yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Rewilding Gorongosa: Lions | National Geographic


3m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Everyone comes to a national park in Africa and they want to see lions. They are among the most incredible species I've ever worked with. [Music] My name is Paula Boule. I'm a National Geographic explorer and associate director of lion conservation for Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. [Music]

When we began, nothing was known about how many lions we had. It was all about collecting data to really put this population on the map. [Music] This country endured 16 years of civil war, and that war was centered in Gorongosa. During that time, there was a lot of overhunting, so we lost about 95% of our large mammals in a very short time. After the war, recovery began slowly, and by 2006, the Greg Carr Foundation and the government of Mozambique forged a long-term plan to restore this national park to the gem that it used to be. Before, over the past decade, we've seen a remarkable recovery of wildlife populations, with the exception of lions. They didn't make a strong comeback, and our research was specifically to ask why. To be effective in conservation, you have to collect data, which will guide you in the right direction. [Music]

When we first got started, we knew we had to collect data on how many lions we had, how many females, how many males, and what they were eating, and where they were ranging. So we collect data using a variety of techniques. One is we collect spatial data from the GPS satellite collars. These collars, besides pinging with satellites, also have a radio signal that's pinging off them. Every lion with a collar has a unique number, so we can tune in on the dial on the radio and actually hear where they are.

Secondly, we use camera traps to collect data on lions and other species across the park. We collected so much data that we launched WildCam Gorongosa, which allows anybody with a Wi-Fi connection to log on and help us identify species in conservation. These days you need to be able to react fast; we don't have time on our side.

Thirdly, we are actually on the ground with teams collecting data in the field. Through our data collection, we learned that snares were the biggest threat to lions. The snare is a piece of wire or a steel jaw trap that is set by hunters in the park to catch buffalo or wartog, but incidentally, lions are in these very same places and they become entrapped. So we began to intervene. Patrols go out and sweep areas clean of devices that lions and other wildlife are getting trapped in. They can come back with 20; sometimes they come back with 200. But they are actually collecting data on where these snares and traps are set because there are patterns: closer to water, forest edges, closer to the boundary.

So, where before snares were such a threat, today, thanks to the lion patrols and data that we've collected, we've been able to reverse that. We're trending for a couple of very large lionesses. [Music] One is very, very pregnant, and the other [Music] has, over the past year, seen such high cub production. Wherever we look, all the lionesses we've been studying have cubs. At this point, we feel like we're on the path to recovery.

The time is now. If we don't act today, in 20 years we could lose lions on this continent. That's why we care, and we believe we can do something to better the situation. Data collection will always be important in conservation. New threats will emerge; they won't be the same as threats we encountered five or ten years ago—they may—but in the meantime, as we bring data in, we can act on that data. And that's the most important thing for us. [Music] Now [Music] you.

More Articles

View All
10 Stoic Keys That Make You Outsmart Everybody Else (Stoicism)
In the heart of a bustling city, there was a young man who seemed to have it all: a great job, a loving family, and a vibrant social life. Yet every night, he found himself staring at the ceiling, gripped by an unsettling feeling that something was missin…
AK’s and Alcohol | Explorer
Check, check. Here we are. We have arrived, and, uh, waiting for the commander. Just in time! It’s, uh, just turning out, which isn’t exactly ideal. The air is thick with ganja smoke. I’m 3 hours walk from the nearest town, and I’m completely at their mer…
The Japanese Have it Figured Out
Have you ever heard of blue zones? These are areas in the world where a large number of centenarians live. That’s people who are over 100 years old. Many people have studied these areas to try and discover the secret to longevity, and the thing they found…
Zeros of polynomials (multiplicity) | Polynomial graphs | Algebra 2 | Khan Academy
All right, now let’s work through this together. And we can see that all of the choices are expressed as a polynomial in factored form. And factored form is useful when we’re thinking about the roots of a polynomial, the x-values that make that polynomi…
The Making of 'Genius' | National Geographic
Genius is the first scripted series on Matt Gio. The first season of Genius is the story of Albert Einstein, which we’re telling over the course of 10 episodes. We all know, uh, of his genius, his gifts, but Albert Einstein’s private life is far more comp…
DO THIS To Turn $30,000 Into $3,000,000! | Kevin O'Leary & Sam Sheffer
[Music] Hey everybody, Mr. Wonderful here with another episode of Ask Mr. Wonderful. You know I gotta be honest with you, it’s my favorite show! I love it because it’s your questions that make it happen. And today we’re gonna take a little drive down a te…