For us Maasai Mara happens to be one of the best national parks in the world and we try and visit the Mara every year for a few days. On this first game drive during one of our trips there, we went looking for the famous Cheetah brothers who were sighted close to the Kenya-Tanzania […]
Strangely enough Amboseli National Park is one place where we did not spot many African Lions, except for a pride that we saw on day one of our visit. While we searched the length and breath of the park, we did not see another pride or lone males. We made one last attempt to check […]
The news about African lions is usually dire these days, as the species dwindles across its range. But Thiessen K. Musaah from Nakuru, Kenya, gave us a welcome break with his question about coat color. Why, he asked, are lions in South Africa’s Kruger National Park “fawn to golden white” while their kin in the […]
In 1716, exactly three hundred years ago, Bostonians were the first Americans to lay eyes upon an African lion. George Washington was yet to be born and the concept of our nation was still 60 years away. According to the Boston News Letter, “All persons having the Curiosity of seeing the noble and Royal Beast […]
Earlier this week, we wrote that the mating lions seen in Botswana may have been a male and a maned lioness. Female African lions with manes are regularly seen in northern Botswana, where they may carry a genetic disposition toward the phenomenon. But Nicole Cambré, who recently photographed the lions on safari, provided National Geographic […]
The documentary Blood Lions exposes South Africa’s controversial “canned” lion hunting industry. In canned hunts, captive-bred, often hand-reared lions are confined in enclosed spaces on private hunting reserves, guaranteeing marksmen easy trophy heads in exchange for fees of up to $50,000. With approximately 8,000 “ranch” lions to draw on, South Africa’s hunt operators can make […]
Jes Gruner was excited when he told me over the phone that the lions had made their first kill. A week after their release into the Akagera National Park in the northeast of Rwanda, the lions took down a waterbuck on the lakeshore and were gorging themselves on the carcass. Gruner, the Park Manager of […]
Without heroic conservationists many of today’s most beloved species would be extinct: think of pandas, tigers, and elephants. By single-mindly focused on saving a particular species, these conservation champions bring much-needed research, publicity, and, most importantly, targeted actions to keep an imperiled animal from the brink. Through their own exuberance, these heroes also gather others […]
African lions, one of the most iconic species on the planet, are in rapid decline. According to a new study in Biodiversity Conservation, the African lion (Panthera leo leo) population has dropped from around 100,000 animals just fifty years ago to as few as 32,000 today. The study, which used high resolution satellite imagery to […]
“We Bought a Zoo (2011)” this film portraits a story that is not far from reality and I was fortunate to be involved in filming behind the scenes the revival of one in tropical Australia. The receivers of this closed zoo appointed a zoo animal carer to look after the animals welfare until such time […]
