Ten lions were found dead in a suspected poison plot in a famed East African reserve, triggering an international investigation. The grim discovery was made Friday inside the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO-protected wildlife reserve in the Ndutu region of Tanzania. Initial findings suggest the lions died after “ingesting poison,” the wildlife reserve said in a statement. Officials have launched an investigation to trace the source of the poison and identify those responsible. The reserve, home to 25,000 large animals and the world’s densest lion population, has long been a pressure cooker, with tensions erupting between the local nomadic community and government authorities. As the number of people living in Ngorongoro has ballooned from 8,000 in 1959 to more than 100,000 today, the Tanzanian government has argued that population growth is threatening the local wildlife. The government launched an eviction program in 2022 that has led to clashes that sometimes turned deadly. Conservation experts classify lions as globally vulnerable, as they suffer from habitat loss, declining prey, and conflict with humans.
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