Welcome to a much-needed edition of Good News Thursday. It's been a tough time for fans of David Bowie, and the news of Alan Rickman's passing only makes it worse. But I would direct your attention to another death, that of Cecil the lion. You will recall that Cecil was killed last year by an American dentist after being lured outside the protected area in which he lived.
But the good news, reported by the BBC is that new US protections for lions will come into force on January 22 and that the body which regulates trade in endangered species, called the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) will likely move African lions from Appendix II to Appendix I. This would completely ban trade in lions and lion parts. Unfortunately, this isn't expected to happen until Cites meets in September, and in any case it is likely to be controversial. Lion population sizes and the stability of those populations vary significantly in different parts of the African continent, and those countries where populations are fairly large and stable, including South Africa, may seek to limit protections for economic reasons.
Lion hunting, including so-called “canned hunting” in which lions are bred in captivity for the express purpose of being shot by wealthy hunters is a good source of foreign cash, and the export of lion bones has increased significantly. The bones are often substituted for tiger bones, which are expensive and hard to come by, for use in traditional Chinese medicine.
Together with US import restrictions and reclassification, moving lions to Cites Appendix I could end canned hunts and hopefully stop the decline in overall lion populations. The BBC story is careful to point out that lion conservation efforts did not start with Cecil's death, but at least it awakened people who might never before have thought of the plight of the African lion. Their work to raise awareness and bring the issue to the front of conservation agendas surely helped secure new protections more quickly than might otherwise have happened. And for large, fairly slow-reproducing apex predators, time is of the essence.