Lions finally to be added to endangered species list after anger over Cecil the Lion

The death of Cecil the Lion at the hands of a Minnesota dentist was one of the big stories on 2015. Five months later, the U.S. government is finally going to add the Lions of central and West After to the endangered species list.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to announce later today that the lions will be protected under the Endangered Species Act. It will make it difficult for hunters to take back lion trophies to the U.S. The trophies will be “generally prohibited,” although there are very strict rules for anyone who wants to take a lion trophy into the U.S.

Lions in India that belong to the same subspecies will also be protected, reports The Washington Post.

This has been a long time coming and it’s surprising that it didn’t come until after the Cecil the Lion case. The International Fund for Animal Welfare and the Humane Society International first requested that the lions be protected five years ago. Dr. Hans Bauer of the Oxford Wildlife Conservation Research Unit told the NY Times that there are only around 900 of the lions in central and West Africa and 500 in India.

LionAlert.org estimates that there are just between 32,000 and 34,000 lions left in the wild in Africa.

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