Lion Predation

[Dr Panthera]

Cape Fur Seals:
Broadbent reported in 1985 that a pride of lions residing in the Namib desert resorted to preying on a marine mammal the Cape fur seal!! The Namib desert is one of the driest and hottest deserts on earth yet it still has dry river beds and water holes to support resident gemsbok, giraffe, eland, and springbuck and migratory wildebeest and zebra, however, the populations of all these ungulates are sensitive to the water availability no matter how scarce it is, and their populations fluctuate accordingly.
A pride of lions residing near the Atlantic coast discovered a new source of food: The ocean!! Unlike the land, the Benguela cold current makes the southern and south western coasts of Africa extremely rich with plankton, crustaceans, and fish and consequently with seals and sea lions.
The lions probably watched black-backed jackals and brown hyenas attack the helpless seal pups on their beach rookeries, while the adult seals were hunting in the ocean, the lions quickly adapted to this easy prey to compensate for shortage in ungulates, and once they started to "like" seal meat they graduated to attacking adult seals even in shallow water leading to some spectacular battles.
Unfortunately for this pride, and like all carnivores, its members started attacking livestock and the villagers avenged their losses by eradicating all the resident lions.
Within a decade new lions have repopulated the area and are studied by Dr. Flip Stander , these new lions do not know that seals are edible, seals are not normal lion prey and are not recorded as such in the collective DNA memory of Panthera leo, nor they had mothers who were seal hunters and taught the lions how to exploit this resource, whether they would learn from watching jackals and hyenas or not remains to be seen. Reply