TIM PALMER: A survey conducted by a global organisation dedicated to conserving wild cats says there has been a catastrophic collapse in the number of lions in West Africa.
The research was carried out in 17 countries, from Senegal to Nigeria, and it found there are only around 400 lions left there - fewer than 250 of breeding age. The study has fuelled concerns that the entire population could disappear.
Dr Luke Hunter is the co-author of the report and the president of Panthera, the conservation organisation. He is speaking with Whitney Fitzsimmons.
WHITNEY FITZSIMMONS: Dr Hunter, how do West African lions differ from other lions?
LUKE HUNTER: That's a really good question; it's the most exciting... recent molecular data, the genetic data, shows that they're actually quite different from the lion that we classically think of in East Africa or southern Africa.
Turns out that the West African lion is genetically distinct and actually look quite different; they're very recognisably a lion, but they're quite lean-bodied; they're quite sort of lightly build compared to lions elsewhere in Africa, and the males also don't develop the enormously luxuriant manes of lions elsewhere in Africa. So, while they do have manes, they're not nearly as lush and as dense as those other lions.
WHITNEY FITZSIMMONS: The report revealed that there are fewer than 250 West African lions of breeding age; that's obviously an alarmingly low number for such a vast area. What other findings came out of the report?
LUKE HUNTER: Part of the problem is that it's not just only 250 breeding adults, but they're now scattered across four isolated populations, and in fact three of those populations are fewer than 30 or 35 animals. And so those populations we're most concerned about, because it's very possible that, in the short term, those populations could easily become extinct. There are simply too few animals to keep a population alive.
WHITNEY FITZSIMMONS: And what would you say are the biggest threats to this particular species of lion?
LUKE HUNTER: The real issue in West Africa - in fact across all of Africa, but particularly, particularly exaggerated in West Africa - is that people really just need the same land and resources that lions need to survive. So West African lions and West African wildlife in general is facing is that very poor human populations are converting natural pristine savannahs into agriculture and areas for their livestock to maintain their own populations.
And what that means is that it really leaves no habitat and nothing to eat for lions, and so they're just excluded; they're wiped out gradually by this process of humans occupying the very same areas that they need for survival.
TIM PALMER: Dr Luke Hunter, the president of Panthera, speaking to Whitney Fitzsimmons.