African Lion Research Paper

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The African Lion Ashlynn A. Hoffman Florida Southern College African lions are becoming more and more endangered due to the humans in Africa taking the land, and converting it into land that can be used for crops (Thornton, 2011). The lions are extinct in seven countries (in regions of each of the countries) in Africa (Lion). Those seven countries are part of thirty African countries that the lions are native to, and due to the decline in lion population the African Lion was classified as vulnerable in 1996 (Lion). In captivity an African Lion can live up to twenty years; however, in the wild the life expectancy for the African Lion only ranges from ten to fourteen years (Lion). Generally the lion can be found living in the…show more content…
Often times when viewing food chains there are so many routes that the food chain can take that it is difficult to see every single one of them. An easy food chain to see is: the grass gets eaten by the zebra, and the zebra gets eaten by the lion, then the lion dies and decomposes to fertilize the grasses that will restart the process all over again (Ecosystem). By eliminating or even minimizing the number of lions in Africa, the food chains would all be thrown out of balance. Without lions there would be an excessive amount of zebras and other wildlife that the lions eat for energy. The grass would be in trouble because it wouldn’t be getting the minerals that come from the decomposing lion carcass anymore. At that point the loss of lions effects the entire food chain that directly involves the lions and the food chains that don’t. When grasses and other plants that feed on the decomposing animals in the wild don’t receive those minerals it struggles to grow successfully. Therefore, there isn’t a sufficient amount of plants for animals to feed on, so then all of the animals in that area begin to diminish and become extinct primarily on a lack of food sources. However, there is the possibility that the animals wouldn’t stay in that area and risk becoming extinct due to a lack of food sources; those animals that struggle to survive in the back woods of Africa could potentially venture…show more content…
Initially I knew that the lions were in trouble, but I hadn’t realized the extent of trouble that they actually were in. Another reason that I chose to write an essay on this was because after I started to do research on the African Lion, I discovered that they were primarily being killed off by poison that the cattle herders were leaving for them after they (the lions) started to eat the cattle. Not once did I consider that poison may have been a cause of endangerment for the lions prior to doing this research. Therefore, I proceeded to do more research on the lions, and became more and more fascinated by the information that I was finding. I have spent the last several years not actually knowing that the lions were native to only thirty countries in Africa; I had always presumed that the lions were native to all of the countries in Africa. Something beyond that though, I wouldn’t have ever began to imagine that the African Lion was considered vulnerable in
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