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The Lions of Tsavo:
Exploring the Legacy of Africa's Notorious Man-Eaters
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Four female lions attacking buffalo cow, Aruba 1999.
Photo by R. W. Kays
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The goal of this book is to enhance understanding of ecological relationships that encompass both wildlife and people in East Africa. This understanding will be developed through a narrative focusing on lions. Lions rank among the most charismatic of mammals, and the lions of Tsavo (Kenya) are especially fascinating because of their long association with man-eating. The book begins with a scene from an epic story-- a century ago in Tsavo, two man-eating lions held a “reign of terror,” attacking work crews and eventually halting the construction of the Uganda Railway. Paramount Pictures’ recent film The Ghost and the Darkness offered a fictional account of these events. I propose to use public interest in the man-eating lions to develop a detailed understanding of how the behavior, ecology and appearance of the lions relate to their ecological context. In this case, interactions involving people and elephants have helped shape the lions’ appearance and ecology. The historical drama of the infamous man-eaters provides a gripping entree as the reader is introduced to details of lion biology and behavior. Full understanding of the cats carries the discussion to the crucial topics of ecological linkages and environmental change.
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Railway bridge over Tsavo River, 1998. Photo by B. Patterson.
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Links among species and environmental change are crucial to this story. Biodiversity and indigenous cultures are both disappearing worldwide. In nature, biological and cultural diversity are maintained by countless ecological interactions and interdependencies, some direct and others quite indirect. Efforts to conserve diversity are blunted by the complexity of these relationships and the impact that humans have on them. Diversity is also threatened by wholesale changes of the landscape and climate, often at rates so fast that some species, linkages, and cultures cannot acclimate. Humans have played major roles in accelerating environmental change. A crucial challenge in the 21st Century will be to guide human development so that it does not disrupt vital ecological and cultural linkages that sustain natural diversity. Public understanding is essential for sustainable development, and this overarching goal permeates the book’s discussions of lions and their place in East African ecosystems.
The book also carries an important conservation message. As home to the world’s last surviving mega-fauna, Africa still supports one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on Earth. Tsavo National Park is one of the oldest and largest national parks on the continent, and is one of the few large enough and secure enough to sustain viable populations of these species. With a fuller understanding of Tsavo’s most important and interesting ecological stories, readers appreciate the need to support and conserve these
The author is engaged in original field- and laboratory-based research on Tsavo’s lions, among other projects.
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