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Lion predation on the African Black Rhinoceros
Lion predation on the African Black Rhinoceros
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Lion predation on the African Black Rhinoceros
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Lions are generally thought to prey on medium to large ungulates within the weight range 190-550kg with buffalo, giraffe and zebra among the preferred species but will also prey on smaller species such as warthogs. But is Black rhino is in the menu lists of a pride of lions? some report stating that the lion attack or hunt black rhino calves and sub-adult rhino..
Feel free to posts any report about lion predate on Black rhino 
Lion Predation on Black and White Rhino.
Apart from humans, lions are the only other main predator of rhinos. Despite this, there is very little published information describing the effect of lion predation on rhino populations. This paper brings together the references that directly indicate a problem between lions and rhinos, identifies the indications of lion predation, adds new information and considers the effect of lion predation on one population of African black rhinoceros. Lions are generally thought to prey on medium to large ungulates within the weight range 190-550kg with buffalo, giraffe and zebra among the preferred species but will also prey on smaller species such as warthogs (Hayward & Kerley 2005). There are relatively few references which directly indicate a predation problem between lions and rhinos and this paper reviews those published, adds new information and considers the effect on population performance. Chronological Review of Recent Literature Ritchie (1963) stated that young rhinos are sometimes killed by lions. He had also heard of an old bull being killed by two lions but conversely had seen two rhinos drive three lionesses off an ostrich kill. Lions were seen moving away from rhinos which had deliberately advanced when they had become aware of the presence of the pride (Goddard 1967). Goddard further reported that, in August 1967, a sub-adult lion attempted to attack an 11 month old rhino calf. The mother was close at hand and engaged the lion. The lion bit the females hock and clawed its thigh but was gored twice by the rhino in the centre of the ribs and then in the centre of the neck followed by a blow through the base of the jaw that killed it. Joubert & Eloff (1971) reported that rhino cows hide their small calves and were only able to find one record, in 1963, of a rhino calf being killed by a lion. In Amboseli National Park, between 1971 and 1977, a sub-adult black rhino was killed by lions after having separated naturally from its mother (Western 1982). In another three cases the calves of poached females were too young to defend themselves and were killed by predators. Western reported that few calves less than 3 years of age survive predators if separated from their mothers. In the Hluhluwe/Corridor/Umfolozi complex of Natal, South Africa, Hitchins and Anderson (1983) reported that the only predators capable of killing rhino were lion, hyena and crocodile. However, there were no recordings of lion killing black rhinos, only white rhinos. A freshly killed, black rhino carcass was found with an adult male lion by Elliot (1987) in Umfolozi Game Reserve. There were signs of a struggle and well defined claw and tooth marks on the neck of the rhino which had a horn length of 18-20 cm making it probably two year old. It was concluded that there was strong circumstantial evidence that the lion had killed the rhino. In 1986/7, the Salient of the Aberdares National Park, Kenya, was home to 12 lions (Sillero-Zukiri and Gottelli, 1991). They reported that rhinos can be killed by lions even when adult up to the age of four months. In September 1995, three rhinos aged between 3 and 4 years old, were killed by three male lions in the central area of Etosha National Park, Namibia, all by strangulation illustrated by marks on the necks (Brain et al, 1998). On two occasions the lions fed on the dead rhino immediately after killing them. On one occasion the lions left the rhino uneaten. The three rhinos killed were of similar size and age having just left their mothers but were still relatively small. The attacks occurred near waterholes which other rhinos, particularly mothers and calves, frequent. That the lions took the sub-adults rather than the smaller calves suggested a substantial maternal deterrent effect. Lions and leopards were responsible for the loss of two emaciated and diarrhoea-ridden calves, aged between four and seven months in Matusadona National Park, Zimbabwe (Matipano 2004). The mothers of the calves were also in poor body condition: one cow had diarrhoea and struggled to stand, and the other died five weeks after losing her calf. A rhino calf was killed by lions in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania in May 2000 and the mother died four months later (Maige 2001). This followed a translocation of two rhinos from the Addo Elephant Park in South Africa where there are no predators. Having calved, the mother had no knowledge of how to defend itself or the calf from lions. In February 2002 at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya, a rhino calf was killed by a lion despite the mother putting up a considerable fight. This was exemplified by savage wounds on the shoulder and breast of the rhino and scratch marks on the flanks. The mother, Suzie, was considerably distressed by the incident. Despite the wounds being treated, it died a few months later. In July 2002 at Sweetwaters Game Reserve, Laikipia, four lion cubs were observed "fighting" with a rhino at around 7pm for one hour. There appeared to be no actual contact, with the lions charging but withdrawing at the last minute. Further problems with lion predation were experienced at Sweetwaters Game Reserve when a pride of some nine lions was considered responsible for the death of an old female rhino in poor condition in March 2007. Plotz and Linklater (2009) reported the death of an eight month old black rhino calf from injuries caused by lions in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, South Africa in August 2008. There were puncture and tear wounds on the neck of the call tissue trauma, severed tail and claw marks on the anogenital region. The calf's tail was amputated at around one third of its original length. New Data Following the introduction of a black rhino monitoring system, based on the photo-identification of individuals, at Solio Game Reserve in 2007, it was possible to subsequently analyse births and deaths (Patton et al 2007). Lion censuses were carried out in 2008 and 2009 based on individual identification using muzzle spot patterns. Prior to this, it was believed that there were five to seven individuals. The census showed that births in 2007/8 had led to at least 14 individuals. Table 1 shows the number of black rhino deaths attributed to lions at Solio Game Reserve in 2008 and 2009. The key measure of population performance is the 'biological growth rate' defined as the natural increase in population size from births and mortalities as a percentage of the population size at the start of the year (Emslie and Brooks 1999) The strategy of the Kenya Wildlife Service is to manage all black rhinoceros populations in Kenya for rapid population growth while preventing overstocking and resultant sub-optimal population performance (Okita-Ouma et al 2007). The growth rate of a population as defined in the strategy is "the natural increase in a population size being the net result of additions from breeding and losses from natural mortalities expressed as a percentage of the population size at the start of the year. Table 2 shows the development of the black rhino population at Solio between 2007 and 2009 and considers the effect of the predation of lions on population growth rates which remains one of the best indicators of population performance (Knight 2001). Benchmarks are those proposed by Du Toit (2001). Discussion Detecting lion predation According to Plotz and Linklater (2009), predation on black rhinoceros juveniles might be under reported because both births and carcasses are rarely detected. New born calves are small and mothers tend to calve in dense bush remaining secretive until the calf has grown and strengthened at around 3 months. Mortality during this period is hard to detect and often, if a carcass is found, it has deteriorated to such an extent that the cause of death cannot be determined. The carcass of Ijumaa was found mostly whole but only skin and bones remained. The unidentified calf carcass was around 50% whole with a long cut in the skin down the back which is considered typical of a lion attack. Some meat was missing from the rump and remains of the two rear legs were found nearby suggesting there had been more than one predator. The carcass of Gachembe was mostly whole with some of the meat of the rump having been eaten. This suggests that lion predation is mostly opportunistic and not due to hunger. The carcasses of Luck and May were not found which was probably due to scavengers, such as striped hyena and jackals, removing the remains. Scavenging of the small carcasses of rhino calves explains why lion predation may often go undetected. In October 2009, the author observed a female lion catch and kill a warthog about the same size as a three month old black rhino calf. The lioness eventually ate a small amount from the rump of the warthog but left the majority of the carcass untouched. On inspecting the carcass, there were no signs--such as scratches, tears or puncture marks--that the warthog had been killed by a lion apart from the bites in the rear. This outcome might also explain how lion predation might not be wholly obvious on rhino calf carcasses. The injuries to Pati included the tail being bitten off at the base and some damage to the rear stomach which led to a swelling. No scratch marks were visible on either the calf or the mother suggesting there was no significant fight or defence from the predator. The absence of signs such as claw scratch marks or bite marks on bodies of the females, suggests that, in all cases, the calves had not been defended by their mothers. While black rhino mothers have killed lions in defence of their calves (Goddard 1967; Owen-Smith 1988, p126-127), maternal inexperience may result in failure to defend calves. In the case of Solio rhinos, there had not previously been an observed problem with what had historically been a low density of lions of less than seven individuals (E. Parfet, personal communication) suggesting that the females were ill prepared to defend their offspring when the density increased. The 37+ years old female Classic was distressed after its calf was killed by lions. Its health deteriorated rapidly over four months and it drowned in a river without the strength to get out. This could be considered as indirect predation by lions. The Effect on Population Performance Poor population performance in black rhino populations has largely been attributed to density dependence (Plotz and Linklater 2009). It should be remembered that individual year figures for small populations (around 50 individuals) should be viewed with caution and three year roiling averages used. When considering the three benchmarks for 2007 before translocation (for further details see Patton et al 2008), 2008 and 2009, there is clear evidence of a general improvement following the removal of 26 poor breeding and other individuals and reducing the density of rhinos from 92 to 65. This represented a reduction in density, with Solio Game Reserve being 69 sq km, of 1.33/sq km to 0.94/sq km rising to 1.04/sq km in 2009. Brain et al (1998) concluded that it might become increasingly important to consider the impact of large predators on breeding rhinoceros populations and that it would also be desirable to be familiar with both predator and prey and to make certain of the causes of each death in a rhinoceros so that the appropriate management actions can be made. The new data and analyses supports this conclusion. The growth rate before predation was 2008--7.5% and 2009--10.0%. When predations is included the figures are dramatically reduced to 2008 4.5% and 2009--3.0%. The latter figures are those used officially and are significantly below the Kenya Wildlife Service target for private rhino reserves of 6.0%. If predation is taken into account, the effect of reducing the density of the rhinos is largely hidden and could even be interpreted as having had a negative effect. The benchmarking description for the data would show the 'with-predation' growth rate in 2008 as 'poor to moderate' compared to the 'without-predation' growth rate of 'moderate to good'. Similarly, for 2009, the change is from 'poor to moderate' to 'good to excellent'. For the percentage of females with calves of that year, the benchmarking description changes from the with-predation 'moderate to good' to the without-predation 'good to excellent'. This further demonstrates that the population performance of the rhinos was better than the "official" record including predation, which cannot be attributed directly to the breeding success of the population. An important implication of this analysis is that the sub-optimal growth rate recorded with predation included could lead managers to conclude that the Carrying Capacity of the reserve had been reached or exceeded thereby unnecessarily undertaking costly and stressful population reduction through translocating individuals to other sanctuaries. Despite the high density of rhinos in 2009, the population growth rate before predation was in the top benchmarking category suggesting that the breeding performance of the Solio black rhino population was good even though the actual growth rate was not. It may therefore be appropriate to add breeding performance as a benchmark rather than simply using growth rate. Where any natural calf deaths occur due to disease, malnutrition and injury, these should be included in the growth rate calculation while unnatural deaths due to poaching should be considered as predation. Hope this will help :-)
Thanks, @Pantherinae
Two male Lions killing an adult female white rhino
 *This image is copyright of its original author Two male lions with their rhino kill We also spotted a male lion in the tall grass and as we approached, we realized that two brothers had managed to kill a fully grown female rhino. Our guide, Pule, was beside himself because he didn't think that a pair of relatively inexperienced lions (they know all the lions in the reserve by name) could take down a rhino, but as he said, "Miracles do happen". http://razaman.blogspot.no/2009/08/south-africa-2009-part-4.html
Wow, that is very impressive for a 2 male lion killed an adult female white rhino. It's impossible for killing this tank and it happen.. Thanks again..
(11-07-2015, 09:12 PM)JawaRumbia Wrote: Thanks, @Pantherinae You're welcome @JawaRumbia great thread Idea I will search for more accounts. 
http://africageographic.com/blog/rhino-p...er-threat/ (click on the article for the pics)
Rhino populations face another threat Posted on 15 May, 2015 by Roan Plotz in Animal Encounters, Conservation — No Comments Posted: May 15, 2015 81 20 0 1 Rhino are big animals, have rapier like horns and near impenetrable hides – unluckily this offers little defence against modern man and the rifle. But adult rhino are seemingly able to fend off large non-human predators, like lion and spotted hyenas, without too much fuss.  *This image is copyright of its original author © Dale R. Morris However, increasing reports of lions and hyenas attacking juvenile black rhino suggest that its prevalence might be higher than previously appreciated. It might seem that with the current poaching crisis that non-human predation is a mere drop in the ocean – nothing to worry about in the scheme of things. Nevertheless, its prevalence in some key rhino reserves responsible for overall species recovery might be higher than expected. It was with this in mind that I decided to look for evidence of black rhino calf predation by lions and hyenas. In Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, South Africa, managers started to raise ideas about what might be causing the low calf recruitment rates they were recording. Direct evidence was lacking but a spike in hyena and lion densities in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi caused concern. Elsewhere in Africa, others reported incidences of marauding hyenas distracting black rhino mothers while dragging off their young. In Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater, four out of seven calves that died in a 12-year period succumbed to predation by lions. In my previous blog post (Earless black rhino –are they stone deaf?) I wrote about ‘Earlessness’ in black rhino and the fact that it might be linked to failed predation attempts. Earlessness and tail loss in black rhino can be as much as 7% in some populations. Although suspected to be due to failed depredation attempts, actual observations of predators removing ears or tails were lacking.  *This image is copyright of its original author Photo of a black rhino missing a tail in 1983 in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve © Pete Hitchins I was fortunate enough to be able to put radio-transmitters into the horns of 14 black rhino in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi that allowed me to track them on-foot on a daily basis.  *This image is copyright of its original author © Roan Plotz On the 14 August 2008, I was in the Nqumeni section of Hluhluwe-iMfolozi when I sighted an adult female accompanied by her female calf with injuries. The calf ’s injuries included tissue trauma to the anogenital region with an amputated tail, claw or canine puncture wounds to the neck region, and skin lesions resembling claw marks to the rump and right posterior flank.  *This image is copyright of its original author © Roan Plotz  *This image is copyright of its original author © Roan Plotz On four subsequent occasions the adult female was sighted without her calf. Eight-month-old black rhino calves are still nutritionally dependent on their mothers and so the confirmed disappearance of the calf suggests that the calf succumbed to its injuries.  *This image is copyright of its original author © Roan Plotz Three characteristics about the sighting are consistent with an attack by at least two lions. Puncture and tear wounds at the calf ’s neck suggest one lion attempted to suffocate the calf in the fashion typical of lion attacks on ungulates. Tissue trauma, severed tail, and claw marks suggest that another lion attempted to feed from the anogenital region. The skin lesions at the rump and along the back and flank of the calf were characteristic in spread and size of lion claws and canines. Predation on black rhino juveniles might be under-reported because both births and carcasses are rarely detected. Neonatal black rhino calves are cryptic and difficult to sight. Not only are they small but mothers tend to be sedentary in densely vegetated habitat during the calves’ first months of life. Moreover, on the few occasions that field rangers recover black rhino calf carcasses the cause of death is rarely determinable.  *This image is copyright of its original author © Dale R. Morris Conservation managers rarely factor in predation when managing a black rhino population for improved productivity, although predation’s role in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi’s black rhino population performance has been debated before. Poor population performance has largely been attributed to density dependence but evidence suggests that predation of black rhino juveniles may also, at least in part, account for longer inter-calving intervals, low numbers of calves per adult female, and poor population growth. It might not be realistic to expect a black rhino population living with high densities of lions and spotted hyenas to grow as fast as one in a reserve without large predators. When attributing cause to poor population performance the presence of large predators should at least be considered.  *This image is copyright of its original author Two short-sighted rhino seemingly oblivious to a lioness overhead in a Marula tree in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park © Roan Plotz Hluhluwe-iMfolozi, like any reserve across Africa, is facing ongoing waves of poachers attacking its rhinos. With the current intensity of the poaching crisis, it is easy to think that once the poachers are stopped the rhino populations will continue to flourish. The solution to ongoing species recovery will require other factors to be monitored – like predation.  *This image is copyright of its original author Rhino spoor next to lion tracks in a riverbed © Roan Plotz 
There is one recorded event in the ancient Roman arena where beast vs beast events took place, where a big European brown bear was pitted against a rhinoceros ( species not identified ). There was no fight to it. The rhino easily killed the bear. For pachyderms, only the big cats are armed well enough to challenge them.
 (12-01-2015, 06:29 PM)brotherbear Wrote: There is one recorded event in the ancient Roman arena where beast vs beast events took place, where a big European brown bear was pitted against a rhinoceros ( species not identified ). There was no fight to it. The rhino easily killed the bear. For pachyderms, only the big cats are armed well enough to challenge them. I guess it would depend on the size of the bear and species of Rhino. I think an arena would probably favor the "charging animal" since the predator could be forced against a wall and only able to avoid moving side to side in stead of moving forward and backward as well. The equivalent of putting an opponent against the ropes (boxing) or cage (mma) But a big cat would probably carry the same odds as a bear in this case, predation on Rhino by Tiger, lion or any other animal would be extremely rare and have to be accomplished by a massive animal with experience with large, dangerous herbivores. It would take a specialist I think, no matter the predator.
The Bear: History of a Fallen King
by Michel Pastoureau, George Holoch They had long known of the existence of the large manned cat, the huge pachyderm, and a few other exotic animals remarkable for their size, their power, or their appearance. The Romans in particular had been able to marvel at the physical presence of various species in the circus games that were larger and more savage than the European bear. Although they sometimes staged battles in the arena between bears and bulls ( the bears almost always won ), they especially liked to see wild animals brought from Africa or Asia fight one another or against men. Sometimes, however, curiosity made them wonder about the strength of a bear or a bull compared to that of an animal from afar, and so there were battles between bears and lions, bears and panthers, bulls and lions, bulls and an elephant, and even a bear and a rhinoceros. Although bulls, fighting alone or in a group, seem never to have been victorious, a bear always won in single combat against a lion or against several panthers. But that was not enough to make the bear the king of the beasts in the eyes of the Romans. Like the Greeks - who had little fondness for animal combat - they preferred to install on the throne either the lion or, perhaps more frequently, the elephant. There never seems to have been a battle between a bear and an elephant, but Martial recorded a combat in Rome late in the first century of our era between a bear and a rhinoceros: the latter won easily, piercing the bear's stomach with its horn, then lifting its wounded opponent from the ground with its snout and tossing it in the air several times. A cruel humiliation for the European champion.
So the only account of Roman Games with Tigers is the Lion vs Tiger account?
No Tiger vs Bear account? 
@Pckts, the problem is that tigers were very rare in Rome, the records are scanty. Lions, leopards and bears, on the other hand, were very common because they were transported from the north of Africa, Persia and Egypt, where more civilization existed. It is not just about distance, but about communication and streets, yes streets were-are-will be very important for the development of any commerce.
Lions-bears-leopards were known by Romans since hundreds of years before Christ, but tigers were known in Rome very recently. I don't have my documents at hand, but the first tiger known by Romans was a gift from an Indian ambassador to the Emperor Augustus.
According to the book ( post #12 ), tigers are mentioned though not nearly so often as lions and bears. However, depictions of the 'tiger' portray a rather dog-like or wolf-like animal rather than a big cat.
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