Cecil's Death Highlights Struggle to Conserve Lions

David Macdonald, director of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford, UK, found his research thrust into the limelight this week, after the killing of one of his team's lions made global headlines.

Cecil the lion, who Macdonald’s team had tagged with a GPS–satellite collar and had been tracking since 2008, is one of Zimbabwe’s most-famous big cats. He is alleged to have been lured out of Hwange National Park and killed unlawfully by a US tourist, who had paid for what he thought was a legal trophy hunt. (Two hunters accused of helping him are facing criminal charges).

Macdonald talks to  about the impact of trophy hunting and illegal poaching on lion population—and the importance of Cecil’s death. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why were you tracking Cecil and other lions?

The project has yielded an enormous amount of data, on lion behavioural ecology and on the factors that threaten their conservation. Those include habitat loss, the conflict between lions and farmers and local communities—and also the killing of lions by trophy hunters and poachers.

Did you know Cecil?

How does trophy hunting or poaching affect the Hwange lions?

The consequence of killing one male—whether legally or illegally—is that it weakens the male coalition he was part of, often a brotherhood. A larger, stronger coalition comes in and usurps them, often leading to the death of the surviving brothers. The incoming males will generally kill the cubs of the incumbents. A simple-minded approach might have thought one less lion is one less lion. The reality is that one less lion can lead to the deaths of many other lions, as well as a reshuffling of their local spatial organization and society.

Is this a problem for lion populations in general? They are not classified as an endangered species.

So does the lion’s ‘vulnerable’ status need to be upgraded to endangered?

Trophy hunting is legal in Zimbabwe and other nations (though Cecil is alleged to have been killed illegally). Do you think it is possible for the sport to be conducted sustainably?

Other people would take the view that it is abhorrent under any circumstances.

What is your view?

Is the death of Cecil—one lion—a distraction from the plight faced by other species that face more-urgent threats?

So there has been some silver lining from Cecil’s death?

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