The lion faces extinction in Africa

LION populations have fallen almost 90% over the past 20 years and the animal is close to extinction in Africa, a wildlife expert has warned.

There are now only 23,000 left compared with an estimated 200,000 in the early 1980s, according to Laurence Frank, a wildlife biologist from the University of California.

Interviewed in New Scientist magazine, Dr Frank said: “It’s not just lions. Populations of all African predators are plummeting.”