How would have life in rural Balkans been today had the Balkan lion never gone extinct?
Posted by Substratas@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 38 comments
Glsbnewt@reddit
What is light vs dark brown?
Hefty_Jaguar4305@reddit
Didn't they also exist in the Balkans until around 1800?
Substratas@reddit (OP)
No, I think they went extinct around the 4th century AD.
Lblink-9@reddit
Extinct in Europe, but they're still here. That's the Asiatic lion. The Cave lion (that was in Europe before) went extinct around 14.000 years ago, and then Asiatic lion came to Europe, and stayed up to 5th century AD or perhaps even as late as the Middle Ages
Hefty_Jaguar4305@reddit
sad i live Lions.
CockamouseGoesWee@reddit
Well broski you better do everything in your power to defend the 8% left cause your batteries life is near depleted
tgwirol@reddit
They were hunted into extinction in the late 19th century, with the last sighting of a lion in Southeastern Turkey was 1870. The last known lion in Iraq was killed on the lower Tigris in 1918. Lions survived well into the 1960s in former Ottoman territories in the Orient (Egypt/Palestine), but nowadays they've been greatly reduced to little dots in Central Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_lion#:~:text=Until%20the%20middle%20of%20the,in%20Saudi%20Arabia%20and%20Turkey.
istratefg@reddit
We still have lions (lei) here in Romania. Bulgarians gave up their lions for the Soros-currency. /s
Putrid_Speed_5138@reddit
We would have lots of stray lions.
CountryRegular3411@reddit
Sarplaninac alike!!
darth4nyan@reddit
Svetlana Ceca Raznatovic, the singer, would have had a lion in her music video instead of a tiger
CockamouseGoesWee@reddit
We can thank the Romans for really kickstarting the annihilation of animals as an act of colonialism
KakaoFugl@reddit
Me me me thinking
EvilInGood@reddit
Alea iacta est💪🏛️
KakaoFugl@reddit
The last lion from Balkan is Zlatan
Hethsegew@reddit
Lions also used to live in Hungary so not accurate map.
StefanM2022@reddit
That's ice age Cave Lion - Panthera Spelaea, which was larger (sub?) species of lion.
MysticEnby420@reddit
Heracles myth would go even harder if you also have opportunities to interact with lions
PleaseBePatient99@reddit
They were in Europe and the middle east as late as 2300 years ago, since Alexander the Great used to hunt them in Greece, Syria and Afghanistan.
K2YU@reddit
Probably similar to how it is now.
Syrmin@reddit
Plus lion attacks
K2YU@reddit
Probably not much more compared to bear attacks.
Piputi@reddit
People in Turkey are still getting attacked by lions.
https://www.turkishminute.com/2025/07/07/escaped-lion-shot-dead-in-turkey-after-attacking-farmer/
Substratas@reddit (OP)
Chile this is nuts - this is why I wonder how it would even be like living with so many lions around in the wild.
I know that Early European Farmers were living in stilt houses to avoid predation (from the recent archaeological discovery at Ohrid lake in Albania) but I can’t help but wonder if people today would have the same lifestyle.
hilmiira@reddit
animals at one point learns to avoid humans, and their population around human settlements arent that much anyway
Like living "with lions" is not that diffrent from living with leopards or wolves. You get some livestock killings time to time and some attacks in every decade or some. And thats it
K2YU@reddit
So nothing would change.
Piputi@reddit
Exactly.
fosixbarbar@reddit
Ottoman Empire map 1683
Prigorec-Medjimurec@reddit
Lions would be used for copper transportation.
DeInking@reddit
Finally I can say that our coat of arms makes sense.
Distinct_Travel6386@reddit
Greek, what's the story of Nemean lion and Hercules, was it real?
CypriotGreek@reddit
The lion itself wasn’t real, no, but Herodotus did write about how a lion of similar stature and strength led a group of lions against Xerxes’ camel forces in Macedonia.
That’s as close as we are going to get for the real nemean lion , although there were actual lions in nemea they weren’t anything mythical (yet).
technotronica@reddit
Well there were lions roamin in what's today Makedonija. Like 5000 years ago.
Substratas@reddit (OP)
u/hethsegew u/prestigious-job-9825 not y’all being downvoted so randomly - did anything bad happen between Israel & Hungary lately?
Prestigious-Job-9825@reddit
At this point, I have no idea
Istar10n@reddit
We do have a lot of bears in Romania. So, it's not like we don't have apex predators that can easily kill a human. I imagine lions are more aggressive, though.
MehmetTopal@reddit
They are not more aggressive but have a way higher prey drive than bears due to their feline nature and obligate carnivore diet so they indeed kill a lot more people
European brown bears aren't as aggressive or big as North American or Russian ones though
Prestigious-Job-9825@reddit
Maybe they would have a slightly different kind of cevapi