How To Count Lions

How many wild lions are in Africa? It sounds like a simple question, but conservationists have spent decades trying to figure it out! There could be as many as 33,000 or as few as 18,000, depending on who you ask—and how they counted.

The elusive animals are tricky to track because they blend in with their environment and often hide from humans. They’re especially difficult to find in areas where poaching is common. Lions also have a huge range, spanning almost all of sub-Saharan Africa. A single lion’s territory can sprawl over 1,000 square miles, which is almost the size of Yosemite National Park in the U.S. So the lion population is very spread out. That’s why lion researchers, like Alexander Braczkowski at Australia’s University of Queensland, are hunting for a new way to count the big cats.

How many wild lions are in Africa? It sounds like a simple question. But conservationists have spent decades trying to figure it out! There could be as many as 33,000 or as few as 18,000. It depends on who you ask—and how they counted.

Lions are tricky to track because they blend in with their environment and often hide from humans. They’re especially difficult to find in areas where poaching is common. Lions also have a huge range. It spans almost all of sub-Saharan Africa. A single lion’s territory can stretch over 1,000 square miles, which is almost the size of Yosemite National Park. That means the lion population is very spread out. That’s why lion researchers are hunting for a new way to count the big cats.

Braczkowski and his colleagues have been testing a new way of counting lions that they think will provide a better estimate of how many there are. It’s called spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR). It’s already gaining popularity with researchers and agencies such as the Kenya Wildlife Service. SECR tracks specific animals’ movement patterns using traditional photography and drones. With that data, they identify lions based on their whisker patterns. Each lion has a unique whisker pattern, just like human fingerprints are unique. So no lions are counted twice.

With this method, scientists can study how the cats they’ve photographed behave in the wild. They can monitor lions’ gender ratios, where each lion travels, and more. Because SECR is done over a small area for multiple years, it can be used to build reliable population models too. “It tells you if your population is rising, decreasing, or stable,” says Braczkowski.

SECR’s strength is also its drawback. It’s much more time-intensive than other methods, because it has to be done over a period of years. And because each lion has to be identified by its whiskers, it works only for groups of lions that can be photographed.

Braczkowski and his colleagues have been testing a new way of counting lions. They think it will provide a better estimate of how many are left. It’s called spatially explicit capture-recapture, or SECR. It’s already gaining popularity with researchers and agencies such as the Kenya Wildlife Service. SECR uses photos from cameras and drones to track specific animals. The images help scientists identify lions based on their whisker patterns. Each lion has a unique whisker pattern, just like humans have unique fingerprints. So no lions are counted twice.

With this method, scientists can learn how the cats they’ve photographed behave in the wild. They can monitor how many lions are male and female, how each lion travels, and more. Scientists use SECR over a small area for multiple years at a time. That makes it a reliable way to tell how a population is doing. “It tells you if your population is rising, decreasing, or stable,” says Braczkowski. 

SECR does have drawbacks. For one, it takes much more time than other methods, because it has to be done over a period of years. Identifying each lion by its whiskers also has limits. It works only for groups of lions that scientists can find and photograph.

Why is it important to know how many wild lions there are? It’s the key to conservation, says Braczkowski. “If you cannot track threatened species’ populations over time, you don’t know how good your conservation interventions are at helping,.”

Scientists don’t know how many lions are left, but they do know that the lion population has fallen dramatically in the last 120 years. The big cats have vanished from 90 percent of their historical range, which could represent a population drop in the hundreds of thousands. A more accurate count can help lion conservationists ensure the iconic cats survive in the wild.

“Establishing good monitoring programs should be the gold standard,” says Braczkowski. “If we don’t do that, we’re selling ourselves short.”

Why is it important to know how many wild lions there are? Braczkowski says it’s the key to protecting them. “If you cannot track threatened species’ populations over time, you don’t know how good your conservation interventions are at helping those animals,” he says.

Scientists don’t know exactly how many lions are left. But they do know that the wild lion population has fallen dramatically in the last 120 years. The big cats have vanished from 90 percent of their historical range. That could mean their population has dropped by hundreds of thousands. A more accurate lion count can help conservationists make sure the big cats survive in the wild. “Establishing good monitoring programs should be the gold standard,” says Braczkowski. “If we don’t do that, we’re selling ourselves short.”