The Congo Lion

[BorneanTiger]

(08-31-2019, 11:27 PM)chui_ Wrote:

(11-01-2017, 09:20 PM)Rishi Wrote: This animal was shot somewhere in Northeastern Congo (then Zaire)..

*This image is copyright of its original author

Actually it was the Belgian Congo when that photo was taken in 1912. After independence from Belgium, the dictator Mobutu renamed it Zaire in the 1970s and then when he was overthrown in the late 90s the name was changed to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mobutu (a brutal ruler) was brought into power by the Belgians with the help of the Americans - they conspired against Patrice Lumumba who was on his way to becoming the first leader of this newly independent country and probably would've gone on to be a good leader. But the Americans and their allies would rather have puppet rulers in these countries so they can basically just pay them off and take whatever resources they want. As a result the DR Congo has pretty much been a mess since, both for its people and its wildlife. This was probably one of the most spectacular game rich areas of Africa, right in the heart of the continent, but now its mostly poached out.

Anyway, that photo shows an adult male lion killed in a place called Vankerekhovenville in north eastern DRC (near Garamba NP). This lion measured 286cm in total length and 183cm in head and body length. Its skull measured 375mm in greatest length and 245mm in zygomatic breadth. So a big, good sized lion. Information as well as that photo are from the paper, "Carnivora collected by the American Museum Congo Expedition" 1924 by JA Allen.

The political history of Congo-Kinshasa is more complicated than that. Lumumba as Congolese PM faced a revolt from secessionists from Katanga Province (from where Einar Lönnberg described the Katanga lion or Southwest African lion (Panthera leo bleyenberghi ) in 1914), so he appealed to the UN & USA for help, but they refused, and since he was a Communist, he then turned to the USA's arch-rival, the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or simply "Soviet Union", a now-defunct federation that included Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Ukraine, and was founded on the Communist ideology), and this was opposed not just by the Americans and Belgians, but also then-chief-of-staff Mobutu and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu, and so Mobutu apparently conspired with the Katangans and Belgians to eliminate him, and even then, it's not as simple as that. Lumumba as the Communist PM did have his own failings, and after imposing a state of emergency, a journalist who criticised the government got arrested, and there was a rebellion in South Kasai that he ordered troops under Mobutu to put down, but that led to a massacre of civilians in Luba, from what I see. Reply