The Lion Rehabilitation & Release into the Wild Program

There are many complications and potential dangers inherent in reintroducing lions back into the wild, most notably the likely conflicts with humans and their livestock following release; this may be especially true of captive bred lions that might not have learned human avoidance characteristics of some wild lions. There are several reasons that have been put forward to explain why past predator releases have had limited success (Sharma 2005):

• the animals were not given pre-release training
• their dependence on humans was not curtailed
• they were released as individuals with no natural social system
• and that they had no experience of predatory or competitive species.

The African Lion Rehabilitation & Release into the Wild Program seeks to find a solution to these problems by using a four-stage program. The intention is to rehabilitate captive bred lions into a limited number of fenced wild environments (stage three), free of any human contact. These lions will give birth to cubs that will be raised within a pride social group in a natural environment such that they will have natural skills comparable to any wild born lion and can therefore be reintroduced into appropriate national parks and reserves identified for their protection. There are those who believe that Africa has no future destinations for such lions. This is far from the truth. Angola, Mozambique, Zambia and Malawi amongst others are resurrecting their protected areas with a diversity of programs after years of civil strife and economic instability. Rural communities in those countries were often reduced to starvation unless they could utilize wildlife resources. As a result, there are now massive areas available for carefully planned wildlife reintroduction and ecosystem revitalization programs. Such incentives will include the eventual reintroduction of major predators such as lions.

Alongside this, CCWA & ACT programs will seek to ensure the sustainability of those reintroduced populations by understanding their environment and ecology better whilst generating support from local communities to protect them.

Stage One (Rehabilitation Phase One)

Cubs born in our breeding centres, are removed from their mother at three weeks old. Our experience indicates that this increases the survival chances of cubs, and is a similar practice to that used by most captive breeding programs among carnivores.

We take the place of dominant members of their pride and train them only to the point that they are safe for us to walk with. This enables us to take groups from six-week old cubs into the bush as often as possible with experienced handlers. The lions are given every opportunity to build their confidence in their natural environment both during the day and at night. As their experience grows they start to take an interest in the game species they encounter on the walks and by the age of eighteen months are able to stalk and bring down many of the smaller and young antelope.

By two years old the lions are already seasoned hunters, and we give them plenty of opportunity to hone their natural hunting instincts.

Stage Two (Rehabilitation Phase Two)

In stage two the lions are given the opportunity to develop a natural pride social system in a minimum 500 acre enclosure. They have plenty of game to hunt, and their progress is monitored closely, however all human contact is removed. The lions remain in stage two until such time that the pride is stable and self-sustaining.

Prior to release into stage 2 some, if not all of the lions are radio-collared and all are micro-chipped for identification, DNA & disease tested and vaccinated.

Stage Three (Rehabilitation Phase Three)

In stage three the pride in stage two is translocated into a managed ecosystem of a minimum 10,000 acres, where:

• there are no resident human beings
• there are sufficient prey species to hunt
• and there are competitive species such as hyena

The lions in Stage 3 will give birth to cubs, which will be raised by the pride in the managed ecosystem, which is very close to their natural environment. The cubs born in Stage 3, with all the human avoidance behaviours of wild lions, will develop the skills that will enable their re-introduction into appropriate game reserves, conservancies and National Parks across the African continent.

Stage Four (Reintroduction / Reinforcement Phase)

In stage 4 lions born in stage 3 can be released into the wild in several natural social groups as required by the needs of the release area. We are able to provide:

• self-sustaining mixed gender prides
• female only groups that can be integrated with existing wild prides
• male only coalitions to add gene flow to an existing wild population

Variations to the release protocol

In order to ensure the best chance of success at the various stages of the  program, it may be necessary to alter the standard release protocol to fit local conditions.  For example, in areas where no suitable captive founder population is available, e.g. within West Africa, it may be necessary to consider the use of wild-caught lions to commence a breeding program.

In stages two & three the use of wild-caught lions within a captive raised pride, introduced through proven boma-bonding techniques, may be useful to augment the survival skills training of the captive bred lions.

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