Maneating Lions On Increase

I read that the way to hunt man eating lions
is to build a fire at night, sit next to it with
your rifle at the ready. A regular lion will know it's humans and shy away, a man eater will approach.
Cynic that I am, I sometimes wonder if Old Leo
isn't being used as a convenient scapegoat-cf the Chicago "gangland style" killing. I took a couple of courses in college on Non-Western civilizations, the instructor for the East African segment discussed "stateless societies"
when I talked to him in the corridor one time he said these stateless societies were usually semi-nomadic herder tribes, they would deal with a trouble maker by using him for lion bait.
 
I don't know why so many people try to rationalize and theorize why a lion eats or kills a human. I would agree that if their usual or easier food source is in short supply they will eat other species if you happen to be convenient you may become their meal. I have been on many lion hunts and they are NOT intimidated by humans. In fact if you approach lions under certain conditions while they are mateing or females with young ones you stand a good chance of being charged. Humans are not something special to a big cat I have stalked up to and into prides of lions many times and they do not run away in a panic because a human is near. If you want to try something interesting when you confront a couple of lions turn around and run its the ultimate game of cat and mouse!

In Tanzania the Masai will leave little children to watch over their cattle with little regard to their safety.

I believe statically more Africans are killed by hippo than any other animal.

Len
 
Well,
Then Seattle is safe!
A man eating Lion would starve to death up here before finding any food?
 
You have to wonder - Does a pride of maneating lions sit around and say "Tastes like chicken.".
 
IMHO: Considering that the human population in Africa is overpopulated, diseased and moving rapidly toward radical Islam, the lions are doing some necessary depredation to put things back in check.
 
Originally posted by Jim Watson:
An article on the current situation on maneating lions is in the current issue of Natural History magazine. Seems that as the native peasant farmers spread out, the usual prey like antelope and zebras move out, but bush pigs move in. So the lions live on bush pigs and farmers. 400+ in the last year of record, probably as many more unreported. Just a case of population dynamics and statistics.

They described the development of effective control and prevention. A farmer's wife went to the outhouse at night and did not return. He found the remaining half of her the next day. Instead of burying her, he laced the remains with rat poison. No more lion. The technique has spread with uneaten farmers and bush pigs poisoned for the lions' return. As the author explained, a peasant farmer cannot afford a lion gun, but anybody can afford rat poison.
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That must be some potent rat poison that they have over there if it can drop lions. How big are those rats?
 
The late Jim Corbett's classic Maneaters Of Kumaon recounts the author's involvement with tigers rather than lions. Still, common if occasional interest in human flesh by large cats seems a strong link. For what it's worth, Corbett is eloquent and unyielding in his belief that only tigers screwed in some way by circumstance will resort to human prey. (See his preface to MOK.) Corbett's first-hand account of his life in India during the early 1900s shows a naturalist's eye for detail. His stories of hunting down maneating tigers preying on tiny hill villages in Kumaon province reflect the kind of understated, matter-of-fact courage we all hope to possess and fear we lack. Very good book.

OK, back to lions.

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Originally posted by Teach:
The late Jim Corbett's classic Maneaters Of Kumaon recounts the author's involvement with tigers rather than lions. Still, common if occasional interest in human flesh by large cats seems a strong link. For what it's worth, Corbett is eloquent and unyielding in his belief that only tigers screwed in some way by circumstance will resort to human prey. (See his preface to MOK.) Corbett's first-hand account of his life in India during the early 1900s shows a naturalist's eye for detail. His stories of hunting down maneating tigers preying on tiny hill villages in Kumaon province reflect the kind of understated, matter-of-fact courage we all hope to possess and fear we lack. Very good book.

OK, back to lions.

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Jim Corbett was one of my primary role models as a boy, and I love his books. But many others say that he was sentimental about tigers, and made them out to be a little too noble. Some maneaters have been in excellent shape.

"The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag" had his beginning as a man- eater when a flu epidenic in 1918 killed many Indians. Instead of being cremated and tossed in the Ganges as usual, many bodies were thrown out in the jungle. The cat got used to feeding on them and soon moved on to killing people.

He ate only a known 125 over a span of some years, showing that he also fed on deer, pig, and livestock. But when he wanted a human dinner, he got one.

Corbett hunted this cat harder than almost any other, often with the assistance of his close friends Lord and Lady (Sir William and Lady Jean) Ibbotson, and the leopard caused these experienced, courageous hunters great frustration. This cat probably came closer to killing Corbett than any other, although some were very close runners-up.

Peter Hathaway Capstick told me that he thought that most leopards were man-eaters if they saw the chance and were hungry. This was especially true if they saw a chance to snatch a native child. He felt that they did not discriminate much between black children and baboons and other monkeys that form a staple of their diet.

Keep in mind that one of the fossil protohuman skulls was found in a deposit of other bones, in a leopard's lair. The skull showed the teeth marks just where leopards grab monkeys for a quick kill. The fangs of a leopard's skull found in this lair exactly fit the tooth marks on the australopithecus skull. Leopards have been eating us since before we were fully human.

I'm sure that the same is true of lions, and the trend doesn't show much of a slowdown.

Some nature buffs of the intellectual, granola crunching sort have downplayed the role of lions in human deaths. They point out that Bushmen (!Kung!) tribesmen often drive lions off of their own kills. I have a book published in the 1950's by an old ivory hunter, John Alfred Jordan. He concedes that this happens. Said that maybe they get away with this nine times out of ten. "But," he warned, "it is worth thinking of that tenth time!" He was referring to "ordinary" lions. Man-eaters have a different play book.

T-Star
 
Originally posted by jimmyj:
Hi:
Reading this discussion I remember a question I asked Myself in the past when I viewed this Movie:
Is a .303 Enfield a "Lion Caliber"?
Jimmy
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Well, it often was, in the early days of African settlement. The 7X57mm Mauser was also frequently used for the purpose. Phillip and Blayney Percival and others shot much of their game with the 6.5MM Mannlicher-Schoenauer.

John Hunter got his start as a professional hunter by shooting charging lions for their hides. He used a Boer War Mauser 7mm given to him by a relative.

Seven and eight MM Mausers, the .318 Westley Richards and the like killed a lot of big game before being displaced in the all-round class by such items as the 9.3X62 mm and the .375 H&H Magnum.

Some men even killed elephant with "solids" in the .303 and similar calibers.

In fact, one of the rifles used by the REAL Lt. Col. Patterson was a Lee-Enfield sporter. I'm not sure that he distinguished it from a Lee-Metford.

I have, "The Man-Eaters of Tsavo",but am too tired to look up what he called the rifle, other than a sporting .303.

T-Star
 
Originally posted by wbraswell:
The movie was loosely based on the book "The Man Eaters of Tsavo". But I don't remember anything like M. Douglas' character Remington in it. Don't let the lion huggers tell you that only the sick and the old turn to eating humans. Lions have a strong family culture and are taught. They are also lazy and will eat any meat that they find the easiest,and since a lot of African bush cultures don't bury their dead, well you can figure that out. Even alive, the Africans present a pretty easy meal compared to Zebra or Cape Buffalo.
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"Remington" didn't exist. He was a fictional character created to give Michael Douglas a starring role. The officer played by Val Kilmer was very real. Theodore Roosevelt persuaded him to write his famous account of two lions in particular that almost stopped the building of the Uganda Railway. This man later was awarded the Victoria Cross in WW I. (John Henry Patterson, VC)

T-Star
 
Originally posted by Leonard:

In Tanzania the Masai will leave little children to watch over their cattle with little regard to their safety.
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Maybe their kids are brats?
 
"Is a .303 Enfield a "Lion Caliber"?"

It is,if that's what is in your hand at the time. I would love to have known more about the single shot falling block rifle that the doctor loaned him, that failed. It looked sweeeet. I wonder how many times Karamojo Bell was told that a 7X57 wasn't an elephant gun? I love reading about dangerous game, although some of the famous hunters were a lot better with a double rifle than a pen. If you haven't read "Death in the Long Grass" by Peter Hathaway Capstick, you should.
 
Originally posted by Spotteddog:
Nutria?
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Nope. Nutria are South American; not African.

Just use a LOT of rat poison!
 
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