"Skilful hunters." "Violent and terrifying man-eaters." "Devoted parents." "'I'm Jonathan Scott and I've been captivated by lions all my life.'" "And for the last 30 years," "'I've been watching, sketching, photographing and filming' one amazing lion pride, by day, and under the cover of darkness." "And I've seen first-hand what makes lions unique." "Whilst other big cats live solitary lives, lion's don't." "They live in large family prides." "The lion pride is the exception amongst the cat family." "No other species lives this kind of social existence." "Now, new research is revealing the reason for the lion's unique lifestyle." "'Assumptions and misconceptions are being overturned.'" "We want to know, why are lions social?" "I'm going to look again at this unique animal." "I'm searching for The Truth About Lions." "I can hardly believe it's almost 40 years ago since I arrived in Africa with a degree in Zoology." "I was passionate about wildlife and, in particular, I was fascinated by big cats." "I wanted to explore every detail of their lives." "I wanted to write about them, photograph them, draw them." "In fact, I wanted to get right under their skin, to know them as individuals." "And what better place to do that than right here, in the Maasai Mara in Kenya." "The Maasai Mara is the northern tip of the vast Serengeti that stretches for 120 miles to the south, in Tanzania." "This is classic African savannah, large areas of open grassland, scattered trees and small rivers criss-crossing the terrain." "And running through the whole reserve on its journey to Lake Victoria is the mighty Mara river." "This place is home to perhaps the most famous lions in the world..." "ROARING" "..The Marsh Pride." "Together with colleagues from the BBC, I've filmed them extensively for shows such as Big Cat Diary." "At times, under 24-hour surveillance..." "..revealing their lives in extraordinary detail." "This particular pride of lions, the Marsh Pride, they're like family to me and I've been recording every detail of their life, going back to 1977." "This notebook, 1981." "And that's always been the fascination for me, the detail." "But what drove lions to form prides in the first place?" "Why are they so different from all of the other cats?" "It's the fundamental question about lions that I'm still unable to answer satisfactorily." "But over the border in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park is a project which could help me." "The Serengeti is vast, equivalent in area to the whole of Wales, and, like the Mara, it's a stronghold for lions." "It's home to the Serengeti Lion Project, the longest-running lion research project ever." "This is the reproductive rates." "Over 40 years of data, across our study area." "They're about four or five." "'It began in 1966 and, since 1978, it's been headed by Craig Packer." "'the foremost lion scientist in the world.'" "Some places have very low reproduction, others are really high, especially up here." "'He's been studying these cats for as long as I've been in Africa." "'yet we've only met once before, 25 years ago." "'So this meeting is long overdue.'" "My focus has very much been a single pride, the Marsh Pride, which I know intimately and I love that sense of knowing the group, but we're talking" "30 lions, maximum." "Yes, I see the other lions at times that surround them, but for you, very different." "Here we're trying to look at a population, so we look at between 13 and 28 prides at any one time, so over all the decades here, we've got data now on 5,000 lions." "5,000." "Totally different approach." "Yes." "The first thing was, we had a long history in the study and so we inherited those records, so when I got here we already knew who the grandmothers were of some of the adult females, but we didn't know much about paternity until later, when we did DNA fingerprinting." "We were one of the first animal projects to use the genetic tools to understand the kinship within a pride." "Another thing that I've loved in the Mara is that I've been able to watch lions, leopards, cheetahs and I could really, sort of, see how different lions are to those other animals." "And the key question has always been, I think for you, too, is, why are lions social?" "Can we answer that question now?" "Finally I think we have a good answer on this." "It took us a long time." "There were different ideas that had been floating around." "We went through them all, one by one." "But each took several years to answer, much longer than we thought, and it took us 30 years before we felt we'd nailed the answer." "For over 30 years, Craig and his team of researchers have collected vast amounts of data, from 28 study prides, testing the many theories that have been proposed to explain the lion's sociality." "What's the driving force that binds individual lions together in prides?" "A social structure amongst the most complex of any group-living animal." "There are animals like meerkats and baboons that form troops or packs and they're always together, but a lion pride is much more complicated than that." "The lion pride is more like a human family, where one individual may go off and do something on their own for a while, and then they come back." "And so you begin to realise it's a great intricacy, there's a great complexity to this social system, that's far more elaborate than we see in most other animals." "It's that complexity that's kept me fascinated by the Marsh Pride all these years." "What I want to do now is take all the information that" "Craig and his team have collected and take another look at my pride." "And see how it matches up." "Ironically, to understand the complexity of a pride, you need to know all its members as individuals." "Naming them does help." "But telling lions apart in the field isn't easy." "Thankfully, in the early 1970's, a method was discovered." "Every lion, as it turns out, has its own unique pattern of whisker spots, which act just like a human fingerprint." "By recording the behaviour of the named individuals in my pride, the reason behind pride living can be revealed and investigated." "Let's just take a look at what the Marsh Pride are up to right now," "I'm just going to draw a map here of their territory in the sand." "It's about 20 miles, that's about 50 square kilometres, so quite big." "River's over here, the marsh is there and right here, we've got two older generation females, that's White-Eye, Bibi and four of White-Eye's cubs." "At 12 years old White-Eye, so called as she is blind in one eye, is the oldest female in the pride." "I've seen female lions in the Marsh Pride reach 15, but despite her age, right now, she's the newest mum." "Her four young cubs rely on her for everything and will stick with her for at least two years." "Alongside White-Eye in this part of the territory is one of her pride mates, another 12-year-old lioness, called Bibi." "Over here, towards the west, I've got another older generation female, that's Lispy, with nine sub-adults - five males, four females." "Lispy is Bibi's sister from a litter born in the pride in 1998." "The sub-adults with her are the sort of teenagers of the pride, almost, but not quite, ready to go it alone." "They're free to roam throughout the territory," "They need to, in order to find enough food to satisfy so many hungry mouths." "And right at the other side of the territory, we've got Clawed and Romeo, the big pride males." "At 12 and ten years old, they're clearly powerful lions." "Unlike the females, who will live their whole life in the same pride, the adult males have to fend off challenges from younger rivals and, on average, their tenure as a pair is rarely longer than two years." "Clawed and Romeo have now been pride males for over three years." "They're living on borrowed time." "And that's not all." "They're spending much of their time, maybe too much of it, with a breakaway trio from the Marsh Pride, that we call The three Graces." "These females have also had cubs, but are keeping well away from the main pride, for the moment at least." "Now you might think it's unusual to have members of the same pride scattered all over the territory like this, but I've seen it many times before." "The fact that the individuals of the Marsh Pride aren't all together right now is brilliant timing." "Watching how the three distinct factions operate and seeing when and why they come back together as a whole pride will help me make sense of Craig and his team's huge amount of work and unravel the fundamental reason behind pride living." "Along the way, discovering a wealth of surprises about these magnificent creatures." "March is normally dry in the Maasai Mara, a traditionally lean time for my lions." "The famous wildebeest migration is 120 miles south in Tanzania and my lions are hungry." "The need for food unites all three factions of the Marsh Pride." "But the starkest difference between the pride factions at the moment is between those with young cubs and those without." "White-Eye has four young cubs to feed." "And they're thin." "With such a sparsity of prey at this time of year, White-Eye and her only adult lioness companion, Bibi, are forced to hunt even during the heat of the day." "And they must travel large distances away from the cubs, leaving them vulnerable." "But the nine young lions in Lispy's gang are far more self-reliant and can hunt as a team." "This is the group that is perhaps most like many people's idea of a lion pride." "Does their strength in numbers mean they'll fair better than White-Eye and Bibi?" "Could co-operative hunting - lions helping each other to gain a meal - be the reason why they became social in the first place?" "Is that why they form prides?" "Co-operative hunting has long been considered by many as THE reason why lions live in prides." "But how does it stack up, when looked at closely?" "The gang spot an opportunity too good to miss, a pair of mating warthogs, whose attention lies elsewhere." "Older, more experienced, Lispy leads the front - the perfect ambush predator." "But the sub-adults do appear to be co-operating and working with her." "Eyes are locked on the target, as they fan out... ..closing the net on their prey." "Surely with this many lions, the warthogs don't stand a chance?" "In fact, the warthogs give them the slip." "It seems here, at least, that hunting as a group didn't help, so just how strong is the evidence?" "This was Craig and the project's first line of investigation." "If co-operation was a strong advantage from hunting, we would think of two possible ways that it helps." "First is, it means the group will be more successful than a solitary, so they might succeed 40-50% of the time, instead of 10% of the time." "And in fact, that's not seen, there's not a huge improvement in group performance by having more animals hunting together." "And the second way that co-operation can be important is that a larger group can pull down a prey item that a solitary cannot possibly capture on her own and that we do see." "So, group hunting is needed, in order to take large prey." "And it is usually seen as the main advantage lion prides have over solitary cats." "The buffalo is the lion's most formidable opponent." "Over half a tonne of solid muscle." "Where a single lion would struggle, together there is strength in numbers." "Lions do co-operate when they're trying to catch buffalo and in reports of lions catching hippo, those have to be done by a group." "But those are not essential in terms of keeping the pride well nourished through a year." "Co-operative hunting, it turns out, is essential to take down large prey but the advantage it brings to lions isn't enough to drive the evolution of pride life alone." "And it could be looked at as a disadvantage, forcing lions to work together to bring down large animals, like buffalo." "If you are in a group, you have the problem of dividing the prey into ever smaller shares, but you can overcome that cost by actually going for the larger prey." "So we could almost look at a preference for larger prey, as a way of compensation against the cost of having to share out one meal amongst many mouths." "When, as I've seen, individual lions catch smaller prey, they can keep all the food for themselves." "So why are Lispy and the gang hunting small warthog as a group?" "This, it turns out, is an illusion." "Small prey predominates in the territory right now." "Only one lion actually takes down the warthog, yet it appears as if they're co-operating, as the rest of the group have to be close to stand a chance of getting any food." "Scrapping over the spoils is normal in lion prides and those closest to the action get significantly more food than the others." "Once the prey is down, any pretence of co-operation is gone." "They're so incredibly selfish and aggressive to each other." "They're snarling at each other, they're pulling food out of each other's mouth." "How could you really imagine that this animal's so nobly co-operative, given the incredibly grabby table manners they have, once they've actually got dinner in front of them?" "It's like they're eating together, despite the fact that it's such an annoying thing to do." "They're together for some other reason." "So, co-operative hunting alone can't explain why lions form groups." "Co-operative hunting is something that lions can do because they live in groups, but it isn't the reason why they evolved this social way of life in the first place." "Craig and his team needed to keep looking for answers." "So what about the cubs?" "After all, the success of any lion pride is judged by the numbers of cubs it can raise over time." "Watching how the cubs in my pride are nurtured and protected is revealing." "They grow fast and begin eating meat at just six to eight weeks old." "The young cubs feeding on a fresh kill belong to the three Graces' faction of the pride." "In these lean times, cubs would normally have to scrap at the dinner table with the adults, fighting their corner for food." "But not here." "The mothers are being kept from the kill by adult pride male, Romeo." "Himself, also showing surprising restraint." "This is behaviour I've witnessed before and is a graphic illustration of how vital cubs are, not only to their mothers, but also to their fathers, the pride males." "As the likely father to these cubs, Romeo's behaviour actively ensures his offspring, the future of his genes, gets the best start in life." "Males of all other cat species play no role in the raising of their cubs but here, once again, lions are different." "If cubs growing up in a pride had better nutrition and, as a result, better survival prospects, then this advantage could be the explanation for pride living." "It's been one of the most strongly favoured theories over the years." "Until now." "When I first started studying lions, people used to think of mother lionesses as suckling their cubs communally, as nurturing them as a group." "Could that be the reason why lions became social in the first place?" "For the first three months of life, White-Eye's four young cubs are dependent on milk." "As her companion Bibi isn't lactating, the cubs are entirely dependent on their mum." "There are no other females in this section of the territory." "The more usual situation in a pride, is one of multiple mothers and multiple litters of cubs, forming a creche." "It's a situation I've seen many times in the Marsh Pride." "When White-Eye herself was a cub, she was nurtured in a creche with multiple mothers." "And it does appear that cubs are being suckled by all the mothers indiscriminately." "But does communal suckling give cubs in a creche an advantage over those raised by single mothers, like White-Eye?" "It's really fascinating that lions are one of the few species where cubs may nurse from more than one female." "But when we looked at it in much more detail, we found there's a lot of conflict of interest going on." "In fact, each mother would prefer to nurse only her own cubs." "The problem for the mothers is, they've been out all night, looking for food." "They've come back and they've got to sleep and so they've got to divide their time between allowing their cubs to catch up with them and then also to get a good nap." "So it turns out the cubs are very crafty and they'd wait till the mothers were asleep and then they'd go sneaking in to another female that wasn't their own." "So there wasn't that much real co-operation going on, but that the cubs are more like parasites, taking advantage of the inattentiveness of the mothers." "And crucially, watching White-Eye's four cubs here shows that they are getting enough milk just from their own mother." "Boisterous enough now to get on Bibi's nerves." "Closer investigation by Craig and his team showed that whilst cubs in a creche can suckle from multiple mothers, they don't get any nutritional advantage." "And the data clearly shows their survival chances are not increased." "If communal suckling doesn't help us to answer why lions are the only living social cat, what else is there that could have driven lions to form prides?" "Perhaps the answer is defence." "THUNDER" "They may be near the top of the food chain, but lions of the Marsh Pride still live in danger, from predators close to home." "Two young, strong male outsiders are sniffing around the edge of the Marsh Pride, in search of territory and females with whom they can breed." "Males, who given the chance will try to oust the current aging pride males, Clawed and Romeo." "They spot Lispy and the eight young lions." "It may be two against nine, but Lispy and the gang recognise the threat posed by them." "The pair target their attack on the young males in the group, as chasing them off could give them access to the females." "This bold incursion into Marsh Pride territory is perhaps their first show of serious intent - and more may follow." "To win the Marsh Pride territory, the outsiders will ultimately need to displace the current pride males, Romeo and Clawed, an encounter which could happen at any moment." "But Romeo and Clawed may be spending too much time with the three Graces, leaving the rest of the pride vulnerable." "And for vulnerable, read, "cubs"." "If we think of cub rearing, it's not just a matter of delivering food to their young." "Mothers also have to protect their young against various different enemies." "We often think of an enemy of a lion as maybe being a leopard that might eat the cubs, but, in fact there's a much more common and more pervasive enemy - and that's their own species," "And it's the male, the male that's not the father of the cubs." "New males from outside the pride encountering young lions like White-Eye's cubs will kill them." "Violent behaviour, known as infanticide." "Infanticide is very common in nature and it's really widespread in the cats." "If the fathers happen to be out patrolling the edge of the territory and a guy sneaks in, then the females may encounter a nomadic male, who will quickly try to eliminate the cubs." "I've seen the impact of infanticide affect the Marsh Pride." "Most dramatically, for a lone mother, known as Tamu, and her four young cubs, spotted by a nomadic male." "To the male lion, the mother is a resource." "He wants to be able to have her rear his offspring." "He doesn't want to be a stepfather." "So when he first encounters a new pride, he'll quickly try to eliminate those cubs that prevent the mothers from mating again for a year and a half." "For as long as Tamu had dependent cubs, at least 18 months, she would not be ready to mate." "Killing her offspring would bring her into season again and give this male a chance to father his own cubs with her." "But lone females fight hard to protect their cubs." "Tamu fought off the nomadic male, but there was a heavy price to pay." "One cub was badly injured and later died." "This mother's struggle to chase away the incoming male simply wasn't enough to protect all her cubs..." "..which may be why most prides contain multiple mothers, who, with their cubs, stick close together, forming a creche." "If Tamu and her cubs had been part of a creche, perhaps things would have been different." "A lone female has almost no chance to protect her cubs against a male." "The male's much bigger, but sisterhood is powerful." "Groups of females, working together, can stand up against the males, chase them away and effectively protect their cubs." "So what you see with a creche, with a communal litter, is a defensive formation of females always ready to defend their cubs against invading males." "At last, a reason for lionesses to group together - to protect their offspring." "Who could argue with that?" "But there is a niggle with this theory." "Lion's are not the only species with murderous stepfathers." "You have other species that are infanticidal, like leopards, tigers, house cats, but all those species are solitary." "So there's nothing unique about lions and facing that threat of having males that might come in and kill the cubs." "The lions are already in a social formation, but then in this special case where they have the young, they draw together even tighter, so they're already living in a group, for some other reason." "Infanticide is not the root cause of their sociality." "So, on detailed investigation, it turns out that many of the obvious theories citing co-operative hunting..." "..or protection from infanticide as the cause of lion prides don't provide the answer." "'And remember these are theories I've held myself for many years.'" "With the main behavioural theories discounted, Craig and his team turned their attention to the places where lion prides lived." "For my pride, the Marsh Pride, the extent of their territory has remained constant over all my years of watching them." "Looking at how they use, defend and roam within their territory could hold the secret to understanding pride living." "After their encounter with the nomadic males, Lispy and the gang have scattered and relocated to the opposite side of the territory." "Away from the intruders, but into the area that the splinter group, known as the three Graces consider theirs." "The three Graces, although once part of the main pride, do not tolerate other lions in what they consider as their territory... ..even if they are part of the same extended family." "The three Graces give short shrift to two of the young lions from Lispy's gang, who have become separated from the main group." "This is the real relationship between neighbouring prides." "Constant readiness to do battle, held in check by the threat of mutually-assured destruction." "Having shown who's boss, the three Graces move off." "The most violent encounters amongst lion prides are always over territory." "The space in which lions live is so important that they literally shout about it." "ROARING" "The lion's roar is amazingly primal, a terrifying sound." "It's the declaration of territory ownership - "This is my place."" "But what can it tell us about the evolution of prides?" "To understand the roar in more detail, Craig and his team needed to start talking to the lions directly." "We were able to record roars and then broadcast them back to the lions." "And much to our surprise, they responded as if there was a real invader, right there in their bedroom." "And the fact that lions often roar as a group gave the team a bit of a headache." "To investigate, they had to play back different numbers of lions roaring to different numbered groups of real lions, but it produced perhaps the most surprising results of all of Craig's research." "When we played back the roars, if we did one against one, there was no response, but three against one, they would always respond." "And then we played the roars of three back to a group and three against three was the same as one against one and five against three was exactly the same as three against one." "So with three invaders, five real lions would always go forward." "That meant they could count." "They could count how many invaders there were and how many they had in their own group, to be able to fight against the strangers." "They could calculate the odds." "As long as they outnumbered their opponents by two, lions would move towards rivals that appeared to be in their territory." "That was the first experiment to show any animal, besides humans, could count and so we were really astonished." "We thought these dumb blondes were not up to this kind of thing, but when it came to the fights against their neighbours, this was where they really were co-operative." "The most co-operative we've ever seen the lions is when it's life or death, it's us against them." "It's over territory that lions are the most co-operative, working together to declare ownership and even willing to risk their lives in its defence." "ROAR AND COUNTER ROAR" "Territory clearly held the key to understanding why lions evolved their unique way of life." "'The Marsh pride are a boundary pride.'" "Whilst much of their territory is within the protection of the Mara reserve, the absence of fences marking the boundary means part of their territory lies outside it." "It brings them into close contact with the local Maasai." "Lions have lived alongside pastoralists for hundreds, if not thousands, of years." "Tompoi and his family have grazed cattle here for as long as I can remember." "I first met him 30 years ago." "THEY CONVERSE IN MAASAI" "Each day, he brings his cattle down to the edge of the reserve, to the spring that feeds the marsh, for water, a route he's taken for many years." "And he regularly sees my lions in the area." "You see the lions, the Marsh lions, every day?" "Every day." "The marsh is a key part of my lions' territory." "After all, that's why we call them the Marsh Pride." "Why is it so important?" "Because this area provides shelter and ambush sites for them." "And, crucially, attracts the lions' prey, looking for water and grazing." "It's just as important an area for Tompoi, giving his cattle year-round access to water." "All of those cows are yours?" "Yeah. 200?" "Yeah." "Whoa." "'In many ways, the lion pride has similarities to human societies.'" "A pride territory is like the ancestral family estate." "'In the same way that generation after generation of Tompoi's family have grown up and grazed cattle in this area, generations of the Marsh Pride, too, have been raised in this territory and continue to be so." "With so little prey in the area at this time of year, the pride have been operating as three distinct factions." "But things are about to change." "Lispy approaches her two pride mates White-Eye and Bibi and is warmly greeted." "Lispy's approach is followed by the young lions of the group." "Whilst the mother's reaction to their daughters is warm, their sons receive a less welcoming reception." "The young males will be driven out of this territory, but females stay, ultimately replacing their mothers, when they die, as the core of the pride." "Pride's are, at their heart, a matriarchal society." "The fact that I knew this generation's grandmothers and great-grandmothers as individuals is proof how successful this pride has been in this territory." "But whilst I've studied the success of just this pride of lions, the Serengeti Lion Project has been busy recording the breeding success of a grand total of 28 study prides." "And only by doing that, have they been able to collect enough data to discover the critical role territories played in shaping lion societies." "Plotting the long-term success of their study prides on a map of the Serengeti revealed striking differences." "Some prides had vastly greater breeding success than others." "Shown here on a map as the deepest colour." "'And, most tellingly, those prides with the greatest success shared something in common.'" "Craig, you've spent years examining the reasons as to why lions might be social." "You've ticked off the reasons that don't seem to fit the picture, so what is it?" "Well, I wanted to bring you up here because I think the best way to think about lion sociality is to look at the landscape." "If you look out across the plains, we see a river running through it and along the river there are certain spots that tributaries run together." "They're confluences." "Where you get water that persists well into the dry season, moisture that attracts the prey, so that the lions can feed throughout all of the year and shelter for the cubs." "These are the places that have the highest real estate value." "These are the places that a very successful female, if she were a solitary, would not be able to hold onto by herself." "She would need to have her daughter stay with her." "Her daughter who would then work with her mum, as a unit, to keep the strangers away and all the family jewels would be safe." "The lion pride is a joint defence system against invaders who want to take away that high-valuable real estate." "The map revealed the common feature for all the enduringly successful prides." "Their territories were all centred around river confluences... ..areas Craig has dubbed "lion hot-spots"." "There was a huge evolutionary advantage for lions to gang up, form prides, to hold and protect those areas which offered the best long-term success." "Survival of the fittest - and the fittest here were those in prides." "The Project finally had their answer." "Pride life is a direct result of the landscape and the habitat in which lions evolved." "For over 30 years, I've thought that the reason for lions' social living was somehow rooted in their behaviour." "But Craig and his team's work has elegantly shown that, in fact, the root cause is not how, but where, they live." "The reason I've been able to watch so many generations of the Marsh Pride is that their territory is a lion hot-spot." "This is what I came to Africa to see and I've been fortunate to document the last 30 years of this amazing lion pride." "Whilst watching my lions has helped me make sense of Craig and his team's work, their success and TV popularity masks a rather uncomfortable truth." "Something Craig brought home to me graphically, projecting 35,000-year-old cave paintings from Europe onto a rock face in the Serengeti." "These are pictures from France." "This is amongst the oldest art in the world." "They were discovered about 15 years ago and it has more pictures of lions than almost any other species." "I mean, it's mind-boggling." "35,000 years ago, to capture the sense of the lion." "I mean, the quality of the observation is remarkable." "This shows something that you and I have been talking about already - the way you identify the lions." "The whisker spots." "They've drawn the whisker spots and they didn't have Land Rovers, they didn't have binoculars." "So unless we had The Flintstones, I mean, this is all being done without any assistance, from a safe distance presumably, because look, the lions are relaxed and the artist was able to get all these details." "They were not scared of the lions while they were drawing." "And the next slide, we can see the way they're..." "'Here were paintings from Southern France of lion prides in action, in staggering detail, 'much as I would draw them today, even down to the whisker spots.'" "The Chauvet Cave, where the paintings are found, is in the limestone cliffs that have been carved out by the Ardeche River." "And along with other paintings and artefacts, found as far apart as Alaska and Asia, they reveal, graphically, how lions were once a truly global species." "In fact, after humans, the lion was once the most widespread land mammal on earth." "Today, the lion is restricted solely to Africa and a tiny population of perhaps just 350 lions in India." "And most of these populations are under threat." "There's real cause for concern." "The latest studies in the Mara show a decline of 30% in the lion population during the last 20 years." "And in Africa, as a whole, the population has dropped to perhaps just 25,000 lions." "Everywhere, virtually, the trend is downwards." "Understanding the way in which the habitat has shaped lion societies and how change to it can affect these complex and fascinating creatures, is essential to helping to ensure their future success, a future which right now is anything but certain." "Next time on The Truth About Lions...." "The world of the Marsh Pride changes dramatically with the arrival of the annual wildebeest migration." "There are some new cubs, but the old guard are beginning to show their age." "And I discover how the lion's unique social nature could be part of the reason for their worrying decline." "If we look at all the remaining lion populations, there's a number of tiny populations scattered around Africa, but they need to be big enough, in order to be viable for the next century or the next millennium." "And we believe there's only six of those left in Africa." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk" "The most iconic of all the big cats." "Lions have attracted our attention throughout history." "I'm Jonathan Scott and for me, the lion's the main reason I came to Africa over three decades ago." "Human beings have painted, sculpted and photographed this big cat perhaps more than any other." "Across the world and across our cultures, we've recorded the lion's story in considerable detail." "But, for how much longer can their story continue?" "With perhaps as few as 25,000 lions left in Africa, could this be the final chapter?" "For over 30 years, the world's leading lion scientist Craig Packer has headed the Serengeti Lion Project." "And he has a stark warning." "The lion is in trouble." "In the last dozen years, the lion population has declined anywhere between 20 and 50%." "We're reaching a threshold where we might pass the point of no return." "The lion is the uniquely social cat." "The only one to live in prides." "I want to understand what role it could be playing in their decline." "Using the latest scientific research and by watching my pride's trials and tribulations," "I want to reveal The Truth About Lions." "From a balloon, the sight of Kenya's world-famous Maasai Mara Game Reserve is breathtaking." "And it's just the northern tip of a vast, wild ecosystem of 25,000 square kilometres stretching all the way south into Serengeti National Park." "I've spent much of my adult life here, recording the fascinating stories of its lions, leopards and cheetahs." "One area in particular has always stood out for me as a hot-spot for wildlife - the Musiara Marsh." "It's home to a family of lions I've come to know intimately... the Marsh pride." "The fact that I've been able to watch this pride for so long is witness to what a great territory they have within this landscape and is the reason for their continued success, and right now we've got hundreds of thousands of wildebeest" "streaming into the area, so it's just an amazing place to be a lion." "September." "The time for the 28 members of the Marsh pride to feast." "Their tolerance of human observers allows us to film them even under the cover of darkness." "This is a sight that can only be seen with lions." "A whole family of related animals, all part of the same pride all feeding together." "This family living, this social way of life, makes lions the most conspicuous, the most often seen, of all the world's big cats." "Far more regularly sighted than the traditionally secretive leopard." "Yet there are, perhaps, 20 times as many wild leopards left on Earth as there are lions." "The lion's familiarity masks a dark truth." "A truth brought home to me when I met the world's foremost lion scientist Craig Packer in Tanzania, by a rather unusual slide-show." "This is amongst the oldest art in the world." "Projected on a rock, these slides, of 35,000-year-old cave paintings from Southern France, depict lions in incredible detail and show that humans have had a surprisingly close relationship with this particular cat for millennia." "When I first saw these paintings I was profoundly moved." "It gave me chills." "And to see these paintings by fellow lionologists from 35,000 years ago made me realise that maybe we're not so eccentric watching these animals, that this is something that's very deep in our nature." "But the truth they reveal is just how widespread lions once were." "The lion had a representation across Europe." "It went across Alaska, across Asia." "At one point the lion was the most widely-distributed mammal across the entire planet." "Today, lions are a species in frightening decline, restricted now almost exclusively to Africa." "Craig and his team at the Serengeti Lion Project have spent over 30 years investigating the lion, gaining a unique scientific insight into its world." "A world which Craig is only too aware is shrinking." "If you look at where the last remaining large populations of lions are found, Kruger Park in South Africa, the Okavango in Botswana, and then four places here in Tanzania" "and between those half-dozen populations, there's probably half, at least, maybe more, of all the lions left in Africa." "The Marsh pride, my lions, are part of one of these populations - the Serengeti Mara population." "To understand the risks they face and the causes of the lion's decline" "I need to see life from a lion's perspective." "The unique perspective of the only social-living cat." "Lions need to be together." "The lion's historic success shows that pride-living has been a good strategy." "Now, through watching the Marsh pride with fresh eyes and armed with Craig's wider research," "I want to discover if the lion's sociality may be contributing to its downfall." "Having studied them closely for many years, I know them all as individuals." "Right now the pride consists of a core of adult females " "White-Eye, Bibi and Lispy." "There's some new arrivals who, at just three months old, are the pride's future." "And finally the two pride males, who have been with this pride for almost three years." "But whose fortunes, right now, differ widely." "Romeo is about nine or ten years old." "He's a male in his prime." "Marking ownership of the territory and obviously showing interest towards in-season females." "Looking to father more offspring." "His buddy, the other pride male, is Clawed... ..who at 12 years old is showing his age." "At best, Clawed could perhaps reach 14 years old." "But that's looking increasingly unlikely." "He's obviously in poor condition." "His teeth are worn down and he's struggling to get enough food at times." "Yet, without him, Romeo would find it almost impossible to hold onto the pride and raise any more offspring." "In the wild, males die much younger than females, mostly through violent encounters with other males - males who want to take over their territory." "Clawed is at risk, even from the lion's own prey." "Buffalo are big animals." "At almost 700 kilos, they're over three times the weight of a lion." "Lions and buffalo are mortal enemies and buffalo will actively chase lions." "If they discover cubs, or a lion is unable to get out of the way, they'll kill them." "The pride begin to move away, to protect the cubs." "But, old and weak, Clawed has to try a different tactic." "Hide and seek initially works well." "But the buffalo's keen sense of smell eventually prevails." "Clawed has a bad leg, but still manages to muster up enough energy to run for his life." "He only just manages to reach safety in time." "Hopefully, the buffalo will lose interest." "In situations like this, the pride focus on keeping the cubs safe." "Adult lions must fend for themselves, and there's little chance the others will come to Clawed's help." "Eventually Clawed is able to rejoin the pride." "He's had a lucky escape." "I've seen lions killed by buffalo, indeed, many lions die as a result of a violent attack." "Sometimes by buffalo, but more often at the jaws of other lions." "Clawed is clearly vulnerable not just to attack, but also from a more silent threat." "The threat of disease." "Most lions die a violent death, but it's very easy to forget the role that disease can play." "And of course the danger in a social animal such as this is that it could spread amongst the whole group." "Clawed's poor condition makes him potentially the most vulnerable to disease." "Disease is something I've seen affect individual lion prides like the Marsh pride." "But just how dramatically it can affect whole populations is something Craig had a chance to discover in 1994." "At the beginning of 1994, various people saw lions suddenly with really strange disease symptoms that had never been seen before." "The most famous case was a male who had convulsions, like a horrible, horrible seizure." "Turned out that this animal was infected with canine distemper and it infected about 95% of the lions within the Serengeti." "It devastated prides." "And was obviously a risk to the whole lion population." "Canine distemper virus is a disease of the nervous system." "It more usually affects domestic dogs and is closely related to measles in humans." "But it had been spread into the park by hyenas who regularly move between the surrounding rural villages and the park's centre." "The huge lion deaths in 1994 were followed by a similar event in 2001." "Initially, it seemed canine distemper virus or CDV was to blame." "But the project had been keeping blood samples for a number of years, which when analysed showed that there had been other outbreaks of CDV that didn't result in any lions dying." "We've had seven distemper outbreaks over the last 20 years now and only two have had that high degree of mortality." "There was something else going on." "The team looked again at the two outbreaks that had resulted in so many lion deaths and noticed something in common." "They both occurred at the end of a severe drought." "The herbivores like wildebeest and buffalo struggled to find enough to eat and were themselves weakened by disease." "The lions suddenly had what seemed like a free lunch with this excess of buffalo that were sick and very easy to catch." "But there's no such thing as a free lunch." "The buffalo, the lions' preferred prey, had many more ticks than usual and those ticks spread from the dying buffalo to the lions carrying a dangerous malaria-like parasite called babesia." "Now, babesia in itself is something the lions can ordinarily handle, but this was an exceptional dose of babesia, combined with distemper and the distemper is like a short, sharp bout of AIDS." "They're immuno-suppressed, allowing the babesia to overwhelm them and that's actually what killed them." "Buffalo are the lion's preferred prey precisely because they're large and can feed a whole pride." "But in this instance, being social exposed whole prides to disease at once." "The disease outbreak had a catastrophic effect on the lion population." "We saw hundreds of losses in the Serengeti, and we saw losses here in the Mara in the Marsh pride." "But what was interesting was, it didn't take that long for the lion population to bounce back again." "In fact, it only took four years to recover to pre-disease levels." "This is the flip-side to being social." "Given the right habitat, lion prides breed very successfully and rapidly." "But more frequent droughts in the future could trigger more regular outbreaks of disease and might not allow lion prides time to recover, potentially decimating an otherwise healthy lion population." "The role of climate change in affecting lion numbers shouldn't be underestimated." "The impact of climate change is likely to increase in these kind of areas." "We'll see more droughts and we'll see more floods and that is likely to act as a trigger for these outbreaks of epidemic diseases." "Now another perhaps surprising way in which climate change can impact on the lion population, is in the way they look." "Male lions have a striking feature that marks them out from lionesses and all other big cats." "The mane." "It develops during puberty and attains its full glory just as the male reaches his reproductive prime." "But it carries a heavy price tag." "All mammals need to maintain a constant body temperature regardless of their surroundings." "But male lions like Clawed and Romeo have a problem." "Their big, bushy manes are like a jumper, one they can't take off." "Viewed through a thermal camera, the mane's contrasting colour shows how much warmer the mane is than the rest of the lion." "In the hottest parts of Africa, this burden is simply too much to bear." "And the lions here are different." "Craig's data clearly shows that male lions growing up in hotter habitats tend to grow shorter, thinner and lighter manes than those growing up in cooler climes." "So climate change could eventually alter the lion's look." "But ultimately, does it matter what colour the mane is?" "And, if they're such a burden, why grow a mane in the first place?" "Craig and his team had a hunch that the mane might have a profound meaning in lions' social lives." "To set about decoding what that meaning might be, they enlisted a somewhat surprising research tool." "We had these dummies constructed and shipped out here, where we could present alternatives to the lions." "So we'd find a wild lion, we'd set out two dummies at a time, with contrasting manes." "One might be dark, one would be light, or one would be short and one would be long." "OK, Fabio - you're on!" "And the females clearly preferred the darker manes." "It turns out that black-maned males, they're actually superior males." "They have higher testosterone levels, they live longer, they're more likely to survive from being wounded and their cubs have much better survival." "So a female making a choice would do much better to have her children fathered by one of the black-maned males." "The mane, it turns out, plays a huge part in lion society." "The ability to grow a big, dark mane is a sign of fitness." "It's an honest signal that you're strong enough to carry the burden of all that extra heat stress - it shows you have good genes." "And that's why, in nine out of ten cases, lionesses prefer dark-maned males." "In the Marsh pride, Romeo is the female's favourite right now with his dark, luxuriant mane." "But his mane won't always look so grand." "The aging Clawed, two years older than Romeo, has a less impressive mane." "But right now, with plenty of food available, he's still at least managing to maintain a reasonable head of hair." "The females don't take too much notice, but it's still a powerful signal to other males." "The mane allows rival males to quickly assess each other's strengths and avoid direct conflict." "Fights between males often lead to injury and are best avoided." "Just the sight of Romeo and Clawed together will be a powerful deterrent to any new males lurking on the edges of Marsh pride territory." "There's no doubt that the mane plays a significant role in lion society." "But the very thing that makes them attractive to females and wards off other males also puts them at risk." "In the last century, tens of thousands of lions were killed by big-game hunters." "And that had an effect on what sorts of lions were being seen." "When I first arrived in the Mara in the 1970s, it was rare to see those big black-maned lions such as Clawed and Romeo, who are so essential to maintaining the integrity of a pride's territory." "But in 1977, the Kenyan government decided to ban all trophy-hunting and the sale of wildlife products." "When they did that, the male lion population began to recover again." "But trophy-hunting still continues in many parts of Africa today, as shown in this simulation." "In Tanzania, we're the biggest country for lion trophy-hunting in all of Africa, and the hunters have access to more than seven times as much land as the national parks." "This vast amount of hunting land often surrounds protected areas, the parks, and acts as a buffer zone between people and wildlife." "It may seem ironic, but some believe trophy-hunting of lions could play an important role in protecting their habitat and ultimately, them as a species." "The human population is growing at 4% annually in Tanzania, so there's increasing pressure to convert the land to agriculture and human settlement." "Ultimately, it all comes down to money." "There are many areas in Africa that will never be attractive to photo tourism, that do provide lion habitat." "Trophy-hunting could help justify that set aside, so that the land is not converted to agriculture." "It's not lost to wildlife." "But perhaps most important is to recognise the limited amount of revenue that so far has been collected from trophy-hunting." "Shooting a lion is surprisingly inexpensive." "For North American hunters who might want to shoot big-horned sheep in certain areas of the US, they might pay over a 100,000 for the opportunity." "Lions, as a species, are far less common than big-horned sheep and yet a client can go out and get a licence to shoot a lion for less than 10,000." "In Tanzania, tourism to National Parks generates four times more revenue than hunting." "There's a real danger that if areas set aside for hunting can't generate enough income, they'll be converted to human settlement." "For trophy-hunting of lions to be an effective conservation tool, it first needs to generate vastly more income than it does currently." "GUNSHOT" "Secondly, the choice of lion to kill is critical." "An adult male with a large impressive mane is the most sought-after trophy, like those of Clawed and Romeo." "It may seem that hunting a lion affects just that one animal." "But the consequences are much more significant." "We have to keep in mind that the lion does have a very complex social system." "Unlike most trophy species where the male only meets the female once for mating, and has nothing to do with tending to the offspring, the pride male is a devoted father." "He needs to continue to be around until his young are safely raised." "So if a hunter comes in and removes an adult male from a pride, he'll render his offspring and the rest of the pride vulnerable to a take over by a new set of males." "If the new males are coming into a pride while there's still dependent young, from the preceding set of males, all hell breaks loose." "If for instance, Clawed and Romeo were killed now, new males would kill all cubs under nine months old to bring the females back into season and give themselves a chance of raising their own offspring." "The mothers of the older cubs would move away to protect them and the pride would be fractured." "Regularly removing pride males destroys the stability required to successfully raise the next generation." "The hunting industry has to be a fair player and recognise that past practices have been inadequate and it's time for careful oversight, this is a very rare and precious species that must be hunted in a very careful and sustainable manner." "The impact of trophy-hunting can be minimised." "First, it's important to establish the age of the male lion to be shot." "Something hunters could do by looking closely at their quarry." "I've been keeping records on the Marsh pride for so long, and know the nine sub-adults with the pride are about three years old." "The reason I know that is that I saw them as young cubs when they emerged from the den at about two months old." "But if I didn't know how old they were, I could use a method developed by Craig and his team which relies on the fact that young lions, such sub-adults have pink noses till they're four," "but after that time, and you can just see it here." "This is a five-year-old lion, black pigment begins to cover the nose." "So his nose is half-black, half-pink - five years old." "If you look at this male, a previous pride male, his nose is black." "He's nearer ten years old and you can see his teeth are worn." "So, if you don't know the age of a lion, using Craig's method, you can get a pretty good estimate." "The age of a lion is crucial." "On average, male lions are four years old when they take over a pride and remain in control for roughly two years before being evicted by younger rivals." "Time enough to raise just one group of young." "Hunting male lions only over six years of age minimises the risk of killing males before they've had a chance to breed." "Or whilst they're a father to young, dependant cubs." "Clawed and Romeo are both significantly older than six." "In their time in charge, they've already fathered a group of nine three-year-old lions - who are now nearly fully grown - as well as this second group of younger cubs." "The impact of one, or both of our males demise would consign the youngest cubs to a violent death by incoming males." "It would be tragic, but Clawed and Romeo have already assured their genetic success in the raising of their first brood." "Clawed and Romeo have been pride males here for longer than any previous males I've recorded." "They are literally living on borrowed time." "New, younger, males are lurking on the edges of Marsh pride territory waiting for an opportunity to challenge the holders." "HE BELLOWS" "Males outside a pride normally don't roar, to avoid unnecessary attention." "HE BELLOWS" "But these two youngsters clearly consider the Marsh pride's territory is theirs for the taking!" "Much of what's happening with the Marsh pride right now is occurring after dark." "One of the classic sounds of the African night is the sound of lions roaring." "LIONS ROAR" "SNARLING ROARS" "HE ROARS" "The lion's roar advertises their ownership of a territory." "HE ROARS" "Work by the Serengeti Lion Project showed that, as a pride roars, other lions hearing it can count how many lions are calling." "The project also showed that the roar is directly related to body size." "Being up to 50% larger than females, the males' roar is louder and deeper than the lionesses'." "Though Clawed is a shadow of his former self, his continuing ability to roar with the pride is helping to keep potential invaders at bay - for now." "HE ROARS" "Life for all lions is a numbers game." "Outnumbering the opposition is key to success." "When there's just one male voice left in the Marsh pride, it will be noticed by other males in the area and the odds will switch in their favour." "The Marsh pride's social life is like a feline soap opera." "But it's clear that, for lions, their unique social lifestyle makes for unique pressures from factors such as disease outbreaks and trophy-hunting." "Both have affected the Marsh pride in the past and could do again." "But, perhaps the biggest pressure on lion prides comes from the landscape in which they live." "The landscape which Craig and his team have shown to be crucial to the evolution of the pride." "By looking at the breeding success of known prides, the team discovered that those holding territories centred around river confluences were the largest and most successful." "Territories that contain permanent water, shade and cover in which to raise cubs." "Only powerful prides were able to defend these much sought-after territories from other lions and so ensure their long-term genetic success." "It stands to reason then, that changes to the very driving force behind the evolution of lion prides would have a huge effect on their population." "And there's no doubt the lion's landscape has changed dramatically in recent years." "A striking example affects the lions of Tarangire National Park in Tanzania." "The park covers nearly 1,000 square miles, bigger than the whole of the Mara." "But unlike the Maasai Mara, which is connected to the vast Serengeti, Tarangire is isolated." "A real problem for the park's population of approximately 200 lions." "The park and the surrounding area is home to the Tarangire Lion Project and it's run by Bernard Kissui." "One of Tanzania's most respected ecologists, he's noticed a big change in the landscape over the years." "Traditionally here the indigenous people have always been the Maasai, and they are keeping livestock, but increasingly also we are seeing a slow change from pure livestock-keeping, pastoralism, to agro-pastoralism." "So more and more people now need to you know keep some livestock but also, grow some crops." "The increase in farmland outside the park is reducing the space for both lions and their natural prey." "The park boundaries were drawn up in 1970, but over the course of Bernard's study he's discovered that about three quarters of the lions in the park actually leave its protection regularly throughout the year." "And that brings them into danger." "Lions go out, attack livestock, people retaliate." "You know, they go out, find out where the lion is and kill it." "Over the years, we have been collecting this information and you'll be surprised to hear more than 30 lions sometimes get killed every year." "And that has got huge implications to the population." "With a total population of just 200 lions in the park, having 30 of them killed in retaliation for livestock predation annually is significant." "To stand even the remotest chance of maintaining lions in the park," "Bernard had to win over the local community." "THEY CONVERSE IN SWAHILI" "'We are now trying to convince the pastoralists keeping livestock to adopt new ways." "'So, one of the things we're actually testing, is the use of chain-link fences.'" "Traditional cattle stockades, or "bomas" are, more usually constructed from thorn bushes but the chain-link fences offer better protection." "We've been working on this particular strategy for about now two or three years." "We have almost 60 bomas right now that have been enforced and we've been monitoring them." "Where chain-link fencing has been installed, there's been no further instances of lions taking cattle." "And hence the motivation for retaliation is lower." "But changes to the landscape outside the park affect the lion population on a bigger scale." "Reducing prime lion habitat and reducing the number of lions potentially to zero." "Just as in Tarangire, for the Marsh pride, the changes outside the Mara reserve could have an effect on their success as a pride." "The Marsh lions are a boundary pride, as I'd put it, because if you look at my map here you can see that the reserve boundary cuts through the top of their territory and that boundary is very close to here, it's just up the top there I can see cattle and Maasai just beyond it." "The boundary to the Mara, like most national parks or reserves in Africa, isn't marked by fences and the area beyond it has changed dramatically in my time watching this pride." "The Maasai population here has grown enormously in the last 30 years." "But, unlike in Tarangire, the Marsh pride are bordered on just one side by an increasing human population." "The Mara reserve is part of the much more extensive Serengeti Mara system." "And this is critical." "It's one of the six large areas that Craig Packer believes might be the last stronghold of the lion." "It's so large that the migration of two million wildebeest can be completed entirely within it." "And the migration brings other animals too." "Nomadic male lions in search of their own pride follow the herds." "Lions that could bring new diseases." "Or in taking over an existing pride, cause the death of young cubs." "For now, the Marsh males still control their territory." "And, at least in Romeo's case, still actively attempting to sire new offspring." "Clawed, in his poor condition, can only watch from a distance." "For male lions life is a race against the inevitable." "Their time as a pride male is limited." "And they need to make hay while the sun shines." "They will, ultimately, be challenged." "Challenged by new males from far and wide." "The consequences of new males taking over a pride can be catastrophic in the short-term." "But it's a vital part of a healthy lion population, mixing the gene pool." "The situation without an influx of new males is far worse in the long-term." "It's a situation faced by the lions of Tanzania's Ngorongoro Crater." "The area for which Craig and his team have the most lion data." "I travelled with Craig into this vast volcanic caldera." "It's one of the lion hot-spots of East Africa." "The prey here is resident all year round and this natural cauldron once supported the highest density of lions anywhere in Africa." "But not any more." "It's a direct result of the lack of new males able to enter the crater from areas outside." "In 1959, there were 8,000 people that lived in the Ngorongoro conservation area and now there are 60,000." "There's just so many Maasai in close proximity around the wall that there's a barrier to migration." "Now we have had a series of disease outbreaks the last few years, the lions seem more susceptible to disease than before, and ordinarily we'd expect males to come in to help repopulate." "No longer." "This lack of new males has led to a reduction in genetic diversity amongst the lion population on the Crater floor." "A result of narrow inbreeding between the lions that remain." "So who are we looking at here?" "Well, this female comes from the Mungi pride." "The male comes from the other side of the Crater floor and even though he didn't know her growing up they do have many links on their family tree, so they're about as closely related as half-siblings." "But as lions to look at the effect of this inbreeding isn't immediately obvious." "When I look at these lions," "I'm looking at healthy, vigorous animals," "I mean that's a big male, the female looks in great shape, so really, how much impact is inbreeding having on these lions?" "They look great, but they get such a high level of nutrition down here, there's always food available for them." "The things that are harming them are all happening inside their bodies." "We're seeing signs, and have seen for some time, of reduced fertility in the males, they have higher levels of sperm abnormality, they have lower testosterone and their immune systems seem to be compromised now." "This population seems to be exceptionally sensitive to infectious disease." "From a high of 120 lions in the 1980s, the Crater population today numbers less than 60." "Ngorongoro reveals the problems for lions in small populations." "If lions are to survive here they'll need human management, introducing new lions with new genes." "But this is difficult - lion prides don't tolerate outsiders." "The financial cost is large and only for small, valuable populations like the Crater, where tourists expect to see lions will it be cost-effective to manage so intensively." "The Marsh pride are, for now, thankfully still part of a much larger, natural, lion population." "That of the Mara Serengeti system - perhaps the world's most famous African reserves." "This journey has shown me how fortunate I've been in being able to watch this one pride for so many years." "From my own experience, their immediate future can almost be predicted." "As the wildebeest migration heads south, there'll be less prey, resulting in more competition within the pride for food." "Clawed is likely to lose out and his condition will worsen." "But his, and buddy Romeo's success has already been assured in the form of their nine almost fully-grown offspring." "New males in the area will challenge this ageing pair and ultimately win." "Just how soon they do will decide the fate of the youngest cubs in the pride." "A new chapter in the Marsh pride's story will begin." "But the lion's story as a whole may be closer to an end than I'd previously imagined." "I think the animal is close to being restricted to maybe three or four places." "The Serengeti is so famous, it's hard to believe that anyone will let that die, parts of the Selous can be protected," "Kruger National Park in South Africa is fenced." "The Okavango is in the middle of a desert, so those four areas maybe the sole repository of healthy lions in the 22nd century." "It's a stark situation for an animal whose success once rivalled our own - the seconnd most widespread land mammal on Earth." "For lions, social living has made them especially vulnerable to disease spread from our domestic animals." "Hunting individual male lions for trophies can all too easily have devastating impacts on entire prides." "GUNSHOT ECHOES" "And as territory is key to the lion's social way of life, it's becoming obvious that healthy lion populations can only exist where large areas of suitable habitat can be found." "Habitat that, throughout our long association with the lion, has also been coveted by humans." "But, living with this large, dangerous, social predator has been difficult and still is." "Everybody hates lions." "Pastoralists hate lions, people in man-eating areas would just as soon there were never any more lions ever again." "And I often find it surprising that we somehow expect Africa to bear the brunt of living with a really difficult species." "Seems to me that's the world's responsibility." "If the lion was lost, that's something that belongs to all of us, it's part of our whole history." "There's a big irony here." "The lion's uniquely social way of life, which to me makes them so fascinating, evolved as a defence against others of their own kind." "But the truth about lions is that their biggest threat is no longer other lions... it's us." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail: subtitling@bbc.co.uk"