Felids Interactions - Interspecific Conflicts

[AlexE]

Trevor Carnaby, a field guide who's worked in a few different game reserves in southern Africa states the following in his book. 

“Spotted hyaenas are the largest hyaenas and, on average, second only to the lion in weight (the largest leopard males can be heavier). The fact that they are often sociable also makes them formidable. Wild dogs, though, through better coordination and organisation as a pack unit, will often put hyaenas to flight. Although leopard will not go out of their way to attack solitary hyaena, lone spotties are wary of them (particularly large leopard males).”

Luke Hunter has studied African wild cats for over 2 decades and can be considered a leading authority on big cats. In Mammals of Africa 2013, his observations on the scavenging behaviour of leopards are noted as follows. 

“Scavenging occurs; males sometimes usurp kills from females (GA Balme pers. Obs.) and Leopards appropriate kills from competitively inferior carnivores such as Cheetahs, lone Spotted Hyaenas and jackals (Hunter 1998a, LTB Hunter pers. Obs.).” 

But hyenas do not always walk away unscathed from interactions with leopards. There is one record of a leopard which not only knew the trick of keeping a hyena at bay, but also killed it and it did so not only once, but three times! 

Other carnivores are also fair game to leopards. While lions may invest a great deal of energy in killing fellow predators, their motivation seems more to eliminate competition than to acquire food, and they frequently leave such kills untouched. Leopards, however, have been recorded killing and eating everything from dwarf mongooses to adult spotted hyaenas.

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Eyewitness account:

We left at 05h00 and after deciding who was going where we were off. I went along the cut line to check if there were any lion tracks. Before I got very far, Alistair called us to come and see what he had found.....When we got close all we heard was a massive noise, hyenas howling and leopards growling. When I finally moved into the sighting it was amazing; there were 3 hyenas that were being slapped around by a big male leopard, the one we call Sand River. The hyenas were trying to steal what we then thought was the leopard's kill, a small impala. They attacked from all sides and he was thrashing them one by one ......the one hyena had no ear and most of his nose was torn off. The others were also in pretty bad shape. In amongst all the fighting they finally got away with the kill. We thought it was all over when another big older male leopard arrived. He had heard all the commotion and came to inspect what was going on. Once realising he was not tough enough to fight all the hyenas he also ran off, leaving the original leopard to contemplate the loss of his impala.

Female leopard & hyena

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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