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Two lion brothers, one of whom had a leg amputated, were seen making a record-breaking night swim in dangerous waters at Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Ground.
Researchers believe the crossing of the crocodile-filled Kazinga Channel is the longest swim ever recorded by lions, about a mile long (1.6 kilometers).
And this is another bankruptcy of the story of Jacob, a resilient lion who has survived various life-threatening During his 10 years in the area, he suffered serious conditions including losing part of a leg in a poaching net.
However why did Jacob and his brother Tiboo first pursue the waterway connecting two lakes within the park? According to the researchers, they were probably looking for females that had lost a bad fight to another group of male lions – and to avoid people who did the same.
The scientists’ findings were published Wednesday in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
“Competition for lionesses in the park is fierce and in the hours before the swim they lost the battle for female affection, so it is likely that both made the risky journey to reach the females on the other side of the channel,” noted Learn about Supremacy Author Dr. Alex Bryczkowski, Research Fellow at the Center at Griffith College Toward planetary health and food security in Australia, in an overview.
Brzezkowski has been following Jacob’s story for eight years during his long-term study of Queen Elizabeth and African lions in the national soil of alternative Uganda. As clinical director of Volcano Safaris Partnership Consider’s Kyambura lion tracking venture, Brzezkowski has worked with the Ugandan government since 2017 to catalog details about the predator’s population.
“Jacob has had the most incredible journey and he is truly a cat with nine lives,” Bryczkowski said. “I’d bet all my stuff that we’re looking at Africa’s most resilient lion: he’s been killed by a buffalo, his family was poisoned for the lion body parts trade, he’s been killed by poachers. Was entangled in the net, and ultimately lost his leg. Another incident of hunting attempt where he got entangled in a steel net.”
Brzezkowski and his team, along with farmland coordinators Orrin Corneil and Bosco Atukwatse and camera operator Luke Ochse, wanted to capture video of the brothers hunting and search for alternative lions by tracking the movements of Jacob and Tiboo. Under the supervision of the Uganda Flora and Fauna Authority, Ochse operated high-definition heat detection cameras on drones.
In late January, the team witnessed Jacob and Tiboo engage in two fierce battles with other male lions within 48 hours. Alternative Shers wanted to bring Jacob and Tibu to power At their length, and Jacobs bore the brunt of the wear and tear, Brzyzkowski mentored and found out about co-author Duane Biggs, associate tutor and Olajos-Goslow Chair of Environmental Sciences and Coverage at Northern Arizona College. Tibu led the other lions away from Jacob and after some time they reached the channel.
The brothers made three attempts to cross the channel, during the first two attempts they turned back towards the shore. Video images show a warm sign, which may have been a crocodile, following the brothers during one of their attempts.
Lions of the era are fearsome predators, a Nile crocodile can easily blow away a lion in H2O, Bryczkowski said. According to the study authors, crocodiles can weigh up to four times more than a male lion and have been observed killing lions as the heavier cats swim anywhere from 10 to a few hundred meters.
With an interval of about 15 minutes between each attempt, the brothers were successful on their third attempt, taking about 45 minutes to cross the river. Jacob was 98 to 131 feet (30 to 40 m) behind his brother, but both reached the other side safely.
“The biggest surprise was that they were landing in water with a high density of crocodiles and hippos,” Bryczkowski said via electronic mail. “But for male lions clearly finding females to breed with is more important than their own well-being or the potential risk of being killed by crocodiles and hippos.”
The lions may have taken a small connecting bridge, but researchers suspect that human foot traffic on the bridge prevented the brothers from choosing that path.
Bryczkowski has studied the ratio of male to female lions, and his findings show that the lion population in the area is declining.
“The sex ratio in a healthy lion population is 2 females for every male, in Queen Elizabeth (it is) the opposite,” he said. “Our latest lion census shows that the number of lions in the park has declined by 50% in just 5 Year.”
Alternative African reserves, such as the Maasai Mara or the Serengeti, boast huge populations of lions, although they have measures in place that restrict poaching and prevent lions from encroaching on cattle populations.
“In contrast, in Queen (Elizabeth National Park), there are 60,000 people living in the park, thousands of cows, and the rate of poaching is high,” Bryczkowski said. “When these threats arise, lions decline rapidly.”
Dr. Craig Packer, founder and director of the Lion Center at the University of Minnesota and McKnight coach of ecology, evolution and behavior, said unlike other felines, lions are social creatures. Packer was not involved in the research, but has devoted many years to the study of African lions and is the author of “The Lion: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation of an Iconic Species.”
Earlier research has shown that heavier cats like lions and tigers can swim if needed.
“They’ve got big plate-like feet, they’re strong, and they’re going to look for women somewhere else,” Packer said in the video, referring to the upcoming scene. “There was great encouragement to get through.”
Packer’s analysis proved that once male lions stay together, they produce additional cubs. And females in the pride usually offer to give birth at that very moment.
“So you get these groups of young people who grow up together, and they form a coalition,” Packer said. “Now if you’re a single male and you see a coalition of nine men, you’ll do a lot more than just swim across the Channel.”
He said, Leos of the same sex are extremely sensitive to every opportunity and they consider every opportunity as a lifeline. Packer said that even in groups of 2 or 3 males, life expectancy is much better, and solitary lions have little hope of survival.
So, it is this negative miracle that Jacob and Tiboo have held in combination that has enabled them to survive to tell the tale. Braczkowski said over time more than one business has stepped up to serve Jacob with veterinary assistance.
However, Packer said the biggest blackmail to the lion population is dwindling land.
As the stock of flora and fauna belonging to the human family increases, additional land becomes devoted to agricultural areas, reducing the areas where lions can roam and search for prey. Closer to home, lions move into populated areas and attack farm animals.
scene of jacob and tibu Bryczkowski said the river crossing shows how far lions will travel to new habitat areas and friends.
“This type of behavior is emblematic of wildlife making increasingly risky decisions about resources and mates in human-dominated landscapes,” Biggs said in an electronic mail. “If conservation is going to work for lions in places where people live, we need economic models that will support the communities that live close to lions and bear the brunt of their conflicts with cattle.”