It was no ordinary day – 28 May 2009. On that day I had a staring contest with a lion. For what felt like an eternity, I remained crouched in the grass, a few metres away from a 200kg growling, young male lion. It was my first day of work as a field research volunteer for an organisation called the Zambian Carnivore Programme. That day, while accompanying a team of researchers on a mission to collar a male lion, I experienced something that cemented my decision to join the wildlife sector.
I got the opportunity to experience the full power of three young male lions roaring within five metres of our vehicle. I had never experienced anything like it before. I knew I was in the right place and that I wanted my career to involve conserving lions.
My story starts in Mazabuka, a small sugarcane plantation town in southern Zambia where I spent my childhood. My mother was from Mfuwe, a small village just outside South Luangwa National Park, one of Zambia’s premier wildlife sanctuaries. Her voice would fill with pride, nostalgia and a bit of homesickness when she told us amazing stories about the incredible wildlife that surrounded her village far away. My fascination with nature was nurtured by those elaborate, sometimes exaggerated accounts. Repeats of nature documentaries watched through our 12-inch black and white TV brought my mother’s stories to life.
After my parents passed away, I moved to Mfuwe with my family. It was a difficult time of transition but I had the opportunity to live close to wildlife and learn more about it. It encouraged me to pursue a career in conservation. I wanted to become a wildlife veterinarian so I could treat animals that had been injured by wire snares. My dream was on course until I got to the anatomy and physiology classes in my second year of university. A few lab sessions in, I discovered working hands-on with animals was not for me. I came back home that summer, feeling dejected. I had worked so hard to get to this point.
Fortunately, a new organisation, the Zambian Carnivore Programme (ZCP), had just started operating in our area and its primary focus was studying the population dynamics and threats facing carnivores in Zambia. They were looking for volunteers, which is how I found myself in the middle of Mtanda Plain having a staring contest with a lion. It was my first up-close encounter with the species and I realised I did not have to be a vet to work with lions and other carnivores. Instead of being killed by that young lion (it simply broke eye contact and walked away), it was the beginning of what has been a challenging yet immensely fulfilling career in wildlife and large carnivore conservation.
Since that magical day, I have had the privilege of knowing and working with many lions. Some of them were tiny cubs when I first met them and are now old lionesses well into their twilight years. From observing these beautiful animals, I have learnt courage, perseverance and resilience. Many standout episodes have demonstrated the characteristics that make their kind such global icons.
An example of this was a favourite lioness of mine, nicknamed Chimozi by local safari guides. Her name meant “only child” because she was the sole survivor out of a cohort of seven cubs. The rest were killed in a series of territorial disputes between two sister prides in an area called Lion Plain. Following the final battle between the two groups, Chimozi, still a cub, was temporarily abandoned by her pride in their bid to escape after being outnumbered and overpowered.
She wandered the scorching plains alone until she was reunited with her group several days later. The bush is a dangerous place for a lion cub, even within the fold of a protective pride. Surviving alone in a hostile territory patrolled by a super pride that had killed six of her cohort mates was a remarkable feat. This successful solo trek made Chimozi a poster child for resilience.
Over on the eastern side of the Luangwa River in Nsefu Sector lived another one of my special lions. She was a slight, ageing lioness nicknamed Ambuya (“grandma”). Her instincts as a mother were lacklustre but her tenacity and skills as a hunter were unparalleled and, even in the later years of her life, she remained a formidable predator. As soon as night fell, Ambuya transformed from a frail-looking lioness into the leader of her hunting party, taking dangerous prey head-on. Throughout her long life, she survived many hunting injuries, including a buffalo kick to the face, which left her with a misaligned lower jaw.
Another lion that stood out was a beautiful blond male named Cutthroat. I first saw him as a small cub stashed in a Combretum bush. Over the years, he morphed into a strong young male ready to set out and establish his own pride. Unfortunately, a few months after he left, he was caught in a wire snare that nearly ended his life. We were able to rescue him and help him on his way to recovery. Cutthroat and his coalition brothers eventually set up their own territory and went on to have cubs. His journey highlighted, in painful detail, the challenges young males face when they leave a pride to establish their territories.
The Luangwa Valley is home to Zambia’s largest population of lions and wild dogs. Although it is one of Africa’s last remaining strongholds for lions, the area has not escaped many of the challenges that face Africa’s ecosystems. The valley is affected by habitat loss and the impact of the illegal bushmeat trade, which has resulted in reduced prey for lions and other carnivores. To understand the effect of human activities on the species, I focused in my master’s degree on the response of the lion population to a temporary ban on trophy hunting.
As with many parts of Africa, our beautiful landscape has undergone many transformations. Historically, the Luangwa Valley was inhabited mostly by hunter and agriculturalist tribes. Livestock rearing was not common. With the high incidence of tsetse fly, which transmits trypanosomiasis to livestock, many domestic animals that came into the valley fell victim to the disease. Thanks to recent changes in the vegetation and other tsetse fly control measures, it is now possible to keep livestock, so people from the plateau have been moving into the valley in search of greener pastures.
There have also been several alternative livelihood programmes supporting livestock farming as a way of generating income and boosting food security in the flood-prone area. This has increased cattle numbers and amplified conflict between humans and carnivores, especially lions.
Human–wildlife conflict is common in many parts of Zambia and other areas of Africa, but is new to our area, forcing us to address the issue. Reducing this conflict is critical for lion survival as problem lions tend to be shot by the authorities or killed in retaliation by communities.
There have been incidences where entire prides have been wiped out this way. In one such incident, the world-famous Marsh Pride was poisoned a few years ago and, more recently, around eight lions were speared to death at a conservancy in Kenya by irate community members.
In a career that has spanned nearly 15 years, I have seen how sharing the land with lions brings as many costs as pleasures. A core of my current job involves working with communities on how to address human–lion conflict and the problems range from livestock predation to injury and death.
One particular evening showed me how uneasy the relationship can be between people and wildlife. Between 2019 and 2021 there was a man-eating lion ranging in the game-management area just outside South Luangwa Park. It was suspected to have attacked 11 people, five of whom were killed.
For conservationists, it was a difficult time. In September 2019 we had to face the family members of someone who had just been killed. When we arrived at the scene, we found an irate mob of some 30 people. They were yelling at us for taking too long to respond, saying we cared more about the lion than their dead relative. The victim’s partially consumed body was still on the ground, though I didn’t have the nerve to inspect it. More experienced team members worked to placate the crowd and it took several hours.
The crowd demanded that the lion be hunted and killed before allowing the victim’s body to be moved to the morgue. Permission was granted to do this because it is believed that once a lion kills and eats a human, it is likely to do it again. However, though we had a brief sighting of the culprit, we were unable to hunt it down and kill it. We eventually managed to calm the people enough for them to allow us to transport the body to the morgue. It was a lesson in how difficult it is to build harmony between people and lions.
In the months that followed, we did everything we could, working with professional hunters and various community members, to find the maneater, a clever male in his prime that managed to escape all the baits and traps that were set for him. He went on to kill three more people and injured two others before eventually going quiet and disappearing about two-and-a-half years after his initial attack.
It’s clear that we have to balance conservation goals for charismatic species such as lions with the development needs and wellbeing of the communities that live with them. A significant number of lions live among people outside of protected areas, with consequences for all. As we implement conservation efforts to repopulate lions in areas where they previously existed, we need to work out – and invest in – ways to make co-existence feasible and to reduce the cost of living with wildlife.
Unfortunately, though it’s widely agreed that promoting better coexistence is a conservation priority, there is a massive shortage of funding for human–wildlife conflict (HWC) projects. One just has to look at the vehicles and resources allocated to anti-poaching work in comparison to other community-based projects: it is easy for communities to assume animals are considered by authorities as being more important than people. Organisations have to be very creative in order to raise the finances needed for HWC mitigation work. If we are to secure a future for lions, this has to change.
Since 2019, the ZCP has been developing a conflict-mitigation programme, working with various departments and agencies. With partner organisations, we formed an HWC working group that meets regularly to discuss the challenges and how best to address them. At ZCP, we have an HWC team comprising a co-ordinator and three assistants. Their task is to educate community people about personal safety and safe herding practices as well as encouraging them to learn more about lion behaviour.
To limit the predation of livestock by lions, our team has built demo predator-proof enclosures, especially within the conflict hotspots. Through this work, it is clear that collaboration is the way to go.
Zambia is a huge country with nearly 30% of its land dedicated to conservation. There is great potential for lions to thrive here. Despite current challenges, I’m hopeful people are still willing to coexist with these predators. For now, lions encountered in community areas are generally still tolerated, even when they repeatedly cause conflict through livestock predation.
– Thandiwe Mweetwa
Lions are the stuff of legends. Revered and feared in equal measure, both majestic and terrifying, they once reigned supreme over an extensive domain. But this once-dominant beast’s original range has contracted by some 85%, and the world population is thought to have dropped to just over 20,000 individuals. The IUCN Red Data List now classifies lions as Vulnerable, and the West African subpopulation as Critically Endangered. Not only are lion numbers crashing, but the remaining populations cling to their existence on ever smaller, more fragmented pockets of land. Feared and despised by farmers trying to eke out a living on marginal land, lions are increasingly being exterminated or repurposed for commercial gain. Trophy hunters pay extortionate sums to bag specimens in their prime, and lion bones are being sold for the roaring Eastern trade in ‘tiger wine’.
