When the Last Lion Roars
The Rise and Fall of the King of the Beasts
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- £9.49
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- £9.49
Publisher Description
The illegal killing of Cecil – a famous and magnificent black-maned Zimbabwean lion – by an American big-game hunter in 2015 sparked international outrage. More significantly, it drew the world's attention to the devastating plight of Africa's lions.
A century ago, there were more than 200,000 wild lions living in Africa. Today, with that population reduced by more than 90 per cent, many experts believe that without effective conservation plans, Africa's remaining wild lions could be completely wiped out by the mid-half of this century.
When the Last Lion Roars explores the historic rise and fall of the lion as a global species, and examines the reasons behind its catastrophic decline. Interwoven with vivid personal encounters of Africa's last lions, Sara Evans questions what is being done to reverse (or at least stem) this population collapse, and she considers the importance of human responsibility in this decline and, more crucially, in their conservation.
From the Lion Guardians in Kenya to the Living Walls of Tanzania, and the Hwange Lion Research Project in Zimbabwe, Sara meets both lions and their champions, people who are fighting to bring this iconic species back from the brink of extinction.
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Travel writer and photojournalist Evans crosses continents in a circuitous and overly detailed account of the history of lions. The book informs readers about the lion's millennium-long dispersal across Africa, Asia, and the New World, as well as the varying roles the lion has played in human history. Radiocarbon dates pile up as prehistoric cave drawings and ice age skeletons, found in Siberia's permafrost and California's La Brea Tar Pits, come under Evans's scrutiny. Calling the relationship between humans and lions "bloodstained," she gives examples that range from the self-glorifying hunts of Assyria's King Ashurnasirpal II in the eighth century BCE to the modern poaching industry, along with the threat that lions still pose to humans and livestock throughout Africa. Country by country, Evans documents the cat's decline as well as conservation efforts in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and elsewhere. She also includes a long to-do list on how to save the lion, extracted from the 2016 Cecil Summit (inspired by the death of Cecil the lion). Though the message is clear "The lions we have left are remnants... the bright flame of a flagship species is burning out" too many statistics burden the narrative, and what could have been a fascinating book ends up being not much more than a dull tally.
