Lions are disappearing rapidly in the wild. Twenty years ago there were around 200,000 living in Africa, because of habitat alteration, hunting and other human related interference, the numbers have crashed from over 100 000, in the early 1990's to around only 23,000 today.

In the wild, lions live for around 12–15 years, while in captivity they can live over 20 years.

Lions are the only cats that live in large family groups; each pride differs in size and formation but usually has 1 or 2 dominant adult males. When the male cubs reach the age of 2 to 3 years they are driven out of the pride. Females are usually sisters and/or cousins that have grown up together, when the pride has cubs the females form a crèche, where cubs will suckle from any lactating female.

When the pride hunts they work together to ambush their prey, it is usually the females who do all the hunting, with the males only taking part when their extra weight and power is needed to bring down a larger prey item, such as a buffalo. Their diet consists of wildebeest, buffalo, zebra, antelope, giraffe, warthogs and other African animals. Once the prey is caught, one of the lions bites down on the throat or muzzle to suffocate its prey, this is sometimes referred to as the "Kiss of Death"

A lion can run for short distances at 50 miles per hour and leap as far as 36 feet, despite this, the majority of hunts will be unsuccessful, lions therefore do not hesitate to drive other predators away from their catch.