Humans and Lions

Professor Keith Somerville is a Member of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, UK, where he teaches at the Centre for Journalism. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, UK.

"This is the natural companion to the thoughtful and elegant Ivory: while the themes broadly overlap and compliment there is also plenty of fresh research to form a panorama as wide as the African sky. These books will be debated for years to come and form touchstones for present and future generations." — Jasper Humphrys, Director of External Relations of the Marjan Centre for War and the Non-Human Sphere, King’s College, University of London, UK"Professor Somerville has written the definitive history of the relationship between lions and humans. This meticulously and exhaustively researched book starts sixty million years ago with the evolutionary origin of Carnivores and ends with developments in lion conservation in late 2018. In between, it examines the long history of conflict between the two apex predators, documenting in agonizing detail the lion’s long spiral toward extinction at the hands of man, and the current efforts of a handful of conservationists to reverse the decline. This will be the standard reference on lion conservation for years to come." — Laurence G. Frank, Living With Lions Project Director and research associate in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, USA"Keith Somerville eruditely rips the scales from his readers eyes to unveil the interacting blights that have beset lions for millennia – trade, conflict, hunting – pills all bitterly coated in the proliferation of people. Where does that leave lions? In a precarious mess." — David Macdonald, Director of WildCRU, University of Oxford, UK"As human populations in Africa and India continue to surge into the 21st Century, placing ever increasing demands on land and resources, the future of lions, one of the world’s most iconic species, hangs in the balance. To meet the challenge of conserving these magnificent but demanding creatures in the wild, we need to grasp the complex history and nature of this issue, meticulously researched and comprehensively presented in this important book." — Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes, Oxford Martin Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, University of Oxford, UK

• Foreword by David W. Macdonald Introduction 1. Lion-human coexistence and competition from the Pleistocene to modern humans 2. Domestication, settlement and the effects on lions 3. Lions from the 14th century to colonial occupation 4. Hunting, conservation and the decline of the lion in colonial Africa and Asia 5. Contemporary coexistence and conflict in Africa 6. The ups and downs of Southern Africa’s lions, and the importance of the trophy hunting debate