Rare Group of Lions Found in Ethiopia by Research Team

As lion populations across Africa are seriously threatened by populations encroaching on their habitat and cattle farmers protecting their herds, among other things, a group of as many as 200 lions that few people knew about has been discovered in northwest Ethiopia.

“During my professional career I have had to revise the lion distribution map many times,” Addis Ababa-based expedition leader Dr Hans Bauer was quoted as saying in a scientific magazine this week. “I have deleted one population after the other. This is the first and probably the last time that I’m putting a new one up there.”

The expedition by the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit came upon the group in the remote Alatash National Park – a rare extension of the lions’ known range and in an area seldom visited by people – WildCRU said in a statement on Monday.

The lions were spotted after the team set up camera traps on a dry river bed.

Alatash is adjacent to a much larger national park in Sudan, Dinder National Park. Bauer said he believed there were lions there too, with perhaps 100 to 200 individuals in the two parks combined.

“With many African lion populations now gone or expected to disappear within the next few decades this is an important finding, which will help the Ethiopian authorities improve the management of this recently created National Park,” WildCRU said.

Bauer said he thought the lions of Alatash faced fewer threats than many populations.

“The situation is fairly positive,” he said. “I think the fact that the Ethiopian government recently made it a national park is a giant leap forward. Now we have to support them in improving park management, but I think they’re taking it very seriously.”