Coalitions of Kruger National Park

[BA0701]

(Yesterday, 01:19 PM)Wyld@Heart Wrote: If I may. With regards to ID of lions and lineage that is in question, the burden of proof should be with the person making the assertion and not with anyone who happens to dispute that. Also, I'm terrible with identifying lions, as are alot of people, so please clarify posts using whisker patterns, scars, brands etc rather than features and assuming that because there is a similarity then that is definitive. It is not.

I've posted something similar before but the Kruger , for all it's vastness, is still an enclosed area and before it's proclamation and beyond, has suffered incredible losses in it's wildlife populations and that includes the lion population. With a population varying between 1500- 2000 or so, including cubs and sub adults, and there naturally being more females than males that grow to maturity we are talking about no more than 150 (?) prime males, if that. Taking into account a genetic bottleneck because of the significant drop in numbers, similarity in features amongst the population is inevitable and you're going to have long face, wide noses, orange eyes, dark manes, mohawks etc across the population which somehow has become one of the defining features of lineage when those are likely because in the not too distant past, and we're talking about just decades, lions separated now by distance probably had close relatives as ancestors or even common ancestors. To me anyway, putting a photo of one lion next to another and claiming lineage due to similarities is not probative. There are obviously physical traits that are inherited and passed on but with what I've just mentioned above, it's just not definitive at all.

Very good take, thank you, my friend. Reply