This book places lion conservation and the relationship between people and lions both in historical context and in the context of the contemporary politics of conservation in Africa. The killing of Cecil the Lion in July 2015 brought such issues to the public’s attention. Were lions threatened in the wild and what was the best form of conservation? How best can lions be saved from extinction in the wild in Africa amid rural poverty, precarious livelihoods for local communities and an expanding human population? This book traces man’s relationship with lions through history, from hominids, to the Romans, through colonial occupation and independence, to the present day. It concludes with an examination of the current crisis of conservation and the conflict between Western animal welfare concepts and sustainable development, thrown into sharp focus by the killing of Cecil the lion. Through this historical account, Keith Somerville provides a coherent, evidence-based assessment of current human-lion relations, providing context to the present situation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental and African history, wildlife conservation, environmental management and political ecology, as well as the general reader.

The illegal killing of Cecil – a famous and magnificent black-maned Zimbabwean lion – by an American big-game hunter in 2015 sparked international outrage. More significantly, it drew the world's attention to the devastating plight of Africa's lions. A century ago, there were more than 200,000 wild lions living in Africa. Today, with that population reduced by more than 90 per cent, many experts believe that without effective conservation plans, Africa's remaining wild lions could be completely wiped out by the mid-half of this century. When the Last Lion Roars explores the historic rise and fall of the lion as a global species, and examines the reasons behind its catastrophic decline. Interwoven with vivid personal encounters of Africa's last lions, Sara Evans questions what is being done to reverse (or at least stem) this population collapse, and she considers the importance of human responsibility in this decline and, more crucially, in their conservation. From the Lion Guardians in Kenya to the Living Walls of Tanzania, and the Hwange Lion Research Project in Zimbabwe, Sara meets both lions and their champions, people who are fighting to bring this iconic species back from the brink of extinction.

The Indian Diary of Vera Luboshinsky narrates life at the Indian princely court of Bhopal, during the 1940s. Vera was the daughter of Professor M. J. Herzenstein, a member of the State Duma in pre-revolutionary Russia, and married to Count Mark Luboshinsky. After the Bolshevik revolution, they emigrated to Czechoslovakia where they met Hamidullah Khan, Nawab of Bhopal, an important political figure during the last decades of the British Empire and India's fight for independence. Impressed by Mark Luboshinsky's managerial abilities, the Nawab invited him to come to India to manage his estates. The couple spent seven years in India (winter 1938 - winter 1945). They stayed in and around Bhopal taking part in palace business or travelling across India accompanying the Nawab's family on long journeys. The Diary is a unique and completely unknown text to the Anglophone world: a rich primary source for historians of India's princely states, providing an interesting and uncommon depiction of the Nawab, his family, acquaintances, associates, and more generally, the life of Indians and foreigners in India during World War II. With literary flair, Vera describes not only her life in India, but also her intimate relationship with the Begum and British residents of Bhopal as well as meetings with well-known people like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Fatima Jinnah, or Anandamayi Ma, and Paul Brunton. Importantly, the Diary also offers an extremely rare Eastern European female voice in late colonial India: a voice that both submits to and transgresses the Orientalist moods of its time.

This book explores the fascinating and complex lives of the honey badger, the African jackals (black-backed and side-striped), African golden wolves, and Eurasian golden jackals. In recent years, interest in these creatures has grown exponentially, through wildlife documentaries and media clips showing the aggressive, fearless, and tenacious behaviour of the honey badger, with jackals often presented in a supporting role. Written by renowned journalist and educator Keith Somerville, this accessible volume includes historical narratives, folklore, and contemporary accounts of human–wildlife relationships and conflicts. It traces the evolution of the species; their foraging and diet; the development of their relationships with humans; and their commensal, kleptocratic, and symbiotic relationships with other carnivores, raptors and birds. It also charts the recent expansion in European jackal numbers and ranges, now including as far west as the Netherlands and as far north as Finland. Blending historical observations by non-scientists, colonial officials, administrators, and early conservationists with contemporary scientific accounts, it presents a new multidisciplinary approach that will interest researchers, scientists, and students in wildlife conservation, human–wildlife relations, zoology, biology, and environmental science.

Humans and Hyenas examines the origins and development of the relationship between the two to present an accurate and realistic picture of the hyena and its interactions with people. The hyena is one of the most maligned, misrepresented and defamed mammals. It is still, despite decades of research-led knowledge, seen as a skulking, cowardly scavenger rather than a successful hunter with complex family and communal systems. Hyenas are portrayed as sex-shifting deviants, grave robbers and attackers of children in everything from African folk tales through Greek and Roman accounts of animal life, to Disney’s The Lion King depicting hyenas with a lack of respect and disgust, despite the reality of their behaviour and social structures. Combining the personal, in-depth mining of scientific papers about the three main species and historical accounts, Keith Somerville delves into our relationship with hyenas from the earliest records from millennia ago, through the accounts by colonisers, to contemporary coexistence, where hyenas and humans are forced into ever closer proximity due to shrinking habitats and loss of prey. Are hyenas fated to retain their bad image or can their amazing ability to adapt to humans more successfully than lions and other predators lead to a shift in perspective? This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in the environmental sciences, conservation biology, and wildlife and conservation issues.