What was the importance of the Barbary lion?

Answer 1

The importance of the Barbary lion was the fact that it showed a balanced ecosystem in North Africa. A super-predator like a lion is would get rid of weak and sick prey animals, like gazelle, antelope etc.., in the wild keeping these animal populations healthy and strong for their future. For example let's say a gazelle is born with a weak gene set making it prone to say cancer of the liver. This animal is sick and cannot run very fast because of it and a lion would surely cull it out. Instead of that scenario the gazelle lives and gives birth to many baby gazelle with the same genetic defect. In time the whole gazelle population could potentially be weakened by cancer of the liver and die off in say a drought because food and water are scarce that year.

Man took over the lion's habitat for his own benefit and growth and acted as the super-predator with guns and bullets, mainly out of fear I believe, because if it was out of reason, keeping wild prey population healthy would have been the proper goal. Big cats and humans don't cohabit easily because who wants to get eaten by a lion entering through the sliding glass door, right? What can we do to mitigate the situation and give room back to the big cat of north Africa? Animal reserves seem to be a possible answer for now. Humans all over the world for many animals will have to stop growing their own population before depleting the natural habitats and agree to leave virgin reserves for our descendants to see what the world has to offer. We are entering the quality versus quantity debate .... It will take Human willingness to share the environment with animals to reach a sustainable balance for our future and theirs.