Lion population is dwindling not stabilizing or increasing.
Originally Posted by WTF
Actually, the world lion population is probably increasing. There are a number of Chinese venture capitalists who have opened very large breeding farms in anticipation of changes in the law that will allow (at least domestic Chinese-sourced) lions to be harvested for traditional Chinese medicinal purposes. (Yes, I realize that traditional Chinese medicine concentrates on
tiger, not lion, parts but lions are, nevertheless, also being raised in large numbers on Asian farms.)
However, pretty much every person who doesn't understand hunting, who's never heard of Pittman-Robertson, who can't bear to think about how conservation is most efficiently funded in Africa (hint: by hunting), fails to count "farm-raised" lions in the total world population. Only "wild" lions count in their minds.
I've seen estimates that as many as 10,000 tigers and roughly the same number of lions are kept, essentially, as domestic herds on Chinese farms. When/if the laws openly change (most sales are essentially on the down low right now), that number will skyrocket. Given that the most pessimistic estimate of current wild African lion populations that I've seen is between 15-20,000, in the near future it may turn out that the majority of lions on the planet will be born on Chinese farms.
The unfortunate side of this is that, like all farm animals, they are subject to abuse and neglect. The Chinese are pretty damn good at being entirely heartless toward animals and some of these big cats are living in hell on earth. Most of the farms promote themselves as "zoos" but they are anything but responsibly run educational and conservation institutions.
Nevertheless, I just thought this point is worth making: when you say a population is trending one way or another, you're boiling down statistics that were compiled by somebody. In my life experience,
all those somebodys have an axe to grind and all their statistics are open to widely varying interpretation.