A 2022 study that set out to reconstruct a realistic baseline estimated that around 1970 the continent held somewhere between roughly 83,000 and 101,000 lions, a more careful figure than older guesses of 200,000. Set against today’s estimates of about 20,000 to 25,000, that works out to a decline of around 72 to 77 per cent over about fifty years, or close to three-quarters. It is worth being honest that these are estimates. Counting lions across vast, remote and often unstable landscapes is difficult, and different methods give different totals. What is not in doubt is the direction and the rough scale of the change. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the lion as Vulnerable, and by most reckonings the majority of its populations are still shrinking.