Mount Kilimanjaro's lions face extinction at the spear point of Maasai cattle herders, warn conservation experts. Once common in rural Kenya, fewer than 150 lions now roam the eco-tourism haven in and around Amboseli National Park, just northwest of Tanzania's famous mountain. Since 2003, local cattle herders have killed 63 lions, often in retaliation for lost livestock, according to National Geographic Society conservationists. It's not just lions, but tigers, leopards and other big cats worldwide also face similar losses, according to National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence Derek Joubert. He says only about 20,000 lions remain in Africa, down from hundreds of thousands only four decades ago. "For a long time people weren't concerned about lions, but we are definitely seeing big declines," says Hollie Colahan of the Houston Zoo, who heads the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' efforts to save lion species. "Twenty years ago lions were everywhere in Africa, but not anymore." In order to head off more lion kills, the National Geographic Society has donated $150,000 to a program that pays herders for lost livestock, and it is asking the public for more funds. Simple education efforts aimed at protecting cattle can head off lion attacks, says Joubert, and tourism to view the elephants, lions and other wildlife can discourage lion hunting. Some local Maasai tribesmen have traditionally hunted lions as a marker of maturity, he adds, but those who see tourists as an economic boon have turned away from the hunts. "Of course, people have always killed lions, but there used to be far more lions, and far fewer people. Now each lion killed is a major loss to the dwindling population," says biologist Laurence Frank of Living with Lions, a conservation project based in Kenya. "Traditional livestock protection methods are very effective at keeping lions from eating cattle, but if people can poison or spear all the lions, why should they go to the effort of protecting cattle from them?" says Frank. "We are trying to make lions more valuable alive than dead," he adds, by e-mail. If lion killings continue at the current rate near Mount Kilimanjaro, the species will be wiped out from the nearby 2,200-square-mile reserve area within a few years, says Joubert. Hyenas and other predators that pose even more of a threat to people will flourish, he adds. "Lions are a top predator, and when we've lost those elsewhere, we see real problems in the ecosystem," says Colahan. Antelopes and other prey species that eat the grass cattle herders rely on for their livestock might boom in numbers, leading to more problems. "We want to see lions in the wild in Africa," she says.