European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 18, 1973, Darmstadt, Hesse By Boyce Rensberger whether reposing serenely before the new York Public Library or roaring from the screen in. An my a epic or lifting the scepter in a Royal Emblem the lion has been for centuries the world s undisputed Symbol of nobility and majesty. King of beasts. Lord of his Domain. Don t believe it. Most of what the world thinks it knows about Lions was Learned from poets pet keep ers and press agents. It is not True for example that Lions kill Only for food or that they Are skillful Hunters dispatching their victims with a merciful swiftness or that Mother Lions protect their cubs from All harm or that Lions Are above savaging. Recent studies of Lions living naturally in Africa the first scientifically solid studies of lion behaviour prove that these and a Host of other common notions about Lions Are false. Although there is no scientific measure of an Ani Mal s More subjective attributes the findings hardly support the notion that Lions Are Noble or courageous or even especially lovable. What the studies do show and what a Brief look at the find Ings will demonstrate is that while Lions do not live by the Best of human value systems they do behave like. Well like Lions. this is not to say that they Are not Worth preserving As part of the Earth s wild heritage. Far from it. But part of a mature appreciation of wildlife should be a desire to understand each animal As i truly is. The lion mania of the last few years suggests that we Are still in a More adolescent stage. Lions today Are probably the most popular the most respected and revered and perhaps even the most loved of wild animals. They Are also the most misunderstood. As if the old notions of Lions weren t Good enough the image of panthers Leo has been embellished Disney fied if you will by a series of calculate Day heartwarming books and movies about Elsa the lovable lioness raised from an orphan cub by George and Joy Adamson. Millions thrilled when they read or saw that True to an animal Story formula much older than Bambi the grown up Elsa going into the wild to find a mate and eventually returning to show her cubs to the kindly humans. And though born free was first published 13 years ago the Elsa cult is today bigger than Ever. Tens of thousands of children belong to scores of Elsa clubs All Over the world. The Elsa wild Ani Mal Appeal raises millions of dollars to Aid Conser vation projects in several countries. Spurred by the Elsa phenomenon and a growing interest in wildlife in general entrepreneurs across North America Europe and Australia have opened up scores of lion country Parks where people can drive their cars among wild Lions gnawing on haunches of institutional beef. none of the commercial Parks of course do1 the Lions live any More freely than barnyard Ani Mals. In most if not All the Lions Are rounded up like cattle each evening and herded into Small huts or cages for the night. For a mainly nocturnal species like the lion this is the cruellest time to shut them away. It would be More natural if the Lions were caged during the picture movie of born free helped fuel Elsa cult. When they prefer to sleep and released at night when they Are More Active. But then a lion s principal activity is Hunting and no safari Park is Likely to let the Lions do that. After All children come to the Parks. How would parents explain if they found a lovable lion ripping into the belly of a cute Zebra lapping up its entrails and what s More it costs about $550 to replace a Zebra but Only about $400 for a lion. Unlike zebras Lions Breed readily in Captivity and As More and More safari Parks Breed them the prices should drop still lower. In East Africa where Lions were largely considered dangerous vermin until people recognized a Boyce Rensberger a former science reporter for the new York times is studying wildlife in Africa on an Alicia Patterson foundation Fellowship. That they were Money makers the number one tourist attraction is now the lion. Seeing the Lions was really the main thing we were after said an american doctor just Back from a commercial safari. We drove around and finally found them. But he continued somewhat disa pointedly they were just lying there crawl Ling with Yvo Hile others were watching Elsa cavort on the screen or marvelling at a broken Down circus lion sleeping in a commercial Park or. George Schaller a Young american biologist was in Tan Zania conducting the first serious scientific study of How Lions really live in the wild. Schaller who first won Fame with his studies of the Mountain Gorilla lived in the Serengeti for three years and completed some 2900 hours of observing hundreds of wild Lions. His recently published scientific monograph the Serengeti lion is a landmark in the Blossom ing Field of High intensity animal behaviour research. Along with thousands of details of lion life Schaller s findings explode Many of the most cherished beliefs about his most fabled of beasts. He has found for example that Lions prefer to steal their food from other predators rather than Hunt it themselves. In Many parts of Africa Lions get More than half their food by scavenging the carcasses of animals killed by hyenas wild dogs or disease. In times when prey is scarce adult Lions monopolize what food is available often leaving the cubs to starve. One Quarter to one third of All cubs die this Way. A similar proportion of cubs die following abandonment by their mothers female Lions do More than 90 per cent of the killing the magnificently maned males Rush in to gobble most of what s killed before allowing lion esses to feed. In a lion Pride most of the important leadership comes from the females who maintain a permanent closed sisterhood. The Brawny males Are itinerant who attach themselves to a Pride for a few months or years monopolize the food sire a few litters and then Drift away to a Vagabond life until they find another Pride without a male or with one that can be pushed out. The male s chief service to his family is to defend it against other males. Perhaps the two most sacred myths about Lions and to a lesser extent about every form of animal life is that unlike depraved Man animals do not kill except in self defense and for food and they certainly do not murder their own kind. When fighting Breaks out one lion is supposed to offer a traditional gesture of capitulation before any fatal blows Are landed. Bunk. Now that individual groups of free living Lions have been studied Long enough it is Clear that violence toward and murder of their own kind Are very much a part of lion society Schaller observed several lion fights that ended fatally. Males from one Pride attacked a male in a neighbouring Pride killing him and leaving the Pride defenceless so that males from yet another Pride invaded killing and eating the cubs. The maleness females also turned cannibalistic killing and eating their own cubs. I have been impressed observed Harvard Zool Ogist Edward 0. Wilson How often such behaviour becomes apparent As the observation time devoted to a species passes the thousand hour Mark. Murder has now been observed frequently enough in gulls hyenas Hippopotamus is langur macaques and some other vertebrates to suggest that it is both widespread and. Far More common and hence Normal in these species than in another myth about Lions is that they kill Only As much As they need to eat. Again bunk. Lions go on killing binges wantonly catching and killing almost any animal they can. Lions sometimes kill More prey than they can consume in a meal Schaller says. At. Times Lions already have a kill but take advantage of an easy Opportunity to obtain another no matter How gorged they Are. When Large herds of wildebeest migrated past Seronea in the Serengeti for several Days a group of Lions killed repeatedly leaving uneaten carcasses lying during a drought in Nairobi National Park or. Mervyn Cowie first director of Kenya National Parks observed Lions killing Large num Bers of starving and weakened animals without eat ing most of them. Tor centuries the Western world s View of Lions was a gentler one derived from a description by Pliny which echoes through Many of the natural historic encyclopedias so popular in Europe during the 16th to 18th centuries. The lion Pliny informed his readers alone of All wild beasts is gentle to those who Humble them selves to him and will not touch any such upon their submission but spares whatever creature Lieth pro Strate before Long before Pliny the lion had captured the hearts and in some places the souls of men. Lions were worshipped in Mesopotamia Phoenicia and especially in ancient Egypt where the cities of Leon to Polis and Heliopolis were centers of a lion cult. In the Temple of Amun a at Heliopolis for example priests tended tame Lions bathing them in perfumed water and soothing them with incense and sacred music. The nobility or sacredness of Lions has never pre vented their being hunted. Indeed sport Hunters have Long held that their quest for a particular beast is homage to it and that a Bullet or Arrow confers a kind of immortality. Many a modern sport Hunter enters his trophy room As if it were a pantheon. Not until the 1920s, when the number of visiting Hunters from Europe and America began to grow considerably were Lions added to the list of species for which shooting licenses were required and the rituals of sportsmanlike Hunting enforced. Until then anyone was free to shoot As Many As he liked and it was not uncommon for Hunters to return with 60 or More Lions. Few people objected. The More that died the better for Hunting real game such As kudu Impala and Gazelle. There was never much disagreement that Lions could be dangerous. But apparently Lions did not behave dangerously enough to make a Good Story for the tourist Hunter who had paid thousands of dollars to come to Africa. Consequently some Hunters re sorted to special tactics to make the lion charge so that the Bullet could drop him in mid leap. Teddy Roosevelt favored a method called Gallop ing the the Hunter used horses and once he had found his target usually sleeping he would walk and Gallop the horse Back and Forth at first Only teasing the lion but gradually working it into a furious rage. One Bullet or More typically a Fusil Lade later the Hunter had his lion and a Story that would prove anyone s manhood. O. Page a 6 the stars and stripes sunday november 18/ 1973 course there were plenty of shooters who thought it safer to bag the lion some other Way. In the Serengeti before it was a Park Lions were so plentiful so unafraid of visitors that it was easy to Knock off As Many As one wanted. Lion Hunting in the Serengeti became a real farce and no self respecting Hunter would dare to admit that his skins came from that Region recalled c. A w. Guggis Berg a Long time student of Lions who until Schaller was probably the world s leading author Ity. Lions Are still plentiful in Africa and nowhere near the endangered list. But hundreds of them Are being killed each year lion Hunting continues to be big business in Kenya and Tanzania and some Ken Yans Are beginning to question the attitudes of Many of the foreign tourists. Last August for example the papers carried dozens of letters to the editor criticizing one Leo Roethe a 58-year-old american millionaire As the writers usually called him who came to Kenya to shoot a lion. In the process he Only wounded the beast which after five hours of harass ment and More bullets turned and chomped on
