<
https://theconversation.com/lions-in-a-uganda-park-make-a-perilous-journey-across-a-1-5km-stretch-of-water-study-suggests-the-drive-is-to-find-mates-233807>
"Domestic cats will do almost anything to avoid contact with water. Not so for
their wild cousins, though. Lions, tigers and jaguars have had to adapt to
water and sometimes take the plunge for survival.
And this is what we observed on the late evening of 1 February 2024. Our
research team in Uganda filmed two male lions swimming in a waterway in the
Queen Elizabeth National Park. But what was unusual was the distance and the
danger: the lions swam an estimated 1.5km across the Kazinga Channel, which
connects two lakes in the park. The channel has a high density of hippos and
Nile crocodiles, which are known to attack lions.
The footage, caught on a high-resolution thermal camera, shows the lions making
three attempts across the 6 metre deep channel (and returning to shore), before
starting to swim towards the south of the park.
The swim is as remarkable in illustrating the physical strength of the animals,
as it is a symptom of a deeper problem – of male lions having to take
extraordinary risks to find lionesses.
We are four researchers with over 50 years of combined experience in
conservation, big cat ecology, and the complexities of people and wildlife
living together. One of us (Alexander) led the field team that filmed this
event.
Our long-term research in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park shows that sex
ratios for lions there are flipped towards males at a 2:1 ratio. A healthy lion
population would be female dominated instead. From monitoring these male lions
almost daily, our field team has observed them swimming across this channel
seven times in the space of a year.
In our new scientific paper we suggest that the male lions are making the risky
swims, braving crocodiles and hippos, to find females. They are not always
successful in finding mates, and when they get battered by resident males, they
swim back to their own territory. There is also a small chance that the lions
are swimming to avoid a human community located at the only formal crossing
point connecting the two parts of the park, a narrow, 40-metre-long bridge near
a village.
Park managers and conservation NGOs in the park now need to find innovative
ways to stabilise the female population and stem the decline of lions overall."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
