Lions Return to Rwanda for First Time Since Genocide’s Aftermath
Lions were hunted to local extinction in Rwanda. Now a new group of imported lions seems to be doing well in the country.
Jes Gruner was excited when he told me over the phone that the lions had made their first kill.
A week after their release into the Akagera National Park in the northeast of Rwanda, the lions took down a waterbuck on the lakeshore and were gorging themselves on the carcass. Gruner, the Park Manager of Akagera, was obviously happy about the report. These are the first wild lions to set foot in the country since the animals were hunted to local extinction 15 years ago, and a kill is a sure sign they are doing well.
The stakes are high for lions in Africa as their numbers plummet across the continent. And the Rwanda reintroduction is a working case study for conservationists
