African Lion at Herberstein Wildlife Park

Our lions belong to the subspecies known as the Barbary lion. This is one of the subspecies that is now extinct in the wild.

As early as the time of the Roman Empire, these animals were heavily hunted: they were needed for gladiator fights and other “entertainment” in the arenas. The “consumption” of these animals was very high, and it is now believed that this form of entertainment contributed significantly to the extinction of several other animal species even back then. The Barbary lions were able to recover from these losses once more, but with the invention of firearms, the rate at which the animals were dying off increased rapidly. The last lion in the wild was killed in Morocco around 1920 (though some sources report that the animals in inaccessible areas were not exterminated until 20–30 years later).

Berber lions differ from other lion subspecies in several characteristics: They are larger (shoulder height over 110 cm), heavier (males weighing up to nearly 300 kg), and have a more imposing, dark mane that extends over the chest and belly. They were originally found throughout North Africa, but later only in the Atlas Mountains (Morocco and Algeria). The reason for the more robust mane may be that it is colder in the Atlas Mountains, and the animals were thus better protected from the cold temperatures.

As the animals became increasingly rare in the wild, Berber tribes gifted some of them to Moroccan princes. In 1970, the Rabat Zoo received Berber lions from Hassan II’s private zoo, which were presumably direct descendants of these animals. However, it remains unclear to this day how many of the animals remained purebred; most were likely crossed with other subspecies. In the years that followed, these animals were distributed among various zoos—mostly in Europe—to broaden the breeding base and ensure the animals’ survival, at least within zoos.

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