History books tell us that the last wild Barbary lion was probably killed in 1922 by a French colonial hunter in Morocco. Black and his co-authors calculated that the Barbary lion probably died out in Morocco in 1948 and mostly likely went extinct in Algeria in 1958. Why does it matter exactly when Barbary lions went extinct in the wild? “The diminishing micro-populations of lions in West Africa today mimics the decline of the Barbary lion in North Africa,” Black wrote last year. But the fate of Barbary lions, as it turns out, is not entirely decided.

Source: The North Africa Journal June 01, 2021 12:02 UTC