Barbary Lion - Relationship With Humans

Relationship With Humans

The Romans used Barbary lions in the Coliseum to battle with Gladiators. In the Middle Ages, the lions kept in the menagerie at the Tower of London were Barbary lions, as shown by DNA testing on the two well-preserved skulls excavated at the Tower in 1937. The skulls have been radiocarbon dated to 1280-1385 AD and 1420-1480 AD. Dr Nobuyuki Yamaguchi of the Wildlife Conservation Unit at the University of Oxford said the growth of civilizations along the Nile and in Sinai Peninsula by the beginning of the second millennium BC stopped genetic flow by isolating lion populations. Desertification also prevented the Barbary lions from mixing with lions located further south in the continent. The lion survived in the wild in northwestern Africa in what is now current day Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco until about 1922.

In the 19th century and the early 20th century Barbary lions were often kept in hotels and circus menageries. The lions in the Tower of London were transferred to more humane conditions at the London Zoo in 1835, on the orders of the Duke of Wellington. One famous purebred Barbary lion named "Sultan" lived in the London Zoo in 1896.

Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia kept Barbary lions at his court.