In the vast golden savannahs of Murchison Falls, a lion pride stirs at dusk, scanning the horizon, unaware that their kind is vanishing. Across Uganda’s national parks, the population of Panthera leo has collapsed to its lowest recorded level in modern history, and new official data released by the government paints a picture that scientists and conservationists describe as nothing short of a crisis.
Uganda’s Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife, and Antiquities (MTWA) published its Statistical Abstract 2025 in April 2026, a landmark annual report that tracks the nation’s tourism and wildlife performance. Buried within the conservation chapter is a number that has alarmed wildlife experts: Uganda now hosts only 291 lions across all its national parks and wildlife reserves. That figure represents a decline of over 40% since 2011, when the population stood at 493.
“The lion population is locked in a continuous downward trajectory requiring immediate intervention,” the Statistical Abstract states plainly, adding that proposals are underway for a recovery programme under Uganda’s national large carnivore strategy.
The warning is not new, but the scale of the collapse, now officially confirmed in government data, lends fresh urgency to what many conservationists have long described as a looming extinction event within Uganda’s borders.
A Species Under Siege Park by Park
Perhaps most striking in the government’s findings is not just the overall decline, but the extreme geographic concentration of Uganda’s remaining lions. According to the MTWA Statistical Abstract 2025, a staggering 80% of all lions, 240 individuals, are found in a single park: Murchison Falls National Park. Queen Elizabeth National Park, historically Uganda’s most celebrated lion destination, is home to only 40 lions (roughly 14% of the total), while Kidepo Valley National Park in the remote northeast harbours just 12 a mere 4% of the national population.
This concentration is both a conservation concern and a structural vulnerability. A single disease outbreak, a poaching surge, or a natural disaster in Murchison Falls could devastate what little remains of Uganda’s lion population. The Statistical Abstract explicitly flags this: “The sharp drop in lion numbers and their high concentration in one park underscores the need for targeted conservation strategies in lesser-populated parks.”
These figures are corroborated by independent scientific research. A landmark peer-reviewed study published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation in late 2024 the first comprehensive population estimate of Uganda’s large carnivores in nearly two decades confirmed that lion populations in Queen Elizabeth and Kidepo Valley National Parks were critically low, with fewer than 40 and 20 individuals remaining respectively. The study, led by Dr. Alexander Braczkowski of Griffith University in Australia, was conducted across six major protected areas using advanced spatial capture-recapture methods, involving more than 100 conservation stakeholders including lodge guides, rangers, trophy hunters, and university students.
In December 2025, the situation at Queen Elizabeth took a further blow. Four lions were poisoned in Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area in what UWA described as retaliatory killings by communities protecting livestock.
From 600 to 291: A Quarter-Century of Loss
The story of Uganda’s lions is one of long, steady decline punctuated by moments of acute crisis. Lion populations have dropped from 600 individuals in 2000 to around 300 today. At the time of a 2009 Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Uganda Wildlife Authority national census, the population had already fallen to 400 a 33% drop in under a decade. Murchison Falls National Park had the biggest decline from about 320 to 130 within that period, largely attributed to accidental snaring in traps set for antelopes and conflict with communities neighbouring the park.
The most recent official data from the MTWA Statistical Abstract records a decline from 314 to 291 between the 2021–2022 and 2023–2025 census periods, a further loss of 23 lions in just three years.
Kidepo Valley National Park, meanwhile, has suffered what the Daily Monitor described as one of the most severe single-park collapses. Kidepo Valley National Park recorded the sharpest lion decline, with only 12 lions left, representing a 90.91% drop in 13 years.
At Queen Elizabeth, the decline spans even further back. The Greater Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area has seen a 30% reduction in lions since the 1990s, with concerns about their long-term viability. The famous Ishasha sector of the park, known worldwide for its tree-climbing lions, one of only two such populations on Earth has seen its density fall from 6 lions per 100 km² to just 4 per 100 km² over a decade, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.
What is Killing Uganda’s Lions?
The drivers behind this collapse are well-documented. The MTWA Statistical Abstract 2025 identifies declining wildlife numbers as a consequence of “urgent need for targeted conservation interventions,” while independent scientific literature and the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s own strategic plans point to four principal threats:
Retaliatory Poisoning and Human-Wildlife Conflict
The most immediate and lethal threat to Uganda’s lions is human-carnivore conflict. When lions prey on livestock particularly cattle communities neighbouring protected areas frequently respond with retaliatory killings, often by lacing carcasses with carbofuran, a toxic pesticide. The two main threats to lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park are snaring and conflict with pastoralists following predation of livestock or injury to humans. The majority of livestock keepers do not attend to their animals, especially at night, which leaves them susceptible to lion predation. This then triggers the poisoning of cattle carcasses killed by lions, often killing scavengers, including hyenas and vultures alongside the original predators.
A 2024 study in Frontiers in Conservation Science noted that lions living in unfenced protected areas that kill livestock are often killed in retaliation by methods such as the poisoning of livestock carcasses, and the use of the pesticide carbofuran against lions and other carnivores is particularly common, both pre-emptively and in reaction to suspected or determined depredation.
Wire Snare Poaching
While snares are typically set to trap antelope and other bushmeat species, lions frequently fall victim to them incidentally. WCS researchers rescued three lions entangled in wire snares in a single five-month period in 2013 in Queen Elizabeth National Park. Beyond direct injury, snaring depletes the wild prey base that lions depend on, forcing them increasingly toward livestock — and into conflict with communities.
Habitat Loss and Encroachment
Uganda’s human population continues to grow rapidly, placing escalating pressure on the land bordering protected areas. Expanding human settlements, agricultural encroachment, and infrastructure development are major pressures reducing the ecological space available for wildlife, disrupting animal movement and limiting access to food and breeding areas. Lions, which depend on healthy prey populations and expansive territories, are particularly vulnerable to such disruptions.
The threat of oil exploration adds another dimension in Murchison Falls, Uganda’s last significant lion stronghold, where ongoing drilling activities risk further disturbance to lion populations and their prey base.
Inbreeding and Skewed Sex Ratios
As populations shrink and become isolated, genetic health deteriorates. Uganda’s Strategic Action Plan for Large Carnivore Conservation (2024–2034), launched in February 2025, notes that lion populations have been particularly affected by factors such as inbreeding, which has led to skewed sex ratios and increased mortality rates.
An Ecosystem Out of Balance
The disappearance of lions is not merely a loss of a charismatic species — it is an ecological alarm signal. As apex predators, lions regulate prey populations, keep herbivore numbers in check, and maintain the health of grassland ecosystems. Their decline is already producing measurable secondary effects.
Dr. Braczkowski’s landmark 2024 study found that while lions are collapsing, spotted hyena populations appear to be faring well, with the Murchison Falls National Park population holding Africa’s largest density recorded to date at 45 individuals per 100 km². This trophic imbalance, where the dominant predator’s decline allows subordinate species to thrive unchecked, signals deeper ecosystem disruption. “We could be seeing a release in hyena numbers as populations of lions decline,” Dr. Braczkowski noted.
The same study also found that Murchison Falls records some of Africa’s highest leopard densities at 14 individuals per 100 km², the highest recorded to date in Africa.
Tourism at Stake: Each Lion Worth Thousands
Beyond ecology, the economic stakes are enormous. The MTWA Statistical Abstract 2025 reveals that Uganda’s tourism industry earned a record US$ 1.62 billion in 2025, contributing 5.9% to national GDP and supporting over 876,512 jobs. Lions are central to that success. After mountain gorillas, lions are the most sought-after species by tourists visiting Uganda. A WCS assessment in 2006 showed that each lion in Queen Elizabeth National Park generated about $13,500 USD per year for the national economy.
More recent estimates place that figure even higher. A single lion is worth approximately $14,000 in tourism revenue, according to Minister of Tourism Col. (Rtd.) Tom Butime, who presided over the launch of the Strategic Action Plan for Large Carnivore Conservation in February 2025. The Minister warned that “large carnivores are a cornerstone of Uganda’s tourism industry,” adding that their decline would have measurable consequences for the entire sector.
The Daily Monitor echoed this concern, noting that tourism could also be affected if declines in iconic species persist. Elephants and lions are among the most sought-after attractions in the country’s national parks, and their reduction may weaken Uganda’s competitive edge as a wildlife destination.
The Response: A 10-Year Battle Plan
The Ugandan government and its partners are not standing still. In February 2025, the Uganda Wildlife Authority, in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities and the Wildlife Conservation Society, launched the Strategic Action Plan for Large Carnivore Conservation in Uganda (2024–2034), marking a significant step toward protecting lions, leopards, wild dogs, and other iconic carnivore species.
The plan’s central ambition is bold: to increase large carnivore populations by 30% by 2034, focusing on reducing poaching rates, improving habitat quality, fostering coexistence with local communities, enhancing evidence-based decision-making, and strengthening coordination among conservation stakeholders.
Simon Nampindo, WCS Uganda Country Director, described the plan as “the roadmap for investments toward the recovery of large carnivores,” setting milestones and targets for all players in the ecosystem to “collaborate, coordinate and contribute.” The plan also targets community coexistence recognising that lions cannot be saved without the buy-in of the farmers and herders who live alongside them.
The Uganda Carnivore Program (UCP) at Queen Elizabeth has been pioneering this approach since 2015, operating an experiential lion tourism programme whose revenues are funnelled directly into compensation for communities that lose livestock to predation. The program has, to date, generated 1.013 billion UGX for UWA, and educated 896 local people and 5,165 tourists about large carnivore conservation challenges. There are early indications of impact: a 16% reduction in lion deaths has been observed since financial compensation was introduced, though researchers caution that further data is needed to confirm the correlation.
At the same time, technology is being deployed. Dr. Braczkowski’s research team has proposed that AI be used to automate the identification of individual lions through their unique whisker-spot patterns in camera trap images, dramatically reducing the time between data collection and conservation decision-making. Community monitoring training lodge guides, rangers, and local residents to collect and report wildlife data has proven effective and scalable.
A Species at a Crossroads
The MTWA Statistical Abstract 2025 is careful, methodical, and statistical in its language. But even within its tables and percentages, the urgency bleeds through. A species that numbered 493 in 2011 now stands at 291. A park, Kidepo Valley, that once harboured a viable pride now holds only a dozen survivors. An iconic behaviour, the tree-climbing lions of Ishasha, is sustained by a population of fewer than 35 individuals clinging to a narrow corridor between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“The lion population is locked in a continuous downward trajectory requiring immediate intervention,” the Statistical Abstract states. “There are efforts proposed for the recovery of the species in Uganda’s large carnivore strategy.”
Whether those efforts arrive in time is the defining conservation question of Uganda’s wildlife story. The data has been collected, the plan has been written, and the alarm has been sounded. What remains is the will and the resources to act before the king of Uganda’s savannahs becomes a memory.
