Book Review

[Dr Panthera]

" Lions: In The Balance " Craig Packer
We all love Packer, he contributed to our lion knowledge even more than what Schaller did, 35 years in the Serengeti researching lions with an army of graduate students ( West, Whitman, Hopcraft, Ikanda, Kissui, Hazzah, Kushner, Rosengren, Jansson , and others ) he researched and answered a lot of questions regarding lion behavior.
The book describes his life and work over several decades in Tanzania , the hardships that western scientists experience working in Africa and Asia in terms of dealing with bureaucracy, red tape, corruption, accusations of espionage!!!, and the "colonial" mentality!!! While admiring the culture and doing their best to conduct groundbreaking and important research.
A good part of the book deals with trophy hunting of lions...lions in Tanzania and several parts of Africa are found mostly in non-state-protected habitat where they are hunted for trophies, Packer disagrees with other prominent lion scientists ( Schaller and Loveridge ) and conservationists ( Jackson and Joubert ) in the sense that he believes that killing a certain percentage of adult males CAN help save lions by generating massive funds ($25000- $75000  per lion hunt ) for conservation...the problem was for that to happen the victims needed to be prime-aged males who held a territory for 2-3 years and raised cubs to independence, he and Karyl Whitman wrote a beautiful paper describing that and used SIMSIMBA software to predict lion populations and trends. The problem was that most clients wanted to shoot any male lions and were killing anything with a mane including many 2-3 year juveniles which was causing catastrophic results to the lion populations.
Packer describes his battle with the lion trophy hunting industry and the corrupt politicians who pull the ropes for it and how effectively this led to his expulsion from his research in Tanzania .
The book is full of great information about the Serengeti lions and their cousins in ngorongoro , the Selous lions and their hunters, and the man-eaters in southern Tanzania it is not a book of biology but it still is informative.
Packer also describes Maasai attitude towards lions and his research of everything from the role of manes, the effects of manes on other lions of both genders, the catchability of prey versus the availability of prey, hunting by male lions, infanticide, dispersal of sub-adults, the Ngorongoro crater inbred lions, the Maasai-lion conflict in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area , the Lindi man-eaters, and inter-predator interactions.
A great read. Reply