Hi all, There is a new male lion at Safaripark Beekse Bergen, Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands -So here is a question - has anyone know where this lion came from? They had before two Somali male lions. One of them is now at Gaya park, but don't know what happened to the second one. Thanks
Well if and when we have the beginnings of pure-bred and known origin lions why not let those be the founder stock for a conservation breeding programme for pure-bred subspecific lions from Africa. Given the frequent - illegal - exports from Somalia and Ethiopia that would be an obvious source of founder stock. The number and frequency of illegal exports allows for targetting a minimum founder number of 20+ lions. Similarly, the founder stock of (somewhat inbred) pure-bred Angolan lions could be propped up with imports from the wild (Namibia/Angola/Caprivi regions) in order to secure a second conservation breeding programme. At one time there were also plans for conservation breedibng of West African lions .. given their precarious state in the wild (which has since deteriorated further). Whatever happened to all the plans? Really, zoos should be concerned with the conservation status of wild lions, support in situ conservation programmes plus invest in EEP's in Europe for pure-bred African lion subspecies and phase out the generics and those for which the (mixed) lineages can never be traced back to founder stock from one subspecific grouping.
That would be really great what you are saying, but unfortunately the things are not so simple. In reality the species do exist as populations, and a subspecies is a taxonomic category that unites some populations based mainly on geographical basis, but also on particular criteria (morphological, molecular), particular approaches of analyzes performed on samples, (often very limited samples). At the end usually only the geographical component remains as a criteria, leaving behind morphology and some times the genetics. But even so if one used different kind of criteria, different approaches of analysis and different samples, the results can be also very different - for example in East Africa depending on the approach there could only one subspecies P. l. nubica – from North Sudan to Zambezi to up to five just in Kenya only. In this respect the Subspecies category is arbitrary and theoretical + very dynamic, and the understanding of it evolves and develops alongside the accumulation of new knowledge and understanding of the evolution and taxonomy. And there is no problem with this - this is science – it changes, evolves, the problem is when this dynamic knowledge is applied to practice. It is easy when a subspecies is limited to a single population – as in the case with the Asian lions, or Amur leopards for example, but when a subspecies includes multiple populations the things are quite different. Can we bet that the Serengeti lions can represent all East African lion populations? Or when started the South African lion captive program in US include and mixed both lions from Kruger park and Etosha, but later on some good evidences emerged (and reemerged) (both morphological and molecular) that there is a division between East and West lion population in South Africa The confiscated lions also could be a problem – usually the country of origin is known, but not the particular place – let's say for example Ethiopia - lions of Ethiopia are virtually not studied - most of the data are anecdotal – for sure there are 4 or may be 5 populations in different environments but their taxonomic relationships are technically unknown. So establishing a EEP program with those lions is kind of hard to formulate. By the way the Somali lions at Beekse were part of 5 lions – 4 males and a female – the female was sent to South Africa, two of the males went to Netherlands and two to Al Ain zoo UAE – still there. They were confiscated in Somalia but their exact origin remains unknown. Unknown is also the origin of the so called Angola Lions in Europe – the Lisbon lineage comes from circus and it is “said” those lions were from Angola. The Rotterdam lions came from a small group of lions confiscated at Antwerp and later relocated to Rotterdam – also with unknown origin – just later some DNA studies showed those have affiliation with the lions of West Central Africa but not Namibia. The only African lions with known origin in Europe (except the white lions)– those in Basel zoo - from Etosha via Pilanesberg as far as I know are not included in any EEP.
