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ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo)

Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
Expert & Researcher
*****

(10-07-2018, 08:39 PM)Smilodon-Rex Wrote: @GuateGojira , could you tell me why don't you believe the 272kg male lion in Kenya?

On the 272 kg lion from Kenya:

Here is your answer @Smilodon-Rex:

At this point, I think that is futile to dispute the existence of the record of 272 for the Kenya lion, so actually I do believe in the record now and like I say, with modern scientific books quoting the figure, there is no point to continue the discussion.
 
However that was NOT the case in the past years (since 2008 and until 2014, as far I remember). In fact, there is a long history behind this record, with random emails, books, discussions and even the drama-queen of Waveriders making dozens of posts regarding this with no specific result or apparent point. So here is a small appreciation about the case, not as long and redundant as that of Wave, but a short “straight to the point” one.
 
1. The record:
The undisputed original source of this record is the book of Nowell & Jackson “Wild Cats” from 1996. The record occupied less than two lines:

*This image is copyright of its original author

So, this is when the record saw the light. Also, there was another independent source showing the record of 272 kg from the part of Peterhans & Gnoske (2001) talking about this lion, but they don’t present them source, so probably they saw it personally or the document/paper/sheet where it was stated:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Normally this last source was ignored or discarded, to be honest.
 
Well, at the end this was all, two independent sources regarding the record, one with no source and the other just an “in litt.” label.
 
2. The corroboration:
However, when some people started to investigate the record, they received mixed emails from, apparently, the same person. Two posters, “Tigerlover” and “Boldchamp” (another poster too, but I don’t remember his/her name), said that they wrote to Mr Richard Kock (the person that killed the lion) and the emails from them showed that Dr Kock did not even remembered the record, at the beginning at least. Latter Kock said to “Tigerlover” that the record was accurate but the weight includes some stomach content, although he apparently said to “Boldchamp” that the weight was empty. At the end, this was all what we had, mixed communications with contradictory answers, and I based all my statements on this conversations and those from the Kenya Wildlife Service (I will discuss this latter).
 
Here is the email to “Tigerlover”:

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
Waveriders accused him of fraud, but it is not fair to attack a person that can’t defend himself. As far I know, “Tigerlover” was a reliable poster.
 
Here is the email to “Boldchamp”:

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
Two emails, apparently from the same person (Kock) but completelly diferrent conclusions. It was imposible to no doubt of all the thing.

Latter "Boldchamp" contacted the personal of the Kenya Wildlife Service and check what he got:

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
Also, Dr  Bruce Patterson in his book “The Lions of Tsavo” quote this lion of 230 kg (506 lb) as the heaviest recorded in Kenya:

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
This is the email from Mr Bernard Ngoru to “Boldchamp” regarding the weights of that sample of lions:

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
 
Finally, Dr Yamaguchi, a lion expert/fan, did not even mention the record:

*This image is copyright of its original author
 

Waveriders created many excuses regarding why this experts did not quoted the figure, that actually don’t have any base, apart from his own biased perception; in the case of Dr Yamaguchi he said that he did not mentioned the 272 kg weight because he wanted to use only specimens from large samples, but that is only his personal idea, with no backup on it and easily discarded. Is still a “mystery” why the record of 272 kg lion was not mentioned by them, by the way. Did he (Dr Yamaguchi) know something that we don’t? At this point, is irrelevant.
 
So if the authorities of the Kenya Wildlife Service and Dr Patterson (which apparently also investigated this record too) do not quoted or mentioned the record (again two independent sources, but related this time), was possible that the figure was incorrect and unreliable? Nowell & Jackson (1996) did make some errors in the book regarding the sizes of other specimens (incorrect conversions with the leopard weights and the copy/paste of the tiger sizes of Mazák, ignoring that included captive specimens), so there was a little possibility that the lion figure was somewhat incorrect. Knowing the lack of information regarding this record and the contradictory information regarding the emails of Mr Kock, this suggested that something was wrong in the record. So, that was our position for many years.
 
3. The pictures:
As you can see, there was a point in the assumption that something was "not good" on the record, and I even though in a moment that maybe those records (230 kg and 272 kg) were the same animal, thinking that maybe the figure of 230 kg was with an empty stomach, but that idea did not had too much support.
 
Now with the arrival of Waveriders at this forum and after that, the begining of his great apostasy – the great fight, the ban to him, and finally when he decided to post against this forum, @“peter” “and me in Carnivora – he started a disgusting, huuuuuuuge, boring and incredibly redounding post in Carnivora forum (the old one that is closed now) where he shared all his hate and his biased ideas. About the post regarding measurements methods, some people appreciated the pictures of the books and the emails that he posted, but certainly all people could see that his main point was to attack us and even his use of “sexual” insults (I have the screenshot to prove it, but is not relevant to the topic) put in doubt his accuracy and professionalism, well IF you think that a person that never showed his name, that put random pictures with no face, is actually a "professional".
 
At the end, he included a series of post about a “defamation case" against Kock, Nowell and Jackson, copy/pasting specific parts of very old discussions, taking them out of context and creating a case where he constantly used insults, black humor, and a great defamation against Peter and I (I will discuss this latter in this post). At the end of that series of nonsenses, where he only showed HIS personal and particular point of view (not the crystal clear true, as he claimed), the only good thing is that he finally presented a series of pictures (take by him/her?) where he showed what is apparently the specimen “NMK OM 7935” which is the one of 272 kg:

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
Under the assumption that these pictures are real, it seems that this is the specimen so long referred and also, apparently, the pink paper card is the last and only evidence that this lion weighed 272 kg. Also, it is clear again that this lion was a “cattle-eater” and this is a very important point that I will discuss at the end.
 
4. Crystal clear?
This part, although not so relevant to the post, is important to understand the context of the case.
 
As you can see, the “published” evidence says that Dr Richard Kock shot a male lion of 272 kg was near Mount Kenya in 1993, that it was post-prime but with a healthy skull and that was a cattle-eater (Nowell & Jackson, 1993; Peterhans & Gnoske, 2001). This is all what we actually know of this record, and that is it, the pictures of the skull and the pink card corroborate that the specimen existed, that the figure of 272 kg is the correct and that the it was very healty, according with its dentition. However, regarding the emails which are focused in the “stomach content”, is like a matter of “faith”, as we never can know if the person that post them is reliable or not, and in this case, I don’t believe in Wave at all, so his claim that the lion was “dissected and found with a stomach virtually (technically) empty” is completely arbitrary as there is no evidence published on this. Now, this is what Waveriders concluded on the limited information:

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
 
Certainly, although somewhat accurate, this is just his personal summary, mainly based on his supposed personal communication with Mr Kock. The problem is that he invented the term “technically empty”, which is not in any publication available in the web that I have saw or read, just to justify that the animal was “empty” in lato sensu, which is something that we actually don’t know according with the official publications or the pink card in the photo. Also, the fact that the lion was attacking (according with one of the email) is no evidence that the lion was “hungry” (lions can attack for many reasons and this was nor a normal lion), for the contrary, is well known that the cats can hunt and kill even when they already had food on the stomach. Schaller (1972) recorded this case with a lion:

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
As we can see, this lion ate 33 kg of food in one sit and he could eat more if had not a previous stomach content before eating. Also check that the food intake of lions and tigers is the same, by the way.
 
Also, we know what a “cattle-eater” behavior can cause to a tiger weight, according with Wood (1978) and his investigation:

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
Also interesting, Waveriders accused many people of “defame” the scientists Kock, Nowell and Jackson, just because we doubted of the figure, specifically “this” particular figure, not the entire book, not even the article about the lion. Other posters like “Chui” also criticized the book regarding the leopard section, but Wave ignored this event. It seems that Wave don’t know that criticize a book is NOT defame, for example Dr Sunquist made an error quoting a head-body length of 290 cm for the Amur tiger in his book “Wild Cats of the World” and Dr Luke Hunter made other errors quoting the “old” head-body lengths of 190 cm for leopard, 250 cm for lion and 300 cm for tiger in his book of 2015. However, according with Wave, we can’t complain of this and we must swallow this figures without any critic, unless of course that the record favors the tiger as in that case it must be put on doubt and “defamation” is mandatory.
 
We can believe in the information quoted in the books and corroborated by the pictures of the pink card related with the specimen, but certainly we can’t believe blindly on the conclusions of Wave that the lion was “empty” or “technically empty” if is not published, this is how Waveriders works so is fair to treat him in the same form.
 
5. Conclusion:
The only conclusion that we can get is that the lion existed, that it weighed 272 kg, was killed because it was a cattle eater and was done near Mount Kenya. However, all other conclusion out of this specific information is pure speculation and must not be taken in count. In fact, the only information quoted in the scientific documents now is the paragraph of Nowell & Jackson (1996) and that is all, the book of Hunter (2015) “Wild cats of the world” and the one of Sunquist & Sunquist (2014) “The Wild Cat Book” only quotes the figure of 272 kg, but with no other details.
 
However, if you ask me which is the “heaviest free-ranging felid accurately and reliably ever weighed by scientists reported in scientific literature and/or made public to date”, that certainly will be the Sauraha male tiger “M105” from Chitwan NP at Nepal, not only because he also weighed 272 kg in his final capture (or c.260 kg adjusted for stomach content, although there is a possibility that he was not baited in the last capture, thanks to his previous radio-collar), but also because we know his life since it was first captured in December 31 of 1974, he was observed and studied by several scientists like Dr Sunquist, Dr Smith and Dr Seidensticker, amount others, we have pictures of him when roaming free and also with people for size comparison, we know his body measurements and how was measured too (thanks to Dr Sunquist) and the most important of all, the Sauraha male was not a “cattle eater”. This is important because cattle eaters are abnormally fat and there is a reason to think that the “NMK OM 7935” lion was in that condition according with its behaviour (this is just speculation of course, but based in reports of cattle eater lions, tigers and jaguars). On the other hand, the Sauraha male has been described as an outsized massive specimen, with rippled muscles and seems that he don’t had an ounce of fat, a huge animal so confident that he would walk his favorite paths in broad light. He was a territorial male for about 6 years and sired no fewer than 51 cubs! (Sunquist & Sunquist, 1988; Mills, 2004; Seidensticker & Lumpkin, 2004).
 
Check the skull of the Sauraha male:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
Now you can compare it with the NMK OM 7935 lion skull, the TWO specimens are masive!

At the end, the final conclusion is up to the reader and, I afraid, also related to what animal he/she likes the most. Hope this helps to your knowledge. I don't know how Waveriders is going to react to this post, specially with his aggresive behaviour and grudge against me and this forum, but I think that is fair to present my point of view, specially if someone is asking a question.

Greetings.
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Messages In This Thread
RE: ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo) - GuateGojira - 10-14-2018, 06:21 AM
Panthera leo in Europe - brotherbear - 04-28-2017, 07:46 PM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - Polar - 04-28-2017, 10:24 PM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - GrizzlyClaws - 04-29-2017, 01:43 AM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - brotherbear - 04-29-2017, 03:01 AM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - GrizzlyClaws - 04-29-2017, 03:17 AM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - GrizzlyClaws - 04-29-2017, 03:29 AM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - brotherbear - 05-20-2017, 04:15 PM
RE: Vintage - Ngala - 01-02-2018, 03:22 PM
Lion Population Numbers - jordi6927 - 04-09-2018, 03:45 PM
RE: Lion Population Numbers - Rishi - 04-09-2018, 05:13 PM



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