It is important for conservation managers to understand
how lion population dynamics respond to these various
forms of anthropogenic mortality. Here we report our findings for two small populations of lions occurring only 10
km apart, one exposed to legal hunting as a form of population
control (in a fenced reserve) and the other to illegal
persecution (in a largely unfenced reserve). Taking prey
availability into account we assess the mean pride size,
number of adult females per pride, cub survival rate, and
population growth rate, size and density in the two reserves.
We then consider the relative influence of different types
of human-induced mortalities on each population.