WolfQuest

We all grew up learning that the lion is the king of the jungle. And now that we're not little any more, we know just how vulnerable they are. In fact, when exposed to man's devices, lions are extremely fragile.

The latest weapon being used against them is poison. As 60 Minutes first reported last March, African herders whose livestock and livelihood are threatened by lions are killing them in the most effective and economical way they can.

And overwhelmingly, that is by using a cheap American chemical called Furadan. It is marketed as a pesticide, to be used for protecting crops. But it's bought by many to kill animals. And that’s one reason why, conservationists say, Africa's lions are in trouble.

Correspondent Bob Simon took a journey through the bush in Kenya to find out what's going on. We learned that 20 years ago, there were some 200,000 lions in Africa. Today, there are 30,000 and the numbers are going down all the time.

Lions are being poisoned at a staggering rate in Kenya, and there's little chance cubs outside the wildlife reserves there will make it to adulthood.

Dr. Laurence Frank, of the University of California Berkeley, told Simon he believes that poison, combined with other threats, will make the lion in Africa extinct.

Frank has been following lions for the last 30 years, looking for ways to keep them alive. While 60 Minutes was there, Alayne Cotterill, his colleague, needed to put a new collar on a lioness named Mara. She darted her and put her to sleep.

Can Kenya ban carbofuran?

Despite two years of reports the PCPB had not responded to the concerns raised by conservationists. Even after CBS News aired a documentary on 60 minutes, the response from Kenyan authorities had been aggressively defending the pesticide Furadan (carbofuran) which was alleged to be responsible for most of the lion deaths in Kenya, bringing the country’s population to the brink of extinction.

The makers of Furadan, FMC responded by publicly announcing that they were withdrawing the product from the Kenyan and East African shelves. We found out later that this was only partially implemented.

Wildlife Direct and friends made direct contact with a number of government officials to raise awareness. This led to the creation of a Task Force to address the problem. The task force is being chaired by the PCPB, finally the agency is talking to us, and hopefully listening. Also present was the agrochemical Association of Kenya, the Agriculture Ministry, the National Environment ministry, the Kenya Wildlife Service and WWF. The owner of Juanco, the company that distributes this deadly chemical is also involved in the meeting.