The Serengeti Lion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations (Wildlife Behavior and Ecology series) by George B. Schaller

Author:George B. Schaller
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Published: 2009-10-30T08:49:00+00:00

The woodlands sample reflects primarily the lions' dry season food habits, not those for the whole year. I searched for kills intensively for several days in September, 1967, and in July, 1969, along the Mbalageti River and found kills of 2 wildebeest, 9 zebra, 3 topi, 3 Thomson's gazelle, 2 buffalo, and 1 impala, a sample which may be quite representative for that area in the dry season. During the wet season, lions there have to subsist almost wholly on resident prey, as pointed out earlier.

In a list of kills a Thomson's gazelle and a wildebeest rate equally even though the latter provides ten times as much meat. On the average at least twice as many lions feed on a wildebeest or zebra as on a gazelle (table 40) and the amount of meat they obtain is greater. At Seronera, an average of 2 subadult and adult lions fed on an adult gazelle, each obtaining about 7 kg of meat. On the other hand, the edible portions of a wildebeest gave each of seven large lions an average portion of 16.5 kg, which, incidentally, is one good reason why the lion prefers to hunt large prey.

A list of food items also fails to differentiate between prey that has been killed and prey that has been scavenged. Only about half as many lions eat on a scavenged item as on one they have killed for themselves (table 40). Wildebeest and zebra that have died of disease or malnutrition sometimes provide much meat, as do the remains of prey that has been killed by wild dogs. On the other hand, cheetah and leopard, which seldom capture animals larger than gazelle, furnish lions with little food. Unless lions arrive at a hyena kill within a few minutes after it has been made, only scraps tend to be left. The relative amount of meat that lions appropriated from 46 wildebeest and zebra killed by hyenas was as follows: much meat-enough to gorge at least two lions12 times (260); a moderate amount, 12 times (260); and just a few kilograms of scraps, 22 times (487.). In Ngorongoro Crater, where the predator population is denser than in the Serengeti, Kruuk (1972) found that when lions scavenged from hyenas they obtained much meat in 637. of the instances, little in 277 , nothing in 8%, and an unknown amount in 27..

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