see that they can be useful. Lions keep down the numbers of crop-munching animals, like bush pigs, which is important in Africa, where many families grow their own food. What’s more, lions make money. Lots and lots of it.
Millions of tourists visit Africa every year to see big, exciting animals like lions. A single male lion brings about $500,000 worth of tourist money into its country in its lifetime, and Kenya’s 2,000 lions bring $30 million into their country every year.
The problem is that the people who make money from lions, such as those in the hotel and airline industries, are not the people who have to pay for living with them. Keeping safe from lions by building fences, carrying flashlights, and using tags and cell phones costs money — money that people who live on farms and in villages simply don’t have. For the people who have to live with lions, who sometimes lose their lives and loved ones to them, killing lions is the cheapest way to stay safe.
So what can we do to help save lions? One way is to make sure that some of that tourist money gets to the farmers and cattle herders who live with lions, so they can pay for fences, strong houses, lights, and all the other things that keep them safe from lion attacks. Another way is for people like you and me, all over the world, to give some of our money to the conservation projects that are working to help people live with lions, in hope and pride, not fear.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2013 by Nicola Davies
Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Annabel Wright
Cover photographs: copyright © 2014 by Anup Shah/Photodisc/Getty Images (lion); copyright © 2014 by Graeme Purdy/Vetta/Getty Images (silhouette)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First U.S. electronic edition 2014
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2013943082
ISBN 978-0-7636-6620-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7636-7022-1 (electronic)
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Learning to Kill: Stories