What is the current population status of African lions?
Answer… A 2004 inventory of available information on African lion (Panthera leo) populations, conducted since the most recent IUCN classification, provided a conservative estimate of 23,000 free-ranging lions, with a range of 16,500 to 30,000. The continent’s two largest populations occur in the Serengeti and Selous ecosystems of Tanzania, with an estimated 2,500 and 3,750 lions, respectively. Other significant populations occur in southern Africa with most in Botswana’s Okavango Delta (an estimated 1,438 lions) and South Africa’s Kruger National Park ecosystem (an estimated 2,200 lions). This means that approximately 43 percent of the estimated number of free-ranging lions in Africa (9,888 out of 23,000 lions) are found in four populations in three countries. Source: Kenya’s proposal to transfer the African lion from Appendix II to Appendix I, available at www.cites.
