LION NUMBERS INCREASE 25% IN KENYA

The official estimate for the number of lions living in Kenya has increased 25% to 2,489, according to the Kenyan government.

The figure, up from 2,000, follows a national survey and the release of a National Recovery and Action Plan for Lion and Spotted Hyena in Kenya (2020-2030).

Welcoming the news with cautious optimism, Will Travers OBE, Born Free’s Executive President and Co-Founder, said: “Since 2010, conservationists have estimated wild lions in Kenya to number 2,000. This new figure indicates that all the incredible effort that has been put into lion conservation by so many – Kenya Wildlife Service, Born Free, Big Life, Ewaso Lions, Northern Rangelands Trust and many more, including local communities – is paying off. I believe this is a sign for cautious optimism and we may yet drag wild lions back from the brink. Inspired by this, we must do more.”

Born Free has been working to protect lions in Kenya for many years. We work in Meru National Park – the home of Elsa the lioness – to monitor and protect the park’s lion population, and work with local communities in Amboseli to encourage co-existence and educate children on the importance of wildlife conservation.

The National Recovery and Action Plan for Lion and Spotted Hyena in Kenya (2020-2030) aims to ‘sustain viable populations of lions and spotted hyenas in healthy ecosystems as a world heritage valued by the people of Kenya’ by:

•    Establishing and enhancing collaborative landscape-level lion and spotted hyena conservation
•    Enhancing human-lion and human-spotted hyena co-existence
•    Improving education and awareness of lion and spotted hyena conservation status and ecology
•    Facilitating evidence-based decision making for lion and spotted hyena conservation
•    Building integrated and sustainable structures to facilitate lion and spotted hyena conservation.

Lions in South Africa need our help too, with captive lion breeding and trade being a major threat. To help continue to support the slowly increasing their population and prevent hunting industries from mercilessly killing these animals, adopt a lion today.