1 February 2016
A previously unknown population
of at least 100 lions has been discovered by a wildlife charity in a remote
park in north-western Ethiopia.
Born Free Foundation said it had
obtained camera trap images and identified lion tracks in the Alatash area
close to the border with Sudan.
The area is thought to have lost
all its lions in the 20th Century because of hunting and habitat destruction.
The number of lions in Africa has
declined by half since the 1990s.
The lions are thought to be of
the Central African sub-species, of which only about 900 were thought to
survive, Born Free Foundation's programmes manager, Mark Jones, told the BBC
Newsday programme.
"Even though the team only
visited the Ethiopian side of the park because of logistics, lions were likely
to exist in the larger, adjacent Dinder National Park across the border in
Sudan," he said.
Dr Hans Bauer, a renowned lion
conservationist from Oxford University, who led the expedition, said this was
the first time that the presence of lions had been confirmed in this area.
He estimated that the area could
host a population of 1-200 lions.
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