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Why are lions social animals?
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Lions are big cats after all. Moreover, haven't there been plenty of instances with lions being within close vicinity of their menu items without any aggression due to their full bellies, as it seems in the above picture.
Think about how many lions, tigers, leopards, cougars, jaguars, etc. all come with in feet of humans, and very rarely do they ever show any aggression towards us. A tiger or lion attacking or charging a jeep is a rare thing, in fact, it is the exception not the rule.
On top of everything else, we are "training" them to deal with us, each generation becomes more comfortable with the presence of jeeps, photographers, crowds etc. I imagine in years to come the idea of a "rogue cat" will be extremely rare. Unfortunately it is forced evolution for these cats, attack us and risk being killed or imprisoned, live side by side and live a natural life. 
It doesn't mean that lions will not display aggressive behavior when confronted with a human and an empty belly: all big cats are the same in that aspect. Cats wlll start seeing us as cattle if we keep introducing ourselves to them.
 (01-13-2016, 12:34 AM)Pckts Wrote: . Unfortunately it is forced evolution for these cats, attack us and risk being killed or imprisoned, live side by side and live a natural life. what do you mean? Probably that if a Lion kills a human it will be killed by the authorities so the rest of them will know what will happen to them if the dare to attack us again? is this some kind of law?
If an animal developed a trait where it becomes aggressive towards man and attacks, usually that animal is removed. Therefore said animal can no longer pass its genes on nor teach any other siblings to behave in that manner. Which is what I mean by "forced evolution"
 (01-13-2016, 02:06 AM)Pckts Wrote: If an animal developed a trait where it becomes aggressive towards man and attacks, usually that animal is removed. Therefore said animal can no longer pass its genes on nor teach any other siblings to behave in that manner. Which is what I mean by "forced evolution" I agree wholeheartedly. From the reading I've done on the "historical grizzly" he was a much more aggressive beast before the invention of the breech-load rifle. I feel certain the same holds true for lions and tigers. (01-21-2016, 11:51 PM)brotherbear Wrote:(01-13-2016, 02:06 AM)Pckts Wrote: If an animal developed a trait where it becomes aggressive towards man and attacks, usually that animal is removed. Therefore said animal can no longer pass its genes on nor teach any other siblings to behave in that manner. Which is what I mean by "forced evolution" You'll be surprised to acknowledge that it is actually the opposite for polar bears. Before, when prey was much more readily available, males didn't have to fight so often for control of food supply as now. These days, I (and Polar Bear International) are both getting descriptive reports of male polar bear actually killing each other within minutes due to a depleted prey supply. I suppose polar bears actually got more aggressive in modern times, according to this.  (01-12-2016, 11:11 PM)LionKiss Wrote: this is Pretty Boy walking a couple of meters way from a ranger, Delusionist, what is so suprising about a lion not killing a human? All the big cats would do the same. 
From a paper I remember being posted a few years ago in what I believe was the cave lion thread: Evolution of the mane and group-living in the lion (Panthera leo): a review
The evolution of group-living: The resource dispersion hypothesis (Macdonald, 1983)suggests that there are circumstances under which the pattern of resource availability facilitates the accommodation of additional individuals within the smallest economically defendable territory required to support reliably the primary occupants. This occurs when the overall costs owing to the presence of the additional individual(s) do not outweigh the overall benefits (Macdonald & Carr,1989). Figure 3 shows Qi values relative to the food requirements per body weight for eight extant felids (lion,tiger, jaguar, leopard, cheetah Acinonyx jubatus, puma, Canada lynx Lynx canadensis and bobcat Lynx rufus) in nine habitats, and clearly suggests that, amongst the populations tested, a parasitic female would benefit most in the Serengeti lion population. Therefore, concerning the presumably solitary early lions, in an environment like the Serengeti, forming an association with another female probably benefits a parasitic female, which is a potential additional female occupant of a lion territory. In a prey-rich environment like the Serengeti, where we suggest the initial group formation was most likely, cooperative hunting seems unlikely to increase food intake Lion evolution 335per group member in lions (Packer et al., 1990; Creel &Creel, 2002), suggesting that this factor may not have played an important initial role in the origins of group-living further. However, from the viewpoint of the primary female that is parasitized, forming an association with another female might be beneficial straight away in terms of direct conflict, both intra- and interspecific (Packer et al., 1990; Cooper, 1991). If the parasitic female is the primary female’s kin, letting her share the kill may increase the inclusive fitness of the primary female even further if a part of the kill would otherwise be eaten by non-kin or even other species (Macdonald, 1992; Macdonald et al., in press). This intraguild conflict factor is relevant to group territoriality as well, and where either lions or their competitors live in groups, solitary individuals suffer considerable disadvantages for their survival and reproductive fitness (Packer et al., 1990; Grinnell, Packer& Pusey, 1995; Heinsohn & Packer, 1995; H¨oner et al.,2002).The foregoing argument suggests that once evolved, group-living may persist because, regardless of initial factors facilitating it, group-living is made advantageous by intraspecific and intraguild competition, forces which are unlikely to be region-specific. This multi-factor approach to sociality in lions may partly explain why lions live in groups in the Kalahari today even though this environment does not seem strongly to favour initial group formation on the basis of food resources alone(Fig. 3) (Eloff, 1973; Mills et al., 1978; Mills, 1984, 1990);rather, Kalahari lions may retain group-living partly because it evolved in a different evolutionary context. In addition, cooperative hunting of lions in a prey-scarce semi-arid environment (such as Etosha or Kalahari) seems significantly to increase food intake per capita (Stander,1992; Creel & Creel, 2002). Therefore, interestingly, lions may have been benefited by group-living to colonize prey-scarce environments where the group-living is unlikely to have evolved initially. Consideration of the selective advantage of group-living should also be mindful of the inherent scope for phenotypic variation in this trait. That is, while an evolutionarily solitary lion is, by definition, basically solitary all the time, group-living lions have the flexibility to vary their group sizes as appropriate, and do so with lionesses spanning the variation between solitariness (although usually resident solitary females cannot hold good territories) and membership of prides of >10 adult females (e.g. Schaller, 1972). Therefore, although lions with the facility for sociality probably have the capacity to cope with any circumstances to which a solitary lion can adapt, the reverse is not true. The high mobility of lions and their large, contiguous distribution would ensure that any feature with universal selective advantage spread quickly on a geological timescale, across the species range wherever it initially evolved. |
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