What impacts have occurred
The study area in Hwang National Park consisted of different landscapes, including: protected land, communal lands used for agriculture, and trophy hunting areas. The scientists gathered a total of 206 human-caused mortality events during the 13-year study. They tracked the daily location of 84 GPS collared individuals to ultimately identify the cause of death for those individuals. Surprisingly, human-caused mortality affected female and male lions differently. Because of this, the scientists calculated cause-specific mortality rates for each gender, which were used to build a map of mortality risk for each cause of death. This map was used to determine the risk lions take depending on where they spent their time in relation to human activity.
Potential Impacts
Habitat Loss, Bushmeat Poaching, and Human-Lion Conflict
Human encroachment is the largest threat to lions' existence. The grasslands where they roam are decreasing in size by the day, instead providing fodder for cattle and other livestock, or disappearing due to urbanization.
How long have humans been interacting with lions
Fossil evidence suggests that interactions with the first early lion species occurred in East Africa 3.5 ma – based on Mary Leakey's discovery of a jawbone of a lion-like felid at Laetoli in Tanzania near to footprints of human-like hominins.
Efforts being made to minimize impacts
African Parks has heeded the call to safeguard and protect Africa's largest and most iconic cat through effective park protection at a landscape level, and species-specific interventions including reintroductions and translocations, monitoring and research and mitigating human-lion conflict.