ALERT Updates

Lions Hunting With relatively small hearts and lungs, lions are not fast runners; a maximum speed of 60kph, nor do they have the stamina to keep this pace for more than a 100 – 200m.  As such, lions rely on stalking their prey and seldom charge until they are within...

Social Organisation and behaviour of the lion A gregarious, territorial, matriarchal society, communal care, male coalitions.” Lions are the only truly social cat. Communal Care of Cubs The female will only rejoin the pride with her cubs if the cubs already...

Lions are carnivores, this means they like meat They eat many different kinds of animals, known as prey.  Lions can eat a LOT!  Male lions will eat an average of 7kgs of food a day and lionesses 4.5kgs.  Both are capable of eating up to 15% of their body weight during...

“The one excellent thing that can be learned from a lion is that whatever a man intends doing should be done by him with a whole-hearted and strenuous effort.” Chanakya ALERT recognizes that programmes directed towards protecting habitat for the remaining wild lions...

Inbreeding Depression in the African Lion The risk of inbreeding within fragmented lion populations is a fundamental problem in conservation biology and although the problem has been clearly established, its impact has been greatly underestimated.  Although...

When is a lion's Breeding Season Lions have no particular breeding season, and often synchronize breeding, especially after a pride takeover, raising the cubs communally. Birth peaks have been observed in Kruger (February – April) and Serengeti (March – July) National...

Endemic and epidemic diseases, viruses and parasites Impacting lion (Panthera leo) populations Introduction Diseases can be classified as endemic or epidemic dependant on their persistence in a population. Although lion populations can be affected by high mortality...

The ecological importance of lions (Panthera leo) in top-down processes within terrestrial ecosystems; the negative impacts of their loss The predator-prey equilibrium of any terrestrial ecosystem is dependent upon both ‘bottom-up’ (food resources) and ‘top-down’...

Lions in Religion The oldest known animal-shaped sculpture ever found is a half-human half-lion, carved from the tusk of a mammoth during the upper Palaeolithic period in South Germany, 32,000 years ago.  It is possibly the eldest of the ancient gods, there is no...