On the Disappearance of the West African Lion By Matthew Vigneau

In the serene deserts and grasslands of Western Africa, a magnificent species of predator, essential to their ecosystem, are disappearing. This vanishment can be directly linked to human beings. The West African lions, a vital part of their desert/grassland ecosystem, are vital because of several key jobs they perform. They keep antelope populations under control, stopping them from overrunning the land and local farms by eating them. They can pay for their own conservation when trophy hunters and poachers bribe their way into their habitats on the oft occasion when they elude their hunters. They clear herding lands of dead cows when they cannot find prey. However, these lions will not continue to perform their duties forever if human beings continue down their current path.

The causes of the disappearance of the West African lion can be easily traced back to human beings. The primary cause that is linked to two others is, of course, global warming, which is caused by human beings releasing fossil fuels into the atmosphere via driving and industry which traps heat in the atmosphere and causes rise in temperatures. A second cause is illegal trophy hunting, or poaching of lions. The third cause is expansion of farmland by West African farmers. This is necessitated because of global warming, which has made large tracts of land traditionally used for farming unarable resulting in expansion of agriculture into the lion’s habitat. The fourth and final cause of the disappearance of the West African lion is the poisoning of dead cows by herders in order to murder lions that might otherwise hunt their living cattle. The reason these cows are dead and poisonable in the first place is because they cannot graze infertile land that is infertile because of global warming. The effects of this phenomenon will be devastating to the African ecosystem.

The effects of the disappearance of the lion in West Africa will be twofold: short-term effects and long-term effects. In the short term, the West African Ecosystem will see continued decreasing population of the lion, whether due to poaching or poisoning, increases in antelope population since fewer are being eaten, fewer lion-herder conflicts involving poisoned cows will happen and agriculture will expand without lions to compete for land with. In the long-term, these causes will bring about the extinction of the West African lion, decreases in poaching and trophy hunting, and massive, nay, obscene growth in the population of the antelope and other animals whose populations are kept in check by the lion. All of these will cause devastation and destruction in West Africa. However, despite the bleak outlook for the West African lion, their demise as a species is not unavoidable.

There are many ways to avert the extinction of the West African lion and indeed to prevent their continued disappearance. One of these ways is by tightening anti-poaching laws in West African countries that are hosts to lion populations, so that punishments for poaching are harsher and punishment for allowing poachers onto reserves are stronger. Another solution is to put more staff and rangers on Lion reserves, which will allow for increased catching of poachers and placers of poisoned cows, which will mean that fewer lions die and that more lions can reproduce. A third solution is to reduce carbon emissions and put a stop to global warming, which will allow for more arable farmland which will reduce the number of confrontations between farmers and lions that result in lion fatalities. A fourth solution is to root out corruption in National Park systems that allow poachers and trophy hunters to get after and kill lions in the first place. These are just a few of many solutions, but they are achievable goals that should have little or positive impact on the economies and ecosystems of West Africa. Some of these solutions can even be achieved by the reader.