During the next two decades the lion population increased and expanded to most of its former range. Today there are between 130–150 lions that live in an area of 35,000km² between the Ugab River in the south to the Hoaureb River in the north. Lions slowly found their way back to the Skeleton Coast, and some even visited the coastline briefly. But the knowledge of the rich marine food-source along the coast was lost. The lions showed no interest in patrolling the beaches in search of seals, as they did during the 1980s.

It required a remarkable lioness and her descendants to make the breakthrough that eventually saw the return of the coastal lions nearly 35 years later. She was born north of Plamwag in 1998 and became the subject of an intensive study until her death in May 2014. Xpl-10, or “the Queen” as she became known in later years, dispersed first to the Hoanib River and then to the Hoaruseb River where she produced her first litter of two female cubs. When the cubs were two years old she led them to the mouth of the Hoaruseb and they began exploring the coastline (photo 1). During her rich and eventful life, the Queen^Xpl-10, produced five litters, managing to raise 7 lions to adulthood. Her daughters, in turn, had six litters and successfully raised an additional 11 cubs. The Queen^Xpl-10 exposed all her descendants to the ocean, and gradually they started exploring more of the coastal habitat. The first confirmed evidence of their utilising marine food resources came in 2002 when they fed on a Cape fur seal at the mouth of the Hoaruseb River. Several more isolated cases of their killing seals followed over the years. But it was only in 2017 that three young lionesses, the great-granddaughters of the Queen^Xpl-10, rediscovered the rich food resources that the coastline has to offer.

The young lionesses had a rocky start. Their mother died of natural causes when they were barely a year old, and they became known as the “Orphans”. Driven by hunger and desperation, the young lionesses found their way over the dunes and swam onto an island at a fresh-water spring near the coast. Here they started killing cormorants that roost on the island at night. This was their saving, and soon they became specialised in hunting a wide range of wetland birds, including flamingos and ducks. But it was the large numbers of resident Cape and White-breasted cormorants that provided them with a nutritious and reliable marine diet. The “Orphans” began following the large flocks of cormorants, and hunting them at night on the mud-flats and along the coastline. This brought them into contact with Cape fur seals that occasionally rest on the beaches. At first the lions scavenged seal carcasses that they found along the beaches, and then they expropriated seal carcasses from brown hyaenas. Early in 2018 the Orphans started killing seals themselves. Initially they took only juveniles of less than a year old, but with experience came confidence, and during the past few months the Orphans have killed several larger seals, including a few adult females.

After an absence of nearly 35 years the coastal lions of the Skeleton Coast are back in force. The legendary lioness, the Queen^Xpl-10, was the founder of a new era of lions that are suitably skilled and adapted for survival along the Skeleton Coast. It required all that time, and several generations, for the lions to regain the knowledge that was lost so quickly at the end of the 1980s. With the growing tourism industry in Namibia these lions have become National assets. We will now, hopefully, provide sufficient protection to ensure the long-term conservation of this iconic and uniquely adapted species – for it is not every day that you see a lion on a beach.

Philip Stander

Desert Lion Conservation                                                                   www.desertlion.info

Namibia