Well…actually…he’s supposed to be dead, but lets go back to the beginning…say…the second century B.C…. Rome was building its first paved roads, the Great Wall of China still smelled new, and the Hellenistic-raiser Greeks wasted the last of the European Lions. I don't know much about them…(That was before I was born.)…I just know they lived in Greece and Macedonia and now they don't live at all.
It was a good time for lions in general, though. The Asian Lion still roamed through most of the Middle East and India killing people and stuff, and African Lions were most concerned with being irritated by hyenas.
North Africa was forested at the time and populated with lion food AND lions. The Subspecies that lived there was the type species for all lions, the Barbary Lion ( Panthera leo leo ). Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, on the southern tip of the continent, the Cape Lion ( Panthera leo melanochaitus), was also doing fine.
Due to the cooler winters at the ends of the continent, both subspecies had developed heavier bodies and thicker manes. Big males of either type could weigh 500lbs and reach ten feet in length. The mane would often extend to the middle of the back, and in the Cape subspecies it was black with a tawny fringe around the face. The tips of the ears were also black.
The passing of the European Lion left the later-to-come Roman Empire with a bit of a problem…they needed someone to feed the Christians to, and, since they were busy logging in North Africa anyway, the Barbary got the job. They took hundreds of the lions on a one way trip to Italy. (I might point out here, by the way, that we Christians are still around…and North Africa is a desert…)
To make a long story short, when the desert started to spread, the lion food couldn't find anything to eat and so the Barbarys' territory just kept shrinking…(I'm sure the Romans didn't help much either.)
In recent historic times Barbary Lions had a range that extended from Tripoli through Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. It was in 1700 that the last lion in the Pashalik of Tripoli was killed. The last Tunisian Lion and the last Algerian lion were both killed in 1891, at Babouch and Souk-Ahras, respectively. Some say they hung on for a decade or so longer in these countries. The last stronghold for the Barbary was the Atlas mountains in Morocco, where they lasted until the last one was killed in 1922 rendering the species extinct.
The Cape Lion didn't even make it that long. It wasn't the only subspecies living in South Africa, and its exact range is unclear. Its stronghold was Cape Province and around Capetown. The colonists had enough to worry about without having big, scary-looking lions eating their cows, so the outcome was predictable. The last Cape Lion seen in Cape Province was killed in 1858, but the last of the species was hunted down in Natal by one General Bisset in 1865.
The Asian Lion (Panthera leo persica) of the Bible was also almost lost during this time. They got to a low population of twenty animals, all in the Gir Forest of Northern India. Today there are between 300-350 left…an inbred shadow of a once-great cat.
…Did you get all of that? Good. Now…to our friend in the picture.
A couple of years ago, Dr. Hym Ebedes of the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute in South Africa was checking out a zoo in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia when he stumbled across eleven lions that fit the description of either the Cape or the Barbary Lions. They had the huge manes and the heavy bodies of either species. It turns out that the cats are descendants of a group kept by Emperor Haile Selassie at the royal palace in Addis before his regime was toppled by a 1974 coup. Selassie called his dynasty the "Lions of Ethiopia" and kept them around as symbols of power. With his overthrow, the zoo got the lions.
In addition, some animals were rescued from a sleazy traveling circus in Maputo, Mozambique. One of them was Akef, the lion you see here. Then some guy in Morocco casually mentioned that he thinks there are about 40 or so Barbary lions in zoos in his country.
So, right now, Akef, the Ethiopian lions, and several other lions scattered here and yonder around the globe are having DNA samples taken from them to be compared to museum specimens of Barbary and/or Cape lions. The lions that turn out to be the long-lost Cape or Barbary subspecies will, hopefully, be put into breeding programs for possible re-introduction into their home territories…or what's left of them anyway.
As for me…I’m skeptical. Any lion born in captivity, and the descendants thereof, could develop thick manes. They don't have to go dragging them through the brush and if the zoo is in a more northern climate the cooler temperatures would also be conducive to a heavier mane.
But, then again, stranger things have happened. A lady in India recently took a picture of a Forest Spotted Owlet in India, and they have been "extinct" since 1914. Scientific expeditions have been sent out through the years for the sole purpose of finding them and never found so much as a trace…yet…there it was…sitting on a limb…existing.