Nature

The Desert Lions

The world's most extraordinary population of lions lives in the Namib Desert of Africa's wild and forbidding Skeleton Coast. Philip Stander, a Namibian carnivore specialist, first spotted these desert lions in the mid-1980s, watching in disbelief as a lioness killed a fur seal in the waves and dragged it five miles inland to feed her cubs. Before he had a chance to study them further, they disappeared, and Stander became obsessed with their fate and their story. Twenty years later, the lions reappeared, giving him a second chance to unravel their secrets.