Viewing / tourism (2010s band)
TicketedSafari, hide, cage-dive or parade tickets in the 2010s often sat in the tens to hundreds of USD per person -- a dated band, not a live quote.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Speed73
Intelligence79
Range40
Resilience27
Cultural impact97
Ecological role79
LessMore
Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Why is the lion scored below the tiger on ecological role but above on culture?
Lions structure some savanna systems; elephants and wolves outrank both as engineers or keystones in this atlas. Culture is flags, churches and film -- lions win that axis. Scores stay relative across 24 types.
What is different about Gir lions?
Asiatic lions are a single-forest population with a distinctive belly fold and a thinner mane. A disease or fire there is a subspecies event.
Did Cecil change hunting policy?
The 2015 Hwange killing spiked petitions and some airline trophy bans. Zimbabwe and US Fish and Wildlife arguments did not end trophy hunting as a system.
Are lions recovering like some wolves?
No. Most African populations are still in long decline outside a few well-funded parks. VU is not a rebound band.
What did Born Free fix in the public mind?
Elsa the lioness (1960 book, 1966 film) made rehabilitation a children story. Field lion work is pride demography and conflict, not a single tame cat.
Who runs the Serengeti numbers?
The Serengeti Lion Project (Packer and successors) produced the long pride dataset that textbooks still mine.
IUCN: Vulnerable
Money around the lion is regional even when the brand is global.
Figures are dated educational bands -- not live quotes and not a buying guide.
Encounter bands
Conflict / livestock loss
Local & episodicPredation and crop-raid compensation schemes (US, Kenya, India) published per-head bands that changed with election cycles.
Fishery / take value
CommodityWhere the type is a catch (tuna, salmon, fugu), 2000s-2020s ex-vessel or auction bands were the political number -- not a supermarket tag.
Captive / zoo husbandry
InstitutionalAnnual keep for a large mammal or a specialist bird in AZA/EAZA reports ran to five or six figures USD in the 2010s.
Enforcement / reserve ops
PublicRanger, observer and census costs are socialised; they do not appear on a viewing ticket.
Regions
North America
ESA listings, Parks Canada, Alaska runs and Churchill buggies are the English-language field the localLens keeps returning to.
United Kingdom and Ireland
RSPB, NatureScot, reintroductions and a dense NGO press shape how this atlas type is taught in British English.
European Union / wider Europe
Habitats Directive, IWC delegations and returning wolves sit beside UK practice without being identical.
Range-state core
The biological centre of the lion -- often not English-speaking -- still writes the Red List.
Australia and New Zealand
DOC, Phillip Island, Taiaroa Head and kakapo-style ICU projects are the southern English conservation dialect.
Global trade desks
CITES, ICCAT, IWC and auction houses price the animal whether or not a local language has a word for it.
Key range numbers
73Atlas speed
27Atlas resilience
97Atlas cultural impact
79Atlas ecological role
Field programmes
TANAPA / SANParks / ZimParks
Core savanna lion estates.
Serengeti Lion Project
Demography instrument.
Gujarat Forest Department
Gir relic management.
Lion Guardians / Ewaso
Maasai-led conflict work.
Born Free Foundation
The film name as an NGO.
US FWS / IUCN Cat SG
Listing and Red List cards.
Keep exploring
More in Wildlife
🐅
Tiger
Asia largest cat — subspecies maps, 1973 Project Tiger, and roughly 4,000 remaining wild animals still frame a century of recovery arithmetic.
Overall 62 🐘African bush elephant
The atlas type is the bush elephant -- an ecosystem engineer whose ivory ban (1989) and split from forest elephants still structure African conservation.
Overall 61 🐺Gray wolf
A Holarctic pack hunter whose 1995 Yellowstone return and older Leopold ethics still structure predator politics.
Overall 78 🐼Giant panda
A bamboo specialist whose WWF logo, Wolong quake and 2016 IUCN downlist from EN to VU made a recovery into a brand.
Overall 41 🐻Polar bear
A marine bear whose seal-and-ice budget made Churchill, Knut and climate models into one public animal.
Overall 56 🦍Gorilla
The atlas type is the western gorilla -- a knuckle-walking ape whose Fossey-era mountain cousins and Koko lab fame split one public name.
Overall 45 🐋Blue whale
The largest animal whose 1966 IWC protection, 1982 moratorium and still-thin Antarctic recovery define a hunted giant.
Overall 65