Quarantined: One of the lions reintroduced into the Akagera National Park from &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve and Tembe Elephant Reserve in South Africa. PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA |
Between 1970 and 1975, Rwanda had a lion population of about 300 in the Akagera National Park in the country’s Eastern Province.
The declining numbers of herbivores in the park (the natural prey for lions) and human-wildlife conflict took their toll and after the 1994 genocide, the so-called king of the jungle’s extinction became inevitable when the park was left unmanaged and was occupied by internally displaced people, especially herders, who poisoned the remaining few lions.
