The future of lion management

Blijdorpenaar

Blijdorpenaar

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
As most of you will know, the IUCN dropped the old Asian / African lion devision in favor of the northern / southern split back in 2017. For as far as I am aware, no new research has been published that contradicts this idea. The question that has to be asked: what does this mean for the future of lions in captive breeding programmes?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the Asian lion EEP was kicked off in the 90s it was basically just these animals that were certainly pure, with the remainder of the old lion stock being of unclear/mixed origins. A peek on ZooTierListe however reveals that at least one male lion from Western Africa is known, with many more lions that are potentially decendant from Marocco. Does anyone know if there is currently any movement within EAZA to add a few of these animals to the Asian EEP? Perhaps more realistically, is there any initiave going on to create a Panthera leo melanochaita breeding program? Surely a good share of the absolute boat load of 'basic' lions from the old stock can be traced back to South or East Africa?
 
I know that besides an EEP for Asiatic lions, there is now also an EEP for African lions. There is an ongoing study on the taxonomy of the African lions, which will help in making decisions on population management.
 
MennoPebesma said:
I know that besides an EEP for Asiatic lions, there is now also an EEP for African lions. There is an ongoing study on the taxonomy of the African lions, which will help in making decisions on population management.
Click to expand...
This was already alluded to in 2013 viz this Zooquaria edition from the era.
SOURCE: https://www.eaza.net/assets/Uploads/Zooquaria/Zooquaria-84.pdf

The current studbook keeper is Givskud Zoo, Give, Denmark. Exactly, one of the main zoos breeding zoo mix lions for who ever demands them.


However, in earlier researcher there was however a clear distinction in eastern and southern lions f.i. and the low variability in West African, Central African and Asian lions.
SOURCE: https://www.researchgate.net/public...ervation_Units_in_Eastern_and_Southern_Africa
 
As far as I know the Cat Specialist Group wanted to run a genetic research and find out if there are lions particularly for the North/Western African lion they can start a breeding program with. Since this is a couple of years ago and nothing new has been reported in the recent years I doubt that there is movement - the longer the researches take the less likely it is that this will succeed.

I agree with Kifaru Bwana on the studbook at Givskud - how can a mass breeder of zoo mix lions run a serious EEP?!?
 
This indeed is an interesting article. It is from 2019 and it says that they need to collect data - it would be interesting to know how far they got with it in the meantime and what the result is. The studbook is in Givskud since a longer period of time and this is full of generic "zoo mix" lions that were born in Givskud, probably the own mass breeding makes it difficult to find a start. Unless of course they find out that their lions have not been generic, which would be a surprise. I have my concerns that it seriously is possible to find a major number of genetically pure lions after all the generations of zoo mixes.
 
Opieone86 said:
Where do you have your information that they are still mixing the different races together ?
It was Givskud's idea to start a division of the different subspecies of the lion. So it does not really make any sense if they continue to mix the different subspecies:)

Afrikanske løver får en stambog - GIVSKUD ZOO
Click to expand...
It is merely stated fact that for decades it had been unclear what African lion subspecies pre-existed in European zoos as lions were perceived crowd pullers and important to have on a collection for any self respecting zoo. Consequently, lions of all and sundry provenance got mixed up with absolute disregard for origins or even relatedness.

This led in pre 2000's to the acknowledgement in European zoo felid managers that the current population of African lions did in nothing resemble their wild counterparts and those few African lions that could be traced to wild founders were being bred amongst their few representatives of their ssp. leading to hopelessly inbred individuals and producing quite regularly degenerative traits as a result of inbreeding or keeping on churning out mutant colour morph lions and claiming these to be pure South African stock ssp. yet white by phenotype.

All the while, we had already an Asiatic lion EEP operating to build up their numbers and in need of further spaces. The travesty now is that breeding in this program is being severely restricted where A) it is in need of more holders and B) in need of influx of healthy new founders. Something that can be easily achieved by import ex India coupled with effective screening for health and genetics. The program studbook holder Sakkarbaug in Junagadh holds close on 35-40 wildcaught Asiatics that have been removed as problem lions or rescuees of some sort.

In the 2010's, Leipzig Zoo took up an endeavour to look at NE African lions from Ethiopia and surrounding regions in order to establish a purebred traceable to founders and origins stock. This has been stalling lately for unknown reasons. There were also zoos interested in trying to breed from West African lions imported from the wild. This taxon or ESU is extremely rare ... and thus conservation priority.

Now Givskud Zoo has for years been a supplier of young captive-bred lions in generation FX something numbers. As an example, the Artis Zoo lion females that bred came from Givskud Zoo, nowadays their 2 female offspring remain and after the original male died they imported young one from Givskud as well. See my point.

Given all the above initiatives it is a bit thin on the ground that suddenly Givskud Zoo should sort out lion subspecies where the zoo has been principal among those having created the zoo mix African lion mess in the first place.

Further, I would remain conservative on completely leaving historically accepted ssp. for a subsivision S+E versus N+W ESU in Africa. I remain convinced that local conditions define ssp. and how where subspecific traits in regional lion stocks become expressed and have subspecific validity.

I reaaly do sincerely hope we can start afresh as it is far from too late to import founder groups of wild lions from some range states or from confiscated wild lions ... remember regular illegal trade between NE Africa and Middle East. With informed judgement and good husbandry and genetic management rebuilding African lion ssp. stocks in European zoos while phasing out the zoo mix alltogether.

It is about time that while sorting out the relationships in the historical population of African lions, these projects are finally being realised. About darn time ... I would think.
 
With regards to lions zoos unfortunately have failed over the years. Until today even reputable zoos take the first best opportunity to fill their enclosure with generic lions – and if they want, breed with them although they know it’s worthless in terms of quality. Even worse, an EAZA zoo like Erfurt takes in a male from a mass breeding safari park and breeds with one of not many pure southern/East African lions. As long as this still happens I don’t have hopes that zoos really contribute to a quality breeding program for lions.
 
In 2015, Givskud zoo got 3 lion brothers from Basel zoo. Their parents were born in South African national parks.
I know it's not much, but it's a start:)
 
Opieone86 said:
In 2015, Givskud zoo got 3 lion brothers from Basel zoo. Their parents were born in South African national parks.
I know it's not much, but it's a start:)
Click to expand...
First of all, you have to look at conservation importance and not outbreeding vigour. South African lions are deemed a safer population than NE, central, SW or West Africa. Secondly, 3 brothers being bred into the very same lot is not going to cut it and you are perpetuating the zoo mix lion issue needlessly. Thirdly, look at the regional leven North American SSP is already investing in South African lions for their SSP. SE Asia and China and possibly others regularly import from southern Africa. It is convenience masquerading and regular existing wild animal trade proliferating in S.Africa (nothing wrong with certified CITES trade just see the above no conservation importance for all other reasons described here).
 
Don't forget we are talking about subspecies, geneflow has naturally existed between different lion populations until us humans came around. We are talking about clines here, not hard geographic barriers leading to speciation. There's a time and space for interbreeding between different subspecies (just look at how the dama gazelle program is currently looking at mixing in Al Ain) as long as there's an attempt to simulate natural amounts of geneflow as to maintain some degree of spatial differentiation...
 
Blijdorpenaar said:
Don't forget we are talking about subspecies, geneflow has naturally existed between different lion populations until us humans came around. We are talking about clines here, not hard geographic barriers leading to speciation. There's a time and space for interbreeding between different subspecies (just look at how the dama gazelle program is currently looking at mixing in Al Ain) as long as there's an attempt to simulate natural amounts of geneflow as to maintain some degree of spatial differentiation...
Click to expand...
The Al Ain experiment has been just that an experiment in genetics to see what would happen if admixture of populations would occur. It has been clear from the outset that each of the phenotypically different dama gazelle groups do align for the most part with their own (morphologically and otherwise) identifiable cline.

The notion geneflow should not be used or mistaken for the only criterium on which to base individual subspecies', that is a dangerous precipice and all too common enabler argument for artificial admixture of populations, see also f.i. Kordofan - Nubian (Rothschild's) - West African giraffe as in ssp. for northern giraffe). Each of these giraffe ssp. populations are perfectly aligned within their own grouping, yet may be crossbred with the others .... In effect, this is some kind of genetic pollution and yes we have splitters and groupers in taxonomy, yet genetics are not the only final in their scientific assessment and even if there are at the moment no signals to recognise different ssp., there is the notion of ESU's. In the very case of dama gazelle I would argue for maintaining seperate gene pools for mhorr dama mhorr and Sudan/Chad dama ruficollis.

Evolution and gene flow may have pre-existed human presence or huge impacts on the environment and populations, yet quite frequently genetics studies are based upon a very small margin of individuals, where taxonomy and morphology have predefined subspecies descriptions on those latter criteria. Now, no denying genetics, both mtDNA and DNA have made possible big strides in defining populations and species ..., just I suggest we have to be careful when making finite judgements.

Before we digress, please let us stick with the evidence and data only pertaining or relevant to African lions.
 
Last edited:
Is the population labelled as Atlas' lion still worth breeding ? Is it inbred or too much mix occured into this bloodline ?
If genetical purity remain acceptable, I think that would be the first place to start maintain an African lion population that may be one day of some conservation importance, either for Maghreb countries or even in West Africa, if local populations are extirpated.

In terms of subspecies split or lump, I think that on top of defining how much some groups differ from other, it is almost as equally important to understand why. Lack of a clear zoogeographic line is a strong factor in favour of lumping, morphological and genetical difference being more probably due to disappearance (mainly due to human factors) of a cline.
Applied to lions of Africa, the split between West Africa and South/Eastern Africa would not be to surprising as it is a pattern easily recognizable with other species, the Rift Valley corridors of forest extension during some past periodes acting as a strong dividing factors. On the contrary, there is no clear geographical barrier between Katanga and Kalahari for example.

I doubt it would be easy to source sufficient West-African lions to build a captive population but that would indeed make sense conservation-wise while keeping any specific population from Eastern or Southern group make little sense.
In all this mess, there is one sure thing : zoos should stop breeding zoo-mix lions and dedicate as much space as possible to Asiatic lion. That would be such a failure if European zoos do not succeed in building a safe and long-lasting captive population due to a lack of interest (and strong argument for anti-zoo lobby).
 
Last edited:
Therabu said:
Is the population labelled as Atlas' lion still worth breeding ? Is it inbred or too much mix occured into this bloodline ?
Click to expand...


If outcrossed, maybe, but it comes with quite a few setbacks and isn’t really worth it:


If we consider “Atlas” lions to be 50/50 crosses between say, Barbary and Asiatic Lions, they could be pretty much fully backcrossed after 10 generations. Messybeast provides a good chart to explain backcrossing 50/50 mix big cats which they apply to outcrossing hybrid white tigers (for the sake of reading I’ve adapted the chart to the previously mentioned lion subspecies and presented the back crosses back to Atlas lions, but it can be switched around so the backcrosses go to Asian)


F1 cross of Atlas and Asian Lion: 50% Atlas, 50% Asian

F2 backcross to Atlas Lion: 75% Atlas, 25% Asian

F3 backcross to Atlas Lion: 87.5% Atlas, 12.5 Asian

F4 backcross to Atlas Lion: 93.75% Atlas genes

F5 backcross to Atlas Lion: 96.9% Atlas genes

F6 backcross to Atlas Lion: 98.5% Atlas genes

F7 backcross to Atlas Lion: 99.25% Atlas genes

F8 backcross to Atlas Lion: 99.6% Atlas genes

F9 backcross to Atlas Lion: 99.8% Atlas genes

F10 backcross to Atlas Lion: 99.9% Atlas genes


Put simply, to get a few pure atlas (or asian) Lions from a 50/50 cross (which may well not exist in some specimens as there could have been admixture with more than 2 ssp) would require 10 pure lion males or females of the desired subspecies for backcrossing. This is an extremely long process if we take into account gestation and time to grow to maturity, for just a few specimens. In that very same time breeding of pure Barbary lions (if there are any left) would be much more fruitful. Then the issue of what to do with the previous backcrosses that have more undesired genes is also a problem, as they wouldn’t be usable for a Barbary breeding program and would only serve for backcrossing.


So, if you ask me, I don’t think backcrossing “Atlas” lions is a very good idea, and that more focus should be concentrated on trying to breed the few pretty pure atlas left responsibly and breed other subspecies who we have certainty are pure.
 
I seem to remember that the general line of thinking on the "Barbary" lions is that a degree of Barbary lion genes is within that population, even if other bloodlines may have become accidentally mixed up.

I feel in terms of conservation importance the West African lions remain the biggest priority for an ex situ breeding program. As far others African lion populations one would have to look at the individual numbers and specifics of these populations per country or region.

As an indication in a country like Kenya the first fully standardised survey estimated the number of lions does not exceed more than 2,000 individuals. The total combined estimate for African lion population of 20,000 something across the entire Continent.

SOURCE:
WWF-KENYA
New Kenyan lion census

IUCN.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
file:///C:/Users/a345658/Downloads/Supplementary_Information_115130419.pdf
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top