Cecil's legacy: what lion conservation looks like a decade on
Ten years ago, Cecil the Lion's death at the hands of a trophy hunter caused global outrage. Conservationist Andrew Loveridge spoke to Wild Crime about lion protection and trophy hunting
Ten years ago today, Cecil the Lion was killed in Zimbabwe by an American trophy hunter. His death resonated across the world. It was mentioned on US late night shows. Celebrities shared photos on social media. Newspapers across the world led with the story.
Cecil was killed close to a protected area. The Zimbabweans who organised the trip were initially charged in relation to the incident, but those charges were later dropped.
Cecil, 13 years old when he was killed, was part of a long-term study by Oxford University led by Dr Andrew Loveridge, who is now the director of the lion programme at the NGO Panthera. He spoke to Wild Crime about his memories of the incident, the ongoing efforts of lion conservationists, and his views on trophy hunting.
Why did Cecil’s killing capture the international imagination more so than other killings of lions?
I mean, it's a really good question and I get asked it a lot. It’s really hard to figure out why that particular lion caught everyone’s imagination. There are lots of others, and I’ve certainly studied many others using satellite radio collars. Lots of other lions are killed by people, whether by trophy hunters, poachers or accidental killings.
So it’s very, very difficult to say exactly why there was this huge media storm. I haven’t quite put my finger on it.
What was the work you were doing with Cecil?
It's a project that I started as a postdoc at Oxford University 25 years ago. We’d already been working on that population for just under 10 years when we first found Cecil and put a collar on him. We have studied a lot of animals – probably nearly 200 lions.
Our study was to look at the impact of people on this population. Not just trophy hunting, but also retaliatory killing by local people after lions have killed people’s cattle and livestock. And also the way that lions affect people’s livelihoods.
Lions move over huge distances. They need massive, massive areas to survive. The area they live in is absolutely huge: about 500,000 square kilometers. The size of a small European country. So we wanted to understand how lions use that kind of landscape and how we can protect it adequately for them into the future as demand for agricultural land grows.
Is that work still ongoing?
We are still working in that landscape. It’s now focused on mitigating confidence with local people. That’s a really big issue. Historically a lot of lions have been killed for leaving the park and killing people’s livestock.
We work with the locals who know the lions to try to stop that happening. We do that by employing people in the local community to be lion guardians. And so they're sort of there to protect their community and the community's livestock, and also protect the lions.
That has to be the solution. There are going to be more and more people in Africa and less and less space for wildlife.
What is the key driver in the dwindling population of lions today?
Undoubtedly its habitat loss. Since the 1970s there’s been a loss of about 75 per cent of lion habitats. There were about 90,000 lions in 1970 and today there are around 24,000. That’s almost entirely due to habitat loss. They were pretty widespread in the 1970s and today their populations are becoming hugely fragmented.
What are the biggest challenges lion conservationists face?
You have these very small protected areas that are extremely vulnerable. Just funding conservation to sufficiently protect those areas is very challenging. Africa’s got some of the poorest countries in the world and they can’t necessarily afford to conserve lions and other species. Funding is the biggest challenge we have.
What are your views on trophy hunting?
It troubles me personally, because I can’t really see why someone wants to shoot a lion for sport.
But whether it affects lion populations? The science shows that if it’s well managed it doesn;t necessarily have a conservation impact. A lot of people are troubled by the ethics of it, but that’s a different kind of question.
I think it brings in revenue to African countries that are cash strapped, and it does pay for some conservation, probably not enough. It also justifies setting aside very big blocks of land for wild species that would potentially otherwise be converted into farming land.
Fundamentally you have to find a way to protect the habitat and you’ve got to pay for it somehow. At the moment, to some extent, trophy hunting does that. But there will be better alternatives in the future.
What could those be?
Ecotourism. Philanthropy. Big philanthropists are getting involved in it. Things like biodiversity credits, where big corporations could offset some of their environmental debts by protecting areas and species. It’s about finding those sustainable methods to pay for conservation.
Why is it important to protect lions?
If you’re a livestock farmer living on the border of a big national park you might say: these things aren’t important to conserve, we need to get rid of them. They are a nuisance.
But even among Africans who are affected by them they have a very strong cultural importance. I think they have a very big economic value to Africa through tourism.
And like predators all over the world, they have a role as a regulatory function in the ecosystem. If you take away an apex predator the whole ecosystem changes and potentially collapses. There’s very good evidence of that happening from all over the world.
What could change to make conserving lions for future generations easier?
I think African governments are already doing great things for conservation. They are setting aside these big, protected areas for wildlife even though many are poor countries and could be using that land for something else. That is a huge contribution to conservation.
I think the countries in the global north need to fund conservation and protect these kinds of areas. You lose these areas and that’s going to affect the environment for everybody.
How would the loss of lions affect those living in Europe or the US?
I think the whole thing with Cecil shows that people do care. People who have probably never seen a lion in their lives care about them. There is a strong emotional response to big predators. As humans we think it’s valuable, so I think there is an intrinsic value to having big predators in the world.