Species → African Lion
African Lion
Panthera leo
What if it disappeared?
Impact HighAfrica's large herbivores don't distribute themselves randomly across the landscape: impala, warthog, waterbuck, and kudu actively avoid areas frequented by lions and leopards — the two ambush predators — but not those frequented by cheetahs or African wild dogs, which hunt by chase.
DocumentedDetail
Thaker, M., Vanak, A.T., Owen, C.R. et al. (2011). Minimizing predation risk in a landscape of multiple predators: effects on the spatial distribution of African ungulates. Ecology, 92(2), 398–407.
Study conducted in the fenced Karongwe Reserve (South Africa) on seven ungulate species in the presence of five large predators. Small-bodied species avoid all predators, while larger ones (wildebeest, zebra, giraffe) avoid only areas with heavy lion and leopard presence — proof that the lion's effect on prey spatial distribution is measurable and specific to its hunting style, not a generic "predator presence" effect.
Where lions, leopards, and spotted hyenas disappeared from three Ghanaian national parks, olive baboons — their former occasional prey and competitor — exploded in number: a 365% increase in sightings and a 500% increase in their range over the period.
DocumentedDetail
Taylor, R.A., Ryan, S.J., Brashares, J.S. et Johnson, L.R. (2016). Hunting, food subsidies, and mesopredator release: the dynamics of crop-raiding baboons in a managed landscape. Ecology, 97(4), 951–960 — citant les données de suivi du Ghana Wildlife Division (1968-2004).
Across the six national parks studied by Ghana's wildlife services, large predators (lion, leopard, spotted hyena) went locally extinct in three of them between 1968 and 2004. In these parks without an apex predator, the olive baboon shifted from a largely herbivorous and frugivorous diet to an omnivorous one including small vertebrates, and considerably expanded its territory — a classic case of mesopredator release documented over a span of decades rather than as a single snapshot.
If the baboon explosion observed in Ghana were to repeat elsewhere as lions decline, the expansion of their territory could multiply incursions outside park boundaries and conflicts with surrounding farmland.
ExtrapolatedDetail
Extrapolation à partir de Taylor et al. (2016), dont le modèle mathématique s'appuie sur les données ghanéennes pour projeter la dynamique de maraudage des babouins, sans confirmer empiriquement que ce schéma se reproduit dans d'autres écosystèmes africains où le lion décline.
Taylor et al.'s model explicitly links the loss of apex predators to increased crop-raiding by baboons in areas peripheral to parks, with economic consequences and heightened risk of human-wildlife conflict. This is a plausible mechanism consistent with the documented Ghanaian case, but it hasn't been measured elsewhere in the same way.
What's missing to confirm it: Replicating the Ghana study in other East or southern African parks where lions are declining would confirm whether baboon release — and the resulting human-wildlife conflict — is a general pattern rather than a local case.
Documentation
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IUCN SSC Cat Specialist Group (2023) — Panthera leo, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
Accessed August 7, 2026
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Thaker, Vanak, Owen et al. (2011) — Minimizing predation risk in a landscape of multiple predators, Ecology
Accessed August 7, 2026
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Taylor, Ryan, Brashares & Johnson (2016) — Hunting, food subsidies, and mesopredator release: crop-raiding baboons, Ecology
Accessed August 7, 2026
Last verified: August 14, 2026