As night fell in Uganda’s second-largest national park in early February, Jacob, a three-legged African lion, made several attempts to cross the dangerous strait with his brother Tibu.
In doing so they appear to be retreating. Alexander Brazkovsky, a scientist at Griffith University, told Gizmodo that the siblings had earlier strayed into “the established territories of several other male alliances” in search of lionesses, only to be “kicked out by them.” to hell”. The lions’ aquatic journey began after “at least two battles” and after Jacob lost a foot in a poacher’s trap.
In a forthcoming paper in the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution, Brazkovsky and his co-authors write that the brothers entered the Kazinga Strait multiple times in the dark, only to turn back. Three times, “because it seemed like we encountered hippos or Nile crocodiles.” On their fourth try, the siblings managed to swim 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) to the other side.
Researchers say lions have made this crossing before, possibly “due to sexual reasons” and the “strong” presence of humans at the only available land connection. However, this is the first time such a swimming scene has been captured on film. “Jacob was actually in pretty bad shape when he crossed over,” Braczkovsky added.
Braczkovsky led the expedition to Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda with funding from Queensland, Australia’s Griffith University and Northern Arizona University. “It’s very dramatic,” Brazkovsky told reporters New York Times. The lions looked “like two tiny heat signatures crossing the ocean,” he said of the footage captured by Cape Town photographer Luke Ochse.
The researchers used an H20T thermal camera and a DJI Matrice 300 drone to film the trip just after 10pm local time, while maintaining a distance of 50-70 meters (or about 200 feet).
According to the paper, humans have documented African lions traveling through shorter water, usually no more than 100 meters, or about 0.06 miles. It is understood that members of these vulnerable species are not very good swimmers. Jaguars, on the other hand, are “known for their swimming abilities in the Pantanal and floodplain forests of Brazil,” the researchers noted.
Brazkovsky believes the unhealthy sex ratio was initially caused by poaching and the poisoning of lions by farmers across the Channel to protect their livestock. The lead researcher estimates that approximately 60,000 people live in the national park, “mainly in 11 fishing villages that were designated in the 1960s.”
In addition to Jacob and Tib’s pursuit of sex and territory, the swim reflects the difficult decisions that Earth’s “most dangerous and iconic wildlife face under increasing human pressure,” the researchers wrote. . “Swimming across rivers and water bodies filled with high densities of predators is one such example.” The biologists conclude their paper by calling for a clear link between long-distance swimming and functional habitat for big cats in areas currently dominated by humans. Conduct more research on the connections.
