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When the Last Lion Roars: The Rise and Fall of the King of Beasts
The story of a continent losing its most charismatic predator at unprecedented speed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
304 pages, Paperback
First published June 14, 2018
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130 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 23, 2018
There was an article I read shortly after the destruction by the Taliban of the two giant Buddhas in Afghanistan in which some local people were asked what they thought of plans to reconstruct them. They were told of the various ideas, time frames, and the amount of money it would take. The men, impoverished and struggling with the daily necessities of food and shelter for their families were scornful and incredulous. Why they asked, do Westerners concern themselves so much and commit vast amounts of money to something that means nothing to the people there struggling to stay alive? Why are these images of rock something that stirs the passions of foreigners while the suffering of fellow human beings who lived beside these images does not?
I was reminded of this story when reading Sara Evans thoughtful “When The Last Lion Roars”. Evans discusses the plight of the lion and the multiple threats to its existence. From its habitat being encroached upon, poachers who trade in its organs and bones, local and hungry people scavenging for its meat, and wealthy foreigners looking to return home with a lion’s head, being a lion isn’t what it used to be. Tracing the original migration of lions thousands of years ago from Africa to locations as far flung as Europe and America, the book brings us to the present day where lions live exclusively in India and Africa. In the former there are about 600 while in the latter, only those living in the South can be said to be truly safe and flourishing.
While poachers and trophy hunting certainly do not help this state of affairs, they do not occur in enough scale to affect populations (despite the media attention they receive) in the same way that habitat loss does. With Africa’s population set to double by 2050, available land has been converted for livestock farming, which increasingly hungry lions lacking other things to eat, frequently attack. This creates a spiral in which villagers who lack the sentimentality about lions that perhaps we do will spear or poison large numbers of lions to keep them off “their” land.
It made me think quite a bit about who really has a right to the land. Of course lions were there first and humans in many ways are intruders. And yet, living in extreme hunger and poverty, can we begrudge local people who act in anger toward these large threats to their families and livelihoods?
Evans presents some solutions which have in cases been successfully implemented as well as some other potential trmrzfird to this seemingly intractable standoff between humans and animals.
Very few of us wish to see the disappearance of lions. They are magnificent creatures and their very existence is a testament to the beauty of the natural world and how it lives in our imagination. Sadly however, that is what lions have become, an image in our imagination. Very few lions now live outside of fenced in and highly regulated nature reserves. Those of us lucky enough to see them here are seeing something special to be sure, but it is not “wild” in the sense we want to believe. As Evans writes,
I imagine these last lions like shadows kept in a beautiful jar. We can’t see them until we think about them, but we know they’re still there, safe and protected from harm. When we do think of them, when we illuminate them in our imaginations, they’re still magnificent, wearing their golden crowns nobly and roaring furiously, but they’re no longer the king of the beasts, simply because there is no real wild left for them to truly reside over.
That this sense of the “wild” is lost to us forever is sad but ultimately what we are left with has value as well, and mankind owes it to future generations to do all we can to ensure they can experience these wonderful animals as well.
I was reminded of this story when reading Sara Evans thoughtful “When The Last Lion Roars”. Evans discusses the plight of the lion and the multiple threats to its existence. From its habitat being encroached upon, poachers who trade in its organs and bones, local and hungry people scavenging for its meat, and wealthy foreigners looking to return home with a lion’s head, being a lion isn’t what it used to be. Tracing the original migration of lions thousands of years ago from Africa to locations as far flung as Europe and America, the book brings us to the present day where lions live exclusively in India and Africa. In the former there are about 600 while in the latter, only those living in the South can be said to be truly safe and flourishing.
While poachers and trophy hunting certainly do not help this state of affairs, they do not occur in enough scale to affect populations (despite the media attention they receive) in the same way that habitat loss does. With Africa’s population set to double by 2050, available land has been converted for livestock farming, which increasingly hungry lions lacking other things to eat, frequently attack. This creates a spiral in which villagers who lack the sentimentality about lions that perhaps we do will spear or poison large numbers of lions to keep them off “their” land.
It made me think quite a bit about who really has a right to the land. Of course lions were there first and humans in many ways are intruders. And yet, living in extreme hunger and poverty, can we begrudge local people who act in anger toward these large threats to their families and livelihoods?
Evans presents some solutions which have in cases been successfully implemented as well as some other potential trmrzfird to this seemingly intractable standoff between humans and animals.
Very few of us wish to see the disappearance of lions. They are magnificent creatures and their very existence is a testament to the beauty of the natural world and how it lives in our imagination. Sadly however, that is what lions have become, an image in our imagination. Very few lions now live outside of fenced in and highly regulated nature reserves. Those of us lucky enough to see them here are seeing something special to be sure, but it is not “wild” in the sense we want to believe. As Evans writes,
I imagine these last lions like shadows kept in a beautiful jar. We can’t see them until we think about them, but we know they’re still there, safe and protected from harm. When we do think of them, when we illuminate them in our imaginations, they’re still magnificent, wearing their golden crowns nobly and roaring furiously, but they’re no longer the king of the beasts, simply because there is no real wild left for them to truly reside over.
That this sense of the “wild” is lost to us forever is sad but ultimately what we are left with has value as well, and mankind owes it to future generations to do all we can to ensure they can experience these wonderful animals as well.
January 30, 2020
The first 3 chapters (so around 100 pages) are a torture to get through. Let's just get it out of the way and say that Sara Evans is not a natural when it comes to writing, and the entire book reads like a dry school report. I applaud the time and effort spent on researching this, as it took a lot of reading, but it all comes down to reporting what she's read in news and scientific journals. There are also some short parts where she visits a zoo or a museum (in London, obviously, the capital of lion habitat) and goes on to describe at lenght what she saw there, as if she were a pioneer journeying to the deepest regions of the New World. Pages are spent on something that could be achieved by just looking at a picture in the photo section in the book.
On the plus side, it's really up to date, and there's actually an interesting content behind it, if one can stomach the dry report it's served in. Particularly chapters 4, 5, 6 and 8 are great: 4) the retaliatory killings of lions in recent years, 5) Asiatic Lions in the Gir Forest, 6) the Maasai as the Lion Guardians & lion reintroductions, and 8) why the surviving lions are captive wild now. These chapters read much better than the first 3 too. Then again, if someone already knows about these, either because they're following the news, watch documentaries or read about it, the book probably won't give them much new knowledge.
It was one of the two fairly recent books about lion conservation that I picked up last year, and I've got to say that Lion Hearted: The Life and Death of Cecil and the Future of Africa's Iconic Cats is so much better. Maybe it's not fair to compare the two, but both were prompted by the death of Cecil the lion. While Sara Evans deals with the controversy surrounding the lions, the history of trophy hunting and the theory about their future, Andrew Loveridge is a biologist who studies the African felines, and he actually studied Cecil and his pride, so his book - while also dealing with lion conservation problems and trophy hunting - is mainly about lion behavior and the struggles of those who study it. Regarding the Gir lions, Vicki Constantine Croke is writing a book about them, with basically the same title: Lionhearted.
None of these books goes in-depth about canned lion hunting, however, which is a pity. But in this case, I suppose it's enough to watch Blood Lions & pick up Cuddle Me, Kill Me.
On the plus side, it's really up to date, and there's actually an interesting content behind it, if one can stomach the dry report it's served in. Particularly chapters 4, 5, 6 and 8 are great: 4) the retaliatory killings of lions in recent years, 5) Asiatic Lions in the Gir Forest, 6) the Maasai as the Lion Guardians & lion reintroductions, and 8) why the surviving lions are captive wild now. These chapters read much better than the first 3 too. Then again, if someone already knows about these, either because they're following the news, watch documentaries or read about it, the book probably won't give them much new knowledge.
It was one of the two fairly recent books about lion conservation that I picked up last year, and I've got to say that Lion Hearted: The Life and Death of Cecil and the Future of Africa's Iconic Cats is so much better. Maybe it's not fair to compare the two, but both were prompted by the death of Cecil the lion. While Sara Evans deals with the controversy surrounding the lions, the history of trophy hunting and the theory about their future, Andrew Loveridge is a biologist who studies the African felines, and he actually studied Cecil and his pride, so his book - while also dealing with lion conservation problems and trophy hunting - is mainly about lion behavior and the struggles of those who study it. Regarding the Gir lions, Vicki Constantine Croke is writing a book about them, with basically the same title: Lionhearted.
None of these books goes in-depth about canned lion hunting, however, which is a pity. But in this case, I suppose it's enough to watch Blood Lions & pick up Cuddle Me, Kill Me.
October 31, 2018
This book which I just finished is relatively new one which caught my attention in the Recents shelf of my town's library. The author is an award-winning specializing in travel and wildlife. This book has been written in the wake of the trophy killing of Cecil, the Lion, in 2015, which created a massive movement against trophy hunting.
My knowledge of wildlife has been very limited to what David Attenborough shows on his documentaries. But this book is a real eye-opener on the plight of lions today. We are just a few generations away from reducing this king of jungle to mere pictures. The book gives a very detailed account of the rise of the Lion Empire to its fall and how the world is slowly waking up to doing something in the direction of reviving its numbers.
Lions which once spread across the continent of Africa and Asia have now been reduced few patches. All thanks to unmindful hunting, urbanization of vast lands, poaching, extinction of prey.
In eight chapters, the author has summed up the everything about lions. Even at this brink of extinction, it is indeed good to know that various wildlife organizations and their respective governments are doing their bit carry forward this world creation to the next generation.
Overall, it is a very informative book.
My knowledge of wildlife has been very limited to what David Attenborough shows on his documentaries. But this book is a real eye-opener on the plight of lions today. We are just a few generations away from reducing this king of jungle to mere pictures. The book gives a very detailed account of the rise of the Lion Empire to its fall and how the world is slowly waking up to doing something in the direction of reviving its numbers.
Lions which once spread across the continent of Africa and Asia have now been reduced few patches. All thanks to unmindful hunting, urbanization of vast lands, poaching, extinction of prey.
In eight chapters, the author has summed up the everything about lions. Even at this brink of extinction, it is indeed good to know that various wildlife organizations and their respective governments are doing their bit carry forward this world creation to the next generation.
Overall, it is a very informative book.
December 9, 2022
A mixed bag for me, containing interesting bits on the prehistoric ancestral cave and American lions, and how modern lions were relentlessly hunted down during Roman times, but the more current chapters on the current status of lions I found to be dulled by too much statistics. The author gave a country by country account of current lion numbers in a roll call style that would presumably interest only those directly involved on the ground in those parts. The chapter on Asian lions was the longest, and could have been more succinct as well. The overall message delivered at the end, a summary of the outlook, was good, albeit sad: the 'wild' lions remaining in the world will likely only exist in large fenced in reserves in South Africa, while those elsewhere continue to inexorably diminish in number, notwithstanding the huge uproar over the killing of Cecil in 2015. The hoped for surge in public interest and commitment to conservation did not materialize unfortunately.
November 26, 2018
Thank you Sara Evans. Wonderful and thoughtful book. Well researched and well written. I don't think there are easy solutions when it comes to the "wild" and civilization. There truly are very few wild places left on earth and , sadly, most of wild nature is in areas humans now inhabit. I wish the human race could just round up all the endangered creatures and put them someplace safe, away from big game hunters, nature preserves, zoos, etc...some place they can live their lives without us intruding on them. Not going to happen, but it's a nice dream.
I received a Kindle ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.
I received a Kindle ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.
June 24, 2020
This is a solid book if you're concerned about animal welfare. Another reviewer mentioned this already, but the first two chapters were horribly dry. There are entire pages where Evans just cites statistics.
However, the book gets more interesting as it progresses. You'll learn about the history of lions throughout the ages, the reasons for their declining populations (humans...surprise!), as well as efforts to protect the lions we have left.
I would say that the information is well-researched, but it's nothing you wouldn't know if you've done a bit of prior reading about lions.
However, the book gets more interesting as it progresses. You'll learn about the history of lions throughout the ages, the reasons for their declining populations (humans...surprise!), as well as efforts to protect the lions we have left.
I would say that the information is well-researched, but it's nothing you wouldn't know if you've done a bit of prior reading about lions.
August 19, 2018
King of the Jungle could be no more. I thought this book was very in depth about lions and what needs to be done to save them. Mankind and lions must learn to live together and wealthy nations need to put a ban of killing them for trophy’s. A thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy. Thoroughly enjoyed the book. A must read for lion lovers and animal lovers
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 6, 2022
Een droevig verhaal van hoe leeuwen ooit de koningen van het dierenrijk waren en binnenkort enkel nog te zien zullen zijn in dierentuinen.
De verschillende oorzaken van hun decimering worden uitvoerig besproken. Kattenaids, hun hiërarchie, verlies van habitat, jacht, inteelt... De rol van de mens is uiteraard de grootste, en die begint al duizenden jaren terug.
De verschillende oorzaken van hun decimering worden uitvoerig besproken. Kattenaids, hun hiërarchie, verlies van habitat, jacht, inteelt... De rol van de mens is uiteraard de grootste, en die begint al duizenden jaren terug.
October 27, 2018
4.5 stars
April 6, 2019
Trophy hunters still suck.
October 6, 2020
This is an important book reminding us of the lasting impacts humans have on the planet.
May 16, 2022
Wonderful!
November 15, 2018
It's crazy to read about a creature that has been around my entire lifetime to think that it could go extinct. This book illustrates the problem and I thoroughly enjoyed reading other's experience with lions.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews