We are very careful that none of our work is harmful to the lions. Much of our work is designed to directly help them such as the removal of snares from lions. We use radio collars on some lions, but radio collars allow us to track the lions and keep close tabs on population numbers so we can be ready to act if numbers go down. Radio collars certainly helped in 1994 in detecting the emergence and spread of canine distemper in the lion population when one-third of the lions in the Serengeti died from this devastating disease. The outbreak of canine distemper led to the creation of Project Lifelion which helps protect lions both from canine distemper and rabies.
Females can have up to four cubs at a time although litters of two or three are more common.
Cubs are usually weaned by the age of 8 months. The length of time a male is resident with a pride varies but averages about 2 years. It is common to see from one to seven males resident with a pride at any given time. If resident males are defeated by new males, they leave the pride and typically never return. Females have to defend their pride range against other females approximately every four days.