in the wild, but it's probably between 20,000 and 25,000.
That's why studying the lions of Neocolo-Coba is so important now, Henschel said: "We have to move faster than the poachers."
He and Everatt believe the park could support 180 to 240 lions. This is also the goal of Panthera and the Park Service, because the recovery of this apex predator will help the entire ecosystem recover.
"We chose lions not just because they're really cool, we love lions, that's for sure, but because they play a key role in a functioning ecosystem," Everatt said. "They're also an umbrella species. "Because to protect the top predators, we have to protect everything below them in the food chain.
'Still a blind spot'
The Gambia and Nyokolo rivers nourish a diverse landscape of forests, plateaus and valleys. The park not only contains the lions, chimpanzees and elephants that live in the world's northernmost and westernmost populations, but also the Der's oryx, wild dogs , leopards , hyenas , baboons , Coba antelope ( The park takes its name from this species of antelope), some 60 species of other mammals, and more than 300 species of birds.
However, Nyokolo-Coba National Park and the few lions in the park remain uncharted territory. "From a scientific perspective, it's still a blind spot," Henschel said. "We still have a lot to learn," especially about lions, if we want to save them.
Lions in the African savanna have been well studied, but this is not the case with West African lions. Everything from the size and range of the lion group to their diet and mating behavior needs to be studied scientifically. Putting the GPS collars on the lions, funded by National Geographic Society , was crucial to gathering all kinds of information; which is why Everatt and the team waited all night for the lions to eat the bait.
While the lion was engrossed in its meal, Panthera’s on-site assistant Mouhamadou Ndiaye slowly put down the flashlight. The moment the pale beam spotted the lion, Everatt pulled the trigger of the dart gun. With a pop, the lion fell asleep. Everatt drove over and poked the animal in the leg with a branch. The lion was motionless.
I quietly put my feet on the sand, and that's when Everatt gave the urgent order: "Get back in the truck. The whole pride is here."
The female lion was young, which meant other family members were probably nearby. Everatt won't collar him either: he'll grow up quickly over the next few months. So far, Panthera's team has collared eight males, but only one female: Florence. The blue morning light filled the forest. Everatt injected it with the antidote, and soon it stood up and continued eating.
Filling out the lion family tree
Henschel and colleagues at Panthera are fighting to ensure that this small population of lions in West Africa does not disappear. Their goal is not just to protect the population. While Henschel is searching for lion colonies in the forests of West Africa, he is also collecting genetic samples that will help expand our understanding of lion genealogies.
In May, researcher Laura Bertola of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues published a study describing the genetic sequencing of lions throughout Africa and in a protected area in the Indian state of Gujarat.
Research has found that lions in West Africa are more closely related to lions in India than lions in southern Africa. A new division was formally formed between the "northern lion" (Panthera leo leo) of India and West Africa and the "southern lion" (Panthera leo melanochaita) of southern Africa.
"We didn't find new subspecies or anything like that," Bertola said. "We just redrawn the boundaries. Instead of the previous African-Asian division, we divided it into north and south, which is consistent with the evolutionary history of the species."
Henschel said that while southern lions can breed with northern lions, bringing the former to Nyokolo-Coba National Park to replenish the population would be a mistake: Doing so would destroy their genetic uniqueness and, therefore, save Nyoko. The lions of Lo-Coba National Park are even more pressing.
"I had a map pinned to the wall," said. "Unfortunately, every time (Henschel's) report came back, I would cross off more populations on the map. Gradually, my map was filled with Red cross because there is no way to reconfirm that there are lions in those areas. "
" It's like CSI "
we can feel the killing before we witness it." Everatt and Ndiaye walked through a patch of lion-colored, thigh-high grass toward the woods, where vines and thorny acacias grew wildly. We walked toward the hidden waterhole, the smell of decay getting stronger.
"This is an easy habitat for lions to hunt," Everatt whispered. He glanced at the GPS and paused. The coordinates showed the location of the kill, possibly by a freshly collared male. The two researchers split up, heads down, searching for clues.
"I love this part of the job - it's like crime scene investigation," Everatt said, scouring the bushes. It's like a crime scene, but the killer is still on the loose and probably nearby.
Ndiaye is calling. He found droppings, which may be clues to where the prey was eaten. He marked the site with GPS and put the samples into plastic bottles for later genetic analysis. The team dispersed again.
"He noticed the tiny details," Everatt said of Ndiaye. Before joining the team, Ndiaye had no experience tracking or studying lions. "For the conservation and ecology of Africa, the future depends entirely on whether it can be returned to Africans."
Researchers found a partial jawbone and a skull with a small piece of horn nearby. This helps solve the mystery: it's a pony antelope. "That's where the kill is, and here's where it eats the head," Everatt said.
"This is just one part of trying to better understand these West African lions," Everatt said. "One of the problems is that the scale of the habitat is so large, as can be seen from where prey is hunted and eaten." The researchers You can use the GPS collar to determine where the lion went, how it interacted, and what it ate. “Being able to really get to know these individuals,” he said. We know so little about these cats that knowing the basics is crucial to finding the best ways to protect them.
Chasing poachers
The tracks of bicycle tires are crooked on the sand, extending into the forest. Such discordant trajectories are the hallmark of poachers, says Sergeant Mamadou Sall. Sall, leader of a group of eight heavily armed national park rangers, rallied his men; for the next three hours we followed the trail, over bumpy roads, towards the national highways and villages that form the northern boundary of the park. kilometer.
We are now deep in the bushland of the north-central park, which has been devastated by decades of poaching and fire, with nearly all of the understory burned. Soon, several tire tracks came together; on a flat land, we saw several empty small campsites in the bushes. Most of them are just stone circles around a fire pit, but some also have drying racks for processing wild animal meat.
For lions, poaching has turned parts of Nyokolo-Coba National Park into a "war zone," Henschel said. Around the park, they are using various methods to raise awareness among local communities of the importance of the park, but so far, burning and illegal hunting persist. Typically, poachers target larger animals, such as antelopes, which lions depend on for survival.In 2014, Bertola visited the outskirts of the Nyocolo-Coba National Park and determined that it suffered from "empty-park syndrome."
"It's very difficult to ban people who are getting their food from the bush," Sall said. Hunting is for both subsistence and commercial purposes and they are mainly Senegalese, but there are also people from neighboring Guinea. They use shotguns and assault rifles instead of traps and poison. That adds purpose to the killings and makes it more dangerous for rangers who occasionally encounter gunfire, he said.
Panthera has been supporting rangers since 2016 and now funds three anti-poaching ranger teams and trucks. Six permanently funded teams and their own vehicles are enough to protect the entire park, Henschel said.
By the time the patrol ended, I had drank less than 4 liters of water, and the patrol had yet to encounter a poacher. This is their daily routine, and as Everatt said, the rangers' occasional presence also acts as a somewhat of a deterrent.
When we returned to the heart of the heavily fortified Nyokolo-Coba National Park, the positive impact of the rangers was clear: the bush was dense and there were more animals. I stayed there for a week and saw 5 lions, zebras, civets, two species of mongooses, and 8 species of antelopes, from tall antelopes to petite pygmy antelopes. My team and I drove through dense forest, past waterholes, looking for possible places to place bait and catch other lions. I also saw crocodiles, warthogs, Guinea baboons, monkeys and 14 species of birds, including the critically endangered African white-headed vulture; the bird's reappearance after a decade of absence means the park is partially recovering.
Everatt likens the difference between the park's surroundings and center to time travel: the outer areas still look like the open space Bertola saw eight years ago, while the center heralds a brighter future.
"This is a big deal"
"Where is?"
"There."
"Where?"
"There!" Ndiaye pointed into the distance. Florence and two young females (probably her daughters) were setting up camp behind hay in the shadow of a palm tree to my right. Kris speculated that his son, a young male lion, might be nearby.
Everatt and Ndiaye used Florence's collar to track the young pride. We parked nearby and took out the binoculars . The lions were lying down and taking a nap, occasionally sitting up and looking at us, and we looked at them. As night falls, the lions yawn one by one, showing their huge canine teeth and stretching their powerful legs and claws. They will soon be waiting for an opportunity to find dinner.
"This is a big deal," Everatt said as he lay on top of the truck. Big cats are a common sight on the African savannah as they laze under trees, but some researchers have suggested that West African lions do not form prides, so the sighting of this group in the park is "news" ,He said.
So far, Everatt and Henschel have identified six or seven small prides, two larger prides and a few single males. This year's collaring operation also found and collared two members of a coalition of three young male lions. Alliances, which help young males win territories and mates, have never been recorded in West Africa and could be another sign of recovery in Nyokolo-Koba National Park, Everatt said.
In order to restore the park to its 240 lions, Henschel said more funding will be needed to expand Panthera's research program and step up anti-poaching patrols. The opening of the Neocolo Ecotourism Camp in the center of the park marks the beginning of high-end tourism. "Dead lions can bring hunters a lot of money," Henschel said. "And currently, live lions bring not much profit, not enough." But visitors have begun investing time and money in the park in hopes of seeing lions and other animals. animal.
Now, Florence and her daughters are resting under the shade of a tree, proving that things will eventually recover. "I'm hopeful, I think it's very possible," Everatt said. "I mean, it could take 20 years, and for us, this is a long-term effort."
(Translator: Sky4)
