Lion cubs. Our safari encountered a lioness with 3 cubs eating a wildebeest kill, in the Ndutu Lake area, Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), in the southern Serengeti plains ecosystem, in Ngorongoro District, Arusha Region, Tanzania, East Africa. The lion (Panthera leo) is a large cat native to Africa and India. A lion's pride contains a few adult males, related females, and cubs. Groups of female lions usually hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates, plus scavenge opportunistically. The IUCN Red List indicates lions as Vulnerable since 1996 because populations in Africa have declined by 43% since the early 1990s. Habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes for concern. Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) hosts the Great Migration — the world's most massive land animal migration (in terms of total body weight). This annual circuit of millions of wildebeest, zebras, gazelles, etc. continues from the NCA clockwise through Serengeti National Park to the northwest plus Kenya's Maasai Mara game reserve. The Serengeti Plains and Ecosystem span the Mara and Arusha Regions of Tanzania. Based on fossil evidence found at the Olduvai Gorge, various hominid species have occupied the NCA for 3 million years. Pastoral tribes replaced hunter-gatherer groups from 2,000 years ago through the 1700s. By the 1800s, the earlier groups were displaced by the Maasai — fearsome warriors and cattle rustlers from what is now South Sudan. In 1928, hunting was prohibited on all land within the crater rim, except the former Siedentopf farms. From 1948–2024, the native pastoralists have been increasingly disenfranchised and forcibly displaced by park authorities. UNESCO honors the NCA as a World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve.
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