[FEL-L] Living with lions

[BigCatSimba at aol.com]

Living with lions   
 
There are many historical stories of shepherds and travellers encountering 
lions, for example the Old Testament contains dozens of tales about attacks on 
flocks and people by these fierce predators. 


Lions have now disappeared from most of their former range, but for livestock 
owners around the Waza National Park, Cameroon, living with lions is a daily 
reality. Although loss of human life is rarely reported, lion predation can 
cost the herders close to 1000 US$ per family each year. 

Scientists from the Resource Ecology Group, Wageningen University and the 
Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, investigated the factors 
that contributed to these losses and why pastoralists continued to graze their 
herds close to the lion’s hunting grounds, which has recently been published 
in the African Journal of Ecology. 

The team found that people living closer to the Waza National Park enjoy 
better access to pastures and water points, but bear the heaviest losses. These 
herdsmen said that the benefits of improved grazing and water outweigh the cost 
of lion kills. 

Further from the park, depredation decreases, but during the wet season, when 
water is abundant and lush vegetation offers hiding places, lions wander off 
and take livestock at larger distances. The research also showed that having 
cattle increases the risk of losing goats or sheep to lions, probably because 
sheep and goats graze with the cows further away from the villages and in 
larger numbers, which makes it easier for lions to approach livestock unnoticed. 
Herdsmen even claimed that lions follow nomadic herds during the wet season far 
outside the park, and during this period these lions also raid sedentary 
livestock of villages they pass. 

Surprisingly, herdsmen who try to chase the lions away when attacked reported 
larger losses, probably because the confusion created scatters the herds, and 
lions benefit from this. 

One day around noon, while interviewing some villagers, two researchers were 
called by some excited herdsmen, who reported an attack by lions. The group 
headed to the scene just outside of the village, only about a kilometre from 
where the interview was taking place, and found three dead sheep and a calf, with 
clear bite marks in their necks. One of the herdsmen explained: 

“We tried to chase away the lions, but they weren’t impressed and only moved 
a bit further away from us, where they grabbed another sheep. That’s how they 
do it, they just kill. They’ve taken one sheep with them, but the calf and 
the other three sheep were killed for nothing. We can’t eat the meat, as Muslim 
traditions require animals to be killed by a Muslim” 

The research team recommended that herding methods could be changed in order 
to decrease the livestock losses, such as by having protective thorn 
enclosures, called bomas, or more herdsmen, as dogs for guarding livestock are not a 
suitable alternative in this Islamic part of Cameroon. Lion predation is a 
common phenomenon in the area, and people have accommodated these violent 
encounters in their day-to-day life, and apparently make a trade-off between the extra 
benefits of living closer to the national park, and the increased risk of 
losing animals to lions. 

Source: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 

_http://www.physorg.com/news112450994.html_ 
(http://www.physorg.com/news112450994.html) 



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