Watch VIDEO: New footage of the first lion seen in Gabon in 20 years

Global wild cat conservation organisation, Panthera, recently issued a press release on the first video footage of a lion taken in Gabon in 20 years.

The finding was monumental, indicating lions are making a comeback in a region where the species was considered to be ‘locally extinct’.

This week, they obtained more and higher quality footage of this male lion.

Dr. Phil Henschel, Lion Program Survey Coordinator for Panthera, who is working on the study, told Mail & Guardian Africa that "the new footage was taken in exactly the same forest patch where he was first discovered in mid-January."

He said, they "have filmed him on six separate occasions in this area now, over the course of about two months. It is always the same male, and he seems to have taken up residency in the area – at least for now; what a young male his age ultimately seeks are females. So far we still have no indication of other lions being present in the area, yet our wider network of camera traps installed around the area this male uses should detect any other lions if they are there.”

The footage was taken through a chimpanzee study in Batéké Plateau National Park led by Panthera’s partners, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology's Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee and The Aspinall Foundation.

Watch video below:

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