This shit really makes me sad. Wild cats are the most awesome of creatures

The African lion (Panthera leo leo) faces the threat of extinction by the year 2050, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe warned today. The sobering news came as part of the agency's announcement that it has officially proposed that African lions receive much-needed protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The decision to list the big cats as threatened—one level below endangered—would allow the U.S. government to provide some level of training and assistance for on-the-ground conservation efforts and restrict the sale of lion parts or hunting trophies into the country or across state lines.
The total population of lions in Africa is currently estimated at about 34,000 animals, down by at least 50 percent from three decades ago. Those numbers, however, tell only part of the story. As Ashe pointed out during a press conference today, about 70 percent of the remaining lions—24,000 cats—live in just 10 "stronghold" regions in southern and eastern Africa. Lions in other regions, such as West Africa, have been almost completely wiped out.
FWS identified three main threats currently facing lions: habitat loss, loss of their prey base to the bushmeat trade, and human-lion conflict. All three threats are inexorably linked. The human population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to double by the year 2050, which will result in more conversion of habitat to agriculture, more hunting of the wild ungulates the lions depend upon for prey, and more instances of hungry lions attacking livestock and then being killed in retaliation. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), retaliatory or preemptive attacks against lions are the worst threats the species faces. The IUCN lists African lions as a whole as vulnerable to extinction.