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Lion Predation
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Mala Mala Game Reserve:
Gruelling 90 minute battle Text and photographs: James Moodie After yesterday and last night’s rain, the animals seemed to be rather scarce during the morning drive on 17th January. For the first few hours of the drive, apart from the odd sleeping lions or the scattered herds of elephant calling around the corners of the Northern territories, very little was called in on the radio. Just as it was about time to start returning back to camp for some much needed coffee and breakfast, some rangers called in what heard like a buffalo in distress just south of the Main Camp. Quickly the rangers responded and shot out to investigate, and what they saw was nothing short of amazing.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Five members of the Marthly Pride had singled out a fully grown buffalo bull on the Eastern Bank of the Sand River, and by the time the rangers had arrived, there was already chaos happening between the bovine and large cats. At least four of the pride members were playing a game of rodeo while the other young male was attempting to get at the nose or neck, which ultimately turned into a nightmare for him. The pride had gained control from the rear, while the young male in front was not quick enough to get away from the sharp horns, getting impaled through his right shoulder. Being as powerful as he was, the buffalo lifted the lion clean off the ground, the young boy’s arm flailing wildly in the air as the buffalo struggled to get away from the other pride members. What can only be described as harrowing, the poor young lion growled in pain every time the buffalo swung its head around, and it was for roughly 15 minutes that he was tossed around as a rag doll. Eventually the young male saw a gap and managed to free himself, immediately hi-tailing it away from the action, limping as he went. Needless to say he stayed very far from the area and lay down to lick his wounds.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author The rest of the pride however didn’t abandon their posts and continued to struggle as the buffalo slowly lost power. After an hour and a half, the buffalo finally rolled onto its side, allowing a free gap for the tailless lioness with all her experience to jump around to the front and grab the animal by its nose to begin the suffocation. Eventually the buffalo took its final breath and the lions began their feasting, with the injured male watching from his shady spot, feeling very sorry for himself. All of the bellows and growls from the action attracted the attention of a young leopardess, the Daughter of the Kikilezi Female 3:3 who watched from 200m away until she lost interest and left the area in search of her own food. It was a spectacular sighting for all who witnessed, and although injured quite severely, we hope the young male makes a full recovery. 
Wow. What a struggle. They began to eat the buffalo alive. What a terrible end for the animal.
HAVING already flipped one lion, a never-say-die buffalo found an ingenious way to shake off its second attacker - by using its horns to puncture a car tyre. The resulting loud release of air was enough to scare away the big cat, forcing it to release its vice-like grip and flee. The buffalo was targeted by a pair of male lions but had already managed to dispatch the first one by flipping him into the air with its horns, leaving the lion with a gaping leg wound. The dramatic scene unfolded in front of cars full of tourists in Kruger National Park, South Africa - where it was caught on video by Hannes van Aswegen and photographed by Gerda Niemann.
Impressive kill for a lone female
Johan Adolf Smalman to Lions of Kruger National Park Yesterday at 3:38am · Hoedspruit, South Africa · This lioness from the Avoca pride took down this buffalo cow on her own this morning.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
This is awesome image of male lion predating on full grown crocodile. It is not clear whether he has killed it or he got the carcass. Now days KNP is suffering from dry and this condition is bad of crocodile. Photo is taken by Nick Du Plessis
 *This image is copyright of its original author In this image a lion cub is killing a honey badger. photo by piet Marimane.  *This image is copyright of its original author
I will post a series of incidents where big cats have switched from their usual and customary prey to preying on unusual prey items with the circumstances involving it.
I will start with lions. All over Africa buffalo, zebra, and large antelopes (wildebeest, gemsbok, kudu, eland, waterbuck) dominate the diet of lions and contribute most of the biomass eaten by lions....specific situations have made certain lions specialized hunters of unusual prey everything from crocodiles to seals to humans to giraffes to hippos to elephants. The first episode I will dedicate to lions predation on giraffes, usually giraffes are secondary prey to lions in East Africa and a bit more important in southern Africa ( Kruger, Namibia, Zambia, and the Okavango to name a few areas) in two areas in Kenya and Tanzania they have become primary prey: 1- Dr. Stephanie Dolrenry studied lions that live in the pastoral lands in southern Kenya that lie between Tsavo national park and Amboseli national park, she studied the lions between 05/2004 and 08/2012 where a pre-drought period ( 2004 to 09/2004) and after the drought of 2009 a post-drought period 10/2009 to 05/2012 occurred. In the pre-drought period ( 4 years ) lions only killed one adult giraffe and three juveniles indicating that giraffes were not a common prey item of the 11 prey species taken then, in the post-drought era the lions expanded their prey spectrum to 23 species with incredible increases in the predation of ostrich and giraffe , two species that tolerate arid conditions well, in three years 2009 to 2012 lions killed 53 giraffes ( 45 adults and 8 juveniles ) 53 times more adults killed than the pre-drought period. Notable kills included a single lioness that killed in one week an adult giraffe and two juveniles and a lone sub-adult male lion that killed two adult giraffe bulls in one week!!! A giraffe bull weigh anything from 1200 kg to 1900 kg so two bulls combined can be over 3 tons of meat in seven days, clearly much more than what that sub-adult lion could have eaten!!! 37 of the giraffe kills were killed by a lone sub-adult male, a lone young adult female, or a pair of young adult females this means that these lions have become accomplished giraffe hunters and must have all learned the art by themselves since their mothers rarely hunted giraffes in the pre-drought period. A somehow similar situation was observed in the Namib desert by Dr. Flip Stander where a lioness and her five sub-adult male cubs hunted giraffes, the lioness died because of injuries sustained attacking a giraffe bull but her sons went on to kill giraffes routinely including an incident of killing two adult giraffes in the same hunt. 2- Dr. Dennis Ikanda and his team noticed that a pride of lions in the vast Selous game reserve in southern Tanzania have become overnight accomplished giraffe hunters where half of the lion diet comes from giraffe kills!!! The extent and sudden development of this predation is threatening the giraffes with local extinction and it is the subject to a documentary by the Smithsonian channel ( entitled ''Nature Shock" if memory serves me right )
Crocodiles:
Predation on crocodilians by lions have been reported from Gir ( Asiatic lions killing mugger crocodiles ) and from different places in Africa ( African lions preying on Nile crocodiles) but overall lions do not seem to like reptilian meat or target crocodiles or other reptiles as regular prey the way this is done by jaguars and to a lesser degree by pumas and leopards. There was one notable exception the Rufiji river in southern Tanzania, a drop in the ungulate numbers in the 1980's drove lions to seek alternate prey one pride hunted crocodiles, another bushpigs, others chose the gruesome option of becoming man-eaters. It seems in the crocodiles case, that some lions have realized that crocodiles are exothermic and can not regulate their own body temperature and therefore if they are too cold or too hot they can hardly move and can become easy prey, I noticed similar incidents with a honey badger killing a large python and a leopard killing a medium sized crocodile and the pattern was the same, the reptiles were either too cold or too hot to defend themselves and the mammalian predators took advantage of that. ( Denis-Hout). This must have been an isolated incident for a particular pride in the 1980's because recent observations do not show any important predation on crocodiles after ungulate numbers recovered. 
@Dr Panthera:
Very interesting accounts showing the adaptative capacities of the lions during non ordinary/extraordinary periods like drought... In short, the only one problem of the extant big cats - when we see how quickly and successfully they can target some other completely different preys - is the man's existence.   (03-04-2016, 04:45 PM)sanjay Wrote: This is awesome image of male lion predating on full grown crocodile. It is not clear whether he has killed it or he got the carcass. Now days KNP is suffering from dry and this condition is bad of crocodile. Photo is taken by Nick Du Plessis Both of them seem to be unreal to me, a lion cub cannot take away honey badger. Probably his/her mother should have done it. A lone lion does not have athleticism to be able to kill crocodile IMO, a pride of lions should have done it. Also the belly side of crocodile was targeted, a single lion IMO cannot be able to turn the crocodile to belly side and then bite it. 
The croc's carcass looks already decayed, maybe it was getting scavenged by the male lion instead?
@parvez:
"Both of them seem to be unreal to me, a lion cub cannot take away honey badger. Probably his/her mother should have done it. A lone lion does not have athleticism to be able to kill crocodile IMO, a pride of lions should have done it. Also the belly side of crocodile was targeted, a single lion IMO cannot be able to turn the crocodile to belly side and then bite it. " All depend on the crocodile's size... By looking at this photo showing a male lion holding a croc through the throat (#337), this croc was not a fully adult, IMO. The croc's head is not very big. An adult nile croc weighs easily more than 500 kilos, i.e more than twice as much an adult male lion. If it were the case this lion would not be able to pick up it off the ground as easily as we can see it on these photo. Thus, on the ground, this lone male lion would be able to kill this croc, I think. (03-07-2016, 10:14 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: The croc's carcass looks already decayed, maybe it was getting scavenged by the male lion instead? That may be most likely the case @GrizzlyClaws (03-08-2016, 12:39 AM)Spalea Wrote: @parvez: @Spalea Yes, under normal weight estimates this may not be possible. As grizzly claws said, it may have been scavenged by other's kills, probably a pride of lions or a group of hyenas or any other group. Or else it is almost impossible even to the biggest of tigers to turn the crocodile bigger than them to the belly side of it. |
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