Lions in suburbia: To kill or not to kill

She was in fact surprisingly fat,fluffy and young. Surprisingly because she had been living in the suburbs of Nairobi for at least four months,and it was hard to believe she was so fit and healthy.

And it is hard to believe that she was actually captured. Tranquilising a wild large carnivore is always stressful,and these were hardly the best circumstances. Cornered by dogs,she was protecting a trio of 2-month-old cubs in thick bushes at the bottom of a private property.

It took 12 rangers and three vets from the Kenya Wildlife Service more than six hours to dart her and capture the cubs by hand. The swarming crowd of onlookers,many taking pictures on their phones,did not make things easier.

As difficult and exciting as capturing the lions was,a more imposing question now loomed: What do you do with them?

The African lion is listed as a threatened species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Only 20,000 to 40,000 wild lions remain,in just 20 percent of the historical range of the species.

As the human population continues to grow rapidly here,rates of conflict with wildlife are growing too. These conflicts are a great threat to carnivores in Africa.

Unfortunately,we know very little about suburban wildlife in Africa. Large carnivores that make their way into urban areas are often quickly killed by vehicles or people—leaving no time to study them. Or as biologist Craig Packer at the University of Minnesota bluntly puts it,“Usually,urban carnivores are encountered as road kills.”

Packer,the director of the Serengeti Lion Project,a long-running study of lions in Tanzania,agrees with other experts that the best solution for suburban lions may be euthanasia—despite its threatened status. The reasons are rooted in geography and fundamental aspects of lion biology.

Human-lion conflict occurs often in more rural settings,and people are advised to not kill carnivores or they will face prosecution. Thus,Patrick Omondi,head of species conservation at the Kenya Wildlife Service,said that the captured lions were taken to Meru National Park,about 200 miles northeast of Nairobi.

Experts say the most humane solution for the suburban lions would have been euthanasia. So while appearing heartless on the surface,the utilitarian act of euthanising some problem animals for the greater good of the species may prove critical to having any wild lions at all in Kenya.

Stephanie M. Dloniak is a biologist and science writer based

in Kenya.