The roar of the lion sends chills up
the spines of animals and people alike. The famed king of the jungle is one of
the tourist attractions in Uganda.
Lions are the only cats that
live in groups, which are called prides. Males defend the pride’s territory,
marking their territory with urine and roaring menacingly to warn intruders
away.
Lionesses are the primary food
hunters. Their regular prey is always swifter on their feet than lions, so the
lions work in teams to score a kill, and then they scramble to share the kill.
However, these big cats are under
threat. A total of 11 lions are believed to have been killed by poachers since
2012. This was revealed by a senior warden at Queen Elizabeth National Park
(QENP), Dr. Margaret Achiru, while delivering a paper on the status of tourism
and protected areas.
“Since the missing lions were all
tagged with identification gadgets, they could be traced electronically,” Tom
Okello, the chief park warden at QENP said. “Over a few months, the
identification tags went off the radar. I believe they were killed by poachers
and the tags destroyed.”
A combination of civil strife and
poaching greatly reduced wildlife populations between 1970 and the late 1980s.
For example, to be elevated to a given social status, a Karamojong man must
singly kill a lion and bring the carcass home as proof that he can protect his
family and tribe.
Superstitious soldiers involved in
the LRA war in northern Uganda are reported to have enhanced their luck with
fetishes that had a lion’s nails, paws and testicles.
To see a lion today, one has to dig
deep in one’s wallet to go to Murchison Falls, Kidepo or Queen Elizabeth
National Parks. Uganda Wildlife Education Centre in Entebbe has lions in captivity.
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