Geneticists Help Lions to a Better Life

Free at last?

The archaic Addis Abba zoo is a squalid Victorian era menagerie where animals are confined in penitentiary conditions to just exist. Anyone going there to gawk at the inmates is at best callous and at worst emotionally disturbed. The lions spend day after monotonous day behind bars in a 4x5x2.5m den with concrete floors. Their is no separate maternity cage and the sexes are separated. They are fed 10 kilos of boned beef a day and water. These unfortunate prisoners are descended from the lions collected by the last Ethiopian monarch, Emperor Haile Selassie, who captured lions from the wild and imprisoned them at his palaces in the 1940s. But now there is hope for these lions. The Addis mayor reached out to the sister city of Leipzig because his zoo was under pressure from complaints about the poor conditions. Leipzig Zoo sent veterinarians to check on the lions' health.

Being scientists, they were curious about the lions' genetic heritage due to their distinct appearance: the males have large dark brown manes down their chest and shoulders, extending the length of the belly [photo: Klaus Eulenberger]. They are smaller in body size and mass compared to eastern and southern African lions. Could these zoo lions be the last true relatives of the Barbary lion or South African Cape lion, both now extinct? Or even more provocative, could these few inmates hanging on to existence be a previously unknown subspecies? If they are genetically distinct they would deserve better conditions if only for the unemotional, scientific reasons of conservation value and need. Conservation resources are very limited and must be distributed where they will benefit endangered species the most--call it, endangered species triage.  So genetic samples were taken from the lions for analysis.

There is continued debate in the scientific community about the distinctiveness of various lion populations. However, the genetic investigation of the "Addis Abba Fifteen" conducted by an international team of scientists, paid off for the lions. The geneticists concluded the Addis lions are a genetically distinct population, different from both Asian and African lions, "a breed apart". In their published results, the investigators argued for immediate conservation action including a breeding program to preserve this unique species. The Addis lions will be moved from their prison and receive much improved care at modern facilities where they can thirve, reproduce, and enjoy a better quality of life. Leipzig Zoo helped design the new installation. Construction started in 2012 and is scheduled to be finished this year. Helping lions live reasonable lives in captivity is expensive and only justified because wild lions are rapidly disappearing. Wild lion population has decreased from around 100,000 fifty years ago to 32,000 or less now. Someday these few survivors of their kind, if man ever achieves enlightenment, may once again roam Ethiopia wild and free while humans look on, perhaps with a small amount of envy, from behind their protective fence.