Lions in Morocco were hunted using complex methods, including deep pits and trapdoors. These animals were captured alive for political and diplomatic purposes, including as gifts and tools to enforce fear. Atlas Lions are a central part of Morocco's identity and history. Once roaming freely through the country's forests and the Atlas Mountains until the early 1900s, these wild beasts now proudly lend their name to the Kingdom's national football team. But before becoming a symbol of national pride, lions were both feared and hunted by locals. In the 16th century, lions still posed a serious threat in Moroccan forests, particularly around Mamora and Tiflet, where travelers took special precautions. Diplomat and author Johannes Leo Africanus, also known as Hassan al-Wazzan, noted that while some lions were especially fierce, others—such as those near Agla (Tetouan)—were more cowardly. They are numerous, «but so cowardly by nature that even children scare them with their shouting and send them fleeing», said al-Wazzan. Trapping the Atlas Lion While some feared or avoided lions, others actively hunted them. In the 17th century, Frenchman Germain Mouette, captured by Salé pirates and held in Morocco for over a decade, offered a vivid account of lion hunting in his travelogue The Travels of the Sieur Mouette (1710). While traveling through the Souss region, Mouette observed a striking abundance of lions. «In the daytime, [they] withdraw into caves», he wrote. At night, they emerged to hunt. Locals, familiar with their habits, laid elaborate traps to capture them alive. The method was as intricate as it was deadly. A deep pit would be dug and covered with a carefully balanced trapdoor «made fast to a pin, equally poiz'd» with a dead sheep tied to the mechanism as bait. Lured by the scent, the lion would step on the trapdoor and «slip into the pit, head foremost». Beneath this first pit was a second, connected by a passage. There, a large chest «like a mouse trap» held a quarter of mutton. Hungry and trapped, the lion would crawl inside—«taken as a mouse is in a trap». Iron rings fixed to the corners of the chest allowed it to be hoisted onto a horse and transported to the nearest caïd, who might take «the pleasure of killing him» or, if preferred, have the lion speared on the spot. Political lions But lions served more than hunting purposes. They were also deeply symbolic and politically charged. In royal courts, lions were diplomatic gifts. In 1532, a Wattasid ruler presented a Moroccan lion and other animals to the King of France as a gesture of goodwill. Lions were also used as instruments of punishment or intimidation. In Meknes, Sultan Moulay Ismaïl famously brought fourteen enormous lions from the mountains and housed them in an enclosure beside the prison that held Christian captives who had been forced to build his palace. As historian Bernard Rosenberger wrote in Lions, Saints et Sultans au Maroc, the sultan often found «extreme pleasure» in watching these lions fight with criminals or prisoners he exposed to them. Over time, the rise of firearms and land development pushed lions into more remote areas. Travelers in the 17th century still reported sightings in the Rif and other regions, but noted that the lions were usually non-aggressive unless provoked. The last known wild Atlas lion was reportedly killed in 1909 near Aïn Leuh in the Middle Atlas.
