Rise in Conflict Puts Lions at Risk
High levels of human-lion conflict during the past few months have put lions at serious risk, while our team has been pushed to the limits to keep lions alive. When lions attack camels or cows (like the one pictured above), the people whose livelihood depends on livestock may retaliate and kill lions. The spike in conflict coincided with the arrival of the rains in November and has only just slowed down in the past few days.
Since November, we have recorded 45 incidents of human-lion conflict, and we estimate that our team has stopped the killing of lions 26 times. As a result, no lions were killed during this period.
"There was one day in November that was one of the hardest days of my life," recalls Jeneria, who leads our field team when responding to conflict issues. "The lions killed camels in 5 locations. I raced to one area where Lengwe was eating the remains of a camel in bright daylight right there by the village. I was sure he was going to be killed by three angry warriors, so I sat with them under a bush all day and convinced them not to take action."
Why does conflict rise during the rainy season? How does our team convince communities not to kill lions who threaten their livestock? Read on to find out.
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