A swift and powerful lion that hunts by exploring its prey and then suddenly charging at it. Its magnificent mane looks like a crown, doesn't it? Could the king of the animals be eternal? It is said that lions are in danger of extinction.

There are currently about 20,000 lions in the world. Wild lions inhabit most parts of Africa and parts of the Middle East, and they are active in forests and grasslands. Listed as vulnerable (VU) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the lion population is still decreasing, putting them at risk of extinction.

The lion's habitat has been drastically reduced by humans. Currently, the lion's habitat is said to be only about 8% of what it was before habitat loss. It is said that the lion's habitat has been greatly reduced due to human land development and climate change. Efforts are underway to designate protected areas to protect lions, but for lions, which are highly social animals, divided protected areas can have a negative impact. Problems such as reduced breeding ability or decreased genetic diversity can occur.

Perhaps the only enemy of the lion, the king of animals and a predator in the wild, is humans. With the development of science and technology, the areas where humans can live are expanding, but wild animals are losing their living space. In addition to habitat loss, food is also decreasing, and the number of lions who can't find food to eat is increasing, ultimately leading to a decrease in population and the threat of extinction. When lions roam around looking for food and reach where humans live, humans feel threatened and kill the lions. From the lion's perspective, they are killed for trying to find food that was taken away from them by humans.

Of course, if a lion appears where I live, killing it might be the best course of action. I might become its prey. But besides such unavoidable cases of killing lions, there are those who actively hunt them.

Some people might think, 'How can humans hunt those scary lions?' But there are more humans hunting lions than you might think. Humans who hunt lions to trade their skins, teeth, and bones for economic gain are also one of the culprits who have driven lions to the brink of extinction.

Lions are easy to see at the zoo. However, there are cases where lions, who should live on vast grasslands, feel claustrophobic in narrow cages and escape from the zoo. In such cases, humans have only one choice: to kill them. In 2023, a lion named 'Sasuni' that had been living in a small cage at a tourist farm in Korea for 15 years was killed an hour after being released. The investigation revealed that although the facility was not illegal, the negligence of the farmer led to the lion 'Sasuni' being released into the grass 20 meters away from the farm after 15 years and it lost its life. The story of 'Sasuni' makes us wonder if it is right to use animals as a means of entertainment for humans.

The extinction of lions, a wild predator, will have a significant impact on the entire ecosystem. If lions disappear, the herbivore population will skyrocket, and vegetation will rapidly decrease. The extinction might be of one lion, but a greater, desperate consequence of disrupting the food chain and ecological balance might await.

Disney, which created the global animation 'The Lion King,' launched the 'Protect the Pride' campaign with the Lion Recovery Fund (LRF) to protect lions from the brink of extinction. In the 25 years between the release of 'The Lion King' and the launch of the 'Protect the Pride' project, half of Africa's lions have disappeared. Disney said that through this campaign, it will protect lion habitats, monitor their population, and strive to restore their numbers through donations. We hope that such attention and effort will continue to protect the king of animals.