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| It was only in recent times that lions
became known as animals of Africa. In bygone centuries, they could be found even
more widely throughout Africa and in many other lands, including Europe and Asia.
Profiles of lions have been found etched into the walls of caves in France. Once
prevalent in ancient Greece, lions were reported as common in that country in
500 B.C., but by 300 B.C. were described by Aristotle as scarce. By A.D. 100 there
were no further reported sightings of lions in Greece. They did continue to exist
in Palestine for many more centuries, finally disappearing from that region at
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| the time of the Crusades.
Further east, the once common Asiatic Lion is still surviving, but only in one
small game reserve. Throughout the nineteenth century, sportsmen, hunters, and
local farmers decimated the Eastern lions, rapidly reducing their huge numbers
to a mere handful. So efficient was this purge that, by the year 1900, there were
only 100 lions left in the whole of Asia. By 1913 that figure had dropped to a
mere 20 lions and extinction was near. These survivors were all concentrated in
one small reserve in the Gir Forest in western India. There, they at last found
some protection and their numbers gradually started to rise again. At the last
count there were about 300 of them, and breeding programs are being designed to
reintroduce them to other |
| areas. The
one remaining stronghold for the lion today is tropical Africa, below the Sahara.
Even there, where thousands of lions still roam freely, their days may be numbered
because the human population of Africa is doubling every two decades. Even today
most of the lions appear to be confined to National Parks and Game Reserves. In
the whole of South Africa, for example, not a single truly wild lion exists. Nearly
all the South African lions are now guests of just one reserve - the huge Kruger
National Park. |
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