The sedated, blindfolded lions lay in the dirt, unwitting passengers about to embark on a 30-hour, 4,000-km journey by truck and plane from South Africa to Rwanda, whose lion population was wiped out following the country's 1994 genocide.
Then conservationists hoisted the limp bodies into crates, grasping big paws, thick tails and even the imposing heads of animals that earlier pounced on an antelope carcass used as bait to bring them closer to a veterinarian with a tranquiliser gun.
The operation this week to move seven South African lions to Rwanda in east-central Africa is an upbeat tale in an otherwise challenging picture for wildlife on the continent, where poaching has surged and human encroachment is shrinking habitats. Lions are designated as vulnerable on an international "red list" of species facing threats.
By some estimates, there are fewer than 20,000 lions in the wild, a drop of about 40 percent in the past two decades. "There's just no room for them and they're being pressurized and pressurized," said Dr. Mike Toft, a wildlife veterinarian who darted five female lions Monday at the Phinda Private Game Reserve in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province.
An Associated Press writer and photographer watched as crane operators loaded the lion crates onto a truck that arrived with two male lions from nearby Tembe Elephant Park. The vehicle then drove to Johannesburg for a charter flight to Rwanda.
The lions' new home is Akagera National Park, where cattle herders poisoned Rwanda's last lions about 15 years ago after the park was left unmanaged in the genocide's wake. Returning refugees took over much of the park, reducing its size by more than half to 1,122 square kilometers in 1997, according to African Parks, a Johannesburg-based group that manages Akagera and other national wildlife parks in Africa.
The non-profit group organised the lion transfer to Rwanda, which hopes to boost a wildlife tourism industry that focuses on mountain gorillas. African Parks tried in vain to secure lions from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania that are genetically closer to Rwanda's old lions.
At Phinda, the five lionesses bound for Rwanda were unexpectedly joined in their holding pen by three other lions that burrowed their way inside. Toft had to dart all eight before workers could enter to fasten satellite tracking collars on the five lions earmarked for travel to Rwanda.
The sedated lions looked vulnerable, jarring with the popular notion of lions as animal royalty. They were blindfolded with cloth and park staff and others moved quietly and spoke softly to reduce the chance of any lion awakening.
This month, the International Union for Conservation of Nature noted successful lion conservation in southern Africa, but said lions in West Africa are critically endangered and that rapid population declines have also been recorded in East Africa. A national park in India also has lions.
