A lion has killed a 14 year old girl in Kenya.
In a statement to the BBC Paula Kahumbu, head of the WildlifeDirect conservation group, urged Kenya Wildlife Service to improve “risk assessments and ensure accurate, real-time communication of wildlife movement and behavior, especially in known high-risk areas such as Savannah Ranch,” where the girl was killed.
Last year, police in Kenya recovered the body of a man believed to have been attacked by a lion while he was riding a motorcycle near a national reserve in the south of the country.
The lion population was declining in Kenya just over a decade ago, primarily due to human-wildlife conflict. The government listed lions as endangered, with an estimated population of 2,000 in 2010. A more recent survey put the number at 2,489.
In 2023, 11 lions were speared to death in just one week — including one of Kenya’s oldest wild lions — by herders after the big cats killed their livestock.
Last year, the BBC reported CCTV footage captured the moment a lion snatched a Rottweiler dog from another home near Nairobi National Park.