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

[GuateGojira]

Like I said before, I think is futile to continue arguing about this weigtht, because is already accepted in the scientific books.

However, regarding the credibility of Dr Richard Kock, I think that there is no point on it as Mr Kock did not published anything directly. In fact, Nowell & Jackson (1996) quoted what was probably an unpublished paper that was certainly housed in Kenya, or maybe it was send to them by Kock, or something like that - it only says "R. Kock in litt. 1993". But none of the two sources shows that Kock published something regarding this figure, so his accuracy is not relevant here.

Now, regarding the emails and its content, in this case is the reliability of the posters, not Dr Kock, what is in the table. Are "Tigerlover", "Boldchamp" or "Waveriders" reliable? That is open to question, and will depend of the reader. I think, and is my personal idea based in the emails and the reported cases of cattle-eaters, that this lion do had some stomach content, small or not depends of apreciation (5 kg may be small for a lion, specially of that size) and was probably fat (for wild animal standards), but this is open to debate and depends of the emails, not directly of Dr Kock. Again, the aceptance of the emails depends of the reader and the two documents and the pink card do not mention anything about stomach content or anything like that.

If the lion had or not stomach content was very relevant in the old days of AVA forum, so relevant that even a little difference in the emails created huge discusions. What you think that is small, it wasn't in those days.

I think is safe to quote the weight as it is in Nowell & Jackson (1996), with the details from Peterhans & Gnoske (2001) and maybe we can add those from the pink card in the picture. Anything out of that is pure speculation. Reply