The last recorded shooting of a wild Barbary lion in Morocco took place in 1942. The incident occurred near Tizi n’Tichka in the Moroccan section of the Atlas Mountains.
The Barbary lion, also called the Atlas lion, was the North African population of lions historically found across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and parts of Libya and Egypt. Human settlement, habitat loss, prey depletion, and organized hunting steadily reduced its range. By the twentieth century, only scattered animals remained in remote mountain areas.
The 1942 date refers specifically to the last recorded shooting, not necessarily the exact moment when every wild Barbary lion disappeared. Reports suggest that a small relict population may have survived in isolated Moroccan mountain regions into the early 1960s. The last known sighting of a lion in Algeria was recorded in 1956.
Another common confusion is the status of lions descended from Barbary lions in captivity. Several zoos and collections hold lions with claimed or possible Barbary ancestry, but their genetic and historical purity is debated. Captive descendants therefore do not prove that a wild population survived after the 1942 shooting.