Two lions make record-breaking swim for ‘female affection’
兩隻獅子為「女性感情」而破紀錄地游泳
作者：阿什利·斯特裡克蘭（Ashley Strickland）2024年7月10日星期三下午7：06
Lion brothers Tibu (bottom) and Jacob rest in Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda.
獅子兄弟Tibu（下）和Jacob在烏干達的伊莉莎白女王國家公園休息。(視頻截圖)
Two lion brothers, including one with an amputated leg, were spotted making a record-breaking night swim through treacherous waters in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park.
Researchers believe that the nearly mile-long (1.6-kilometer) crossing of the crocodile-infested Kazinga Channel is the longest documented swim by lions.
And it’s another chapter in the story of Jacob, a resilient lion who has survived numerous life-threatening situations, including losing part of a leg to a poaching trap, during his 10 years in the park.
But why did Jacob and his brother, Tibu, cross the waterway connecting two lakes in the first place? They were likely in search of females after losing dangerous fights to another group of male lions — and to avoid humans while doing so, according to the researchers.
The scientists’ findings published Wednesday in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
“Competition for lionesses in the park is fierce and they lost a fight for female affection in the hours leading up to the swim, so it’s likely the duo mounted the risky journey to get to the females on the other side of the channel,” sAId lead study author Dr. Alex Braczkowski, research fellow at Griffith University’s Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security in Australia, in a statement.
Braczkowski has been following Jacob’s story for eight years during his long-term study of African lions in Queen Elizabeth and other Ugandan national parks. As the scientific director of the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust’s Kyambura Lion Monitoring Project, Braczkowski has worked with the Ugandan government since 2017 to record information about predator populations.
“Jacob has had the Most incredible journey and really is a cat with nine lives,” Braczkowski said. “I’d bet all my belongings that we are looking at Africa’s most resilient lion: he has been gored by a buffalo, his family was poisoned for lion body part trade, he was caught in a poacher’s snare, and finally lost his leg in another attempted poaching incident where he was caught in a steel trap.”
兩隻獅子兄弟，包括一隻截肢的獅子兄弟，被發現在烏干達伊莉莎白女王國家公園的險惡水域中破紀錄地夜間游泳。
研究人員認為，鱷魚出沒的卡津加海峽近一英里長（1.6公里）的穿越是獅子有記錄以來最長的游泳。
這是雅各故事的另一章，雅各是一頭堅韌的獅子，在公園的 10 年裡，他在無數危及生命的情況下倖存下來，包括因偷獵陷阱而失去部分腿。
但是，為什麼雅各和他的兄弟提布首先要穿過連接兩個湖泊的水道呢？據研究人員稱，它們很可能是在尋找雌性獅子，因為他們在與另一群雄獅的危險戰鬥中輸掉了比賽，並在這樣做時避開了人類。
科學家的研究結果發表周三發表在《生態與進化》雜誌上。
“公園裡對母獅的競爭非常激烈，他們在游泳前的幾個小時內輸掉了一場爭奪女性感情的戰鬥，所以這對搭檔很可能踏上了冒險的旅程，到達海峽另一邊的雌性，”主要研究作者、澳大利亞格裡菲斯大學行星健康與糧食安全中心研究員Alex Braczkowski博士說， 在一份聲明中。
布拉茨科夫斯基在伊莉莎白女王和其他烏干達國家公園長期研究非洲獅期間，已經關注雅各的故事八年了。作為 Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust 的 Kyambura 獅子監測項目的科學總監，Braczkowski 自 2017 年以來一直與烏干達政府合作，記錄有關捕食者種群的資訊。
“雅各經歷了最不可思議的旅程，真的是一隻有九條命的貓，”布拉茨科夫斯基說。“我敢打賭，我所有的東西都能看到非洲最有韌性的獅子：他被一頭水牛咬傷，他的家人因獅子身體部位交易而中毒，他被偷獵者的圈套抓住，最後在另一起偷獵未遂事件中失去了一條腿，他被困在一個鋼鐵陷阱中。
Jacob hangs out in a tree in the Ugandan park when he was younger.
雅各年輕時在烏干達公園的一棵樹上閒逛。
[A dramatic river crossing]
Braczkowski and his team, including field coordinators Orin Cornille and Bosco Atukwatse and camera operator Luke Ochse, wanted to capture videos of the brothers hunting and to find other lions by tracking Jacob and Tibu’s movements. Under the supervision of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, Ochse operated high-definition heat detection cameras on drones.
At the end of January, the team witnessed Jacob and Tibu enter into two vicious fights with other male lions within 48 hours. The other lions were trying to drive Jacob and Tibu out of their territory, and Jacob took the brunt of the damage, said Braczkowski and study coauthor Duan Biggs, associate professor and Olajos-Goslow Chair of Environmental Science and Policy at Northern Arizona University. Tibu led the other lions away from Jacob, and shortly after, they approached the channel.
The brothers made three attempts to cross the channel, turning back to shore during the first two tries. The video footage shows a heat signature trailing the brothers during one of their attempts, which may have been a crocodile.
While lions are fearsome predators, a Nile crocodile can easily kill a lion in the water, Braczkowski said. The crocodiles can weigh up to four times more than a male lion and have been observed killing lions as the big cats swam anywhere from 10 to a couple of hundred meters, according to the study authors.
With only brief stints of about 15 minutes between each attempt, the brothers were successful on their third try, taking about 45 minutes to cross the river. Jacob trailed his brother by 98 to 131 feet (30 to 40 meters), but both made it to the other side safely.
“The biggest surprise was the fact that they were getting into water with high densities of crocs and hippos,” Braczkowski said by email. “But finding females to breed with clearly is more important to the male lions than their own wellbeing or the potential risk of getting killed by crocs and hippos.”
The lions could have taken a small connecting bridge, but the researchers suspect that human foot traffic on the bridge deterred the brothers from choosing that path.
After two earlier attempts, Jacob and Tibu made their treacherous river crossing on February 1.
經過兩次嘗試，雅各和提布於 2 月 1 日險惡地渡河。(視頻截圖)
[戲劇性的渡河]
Braczkowski和他的團隊，包括現場協調員Orin Cornille和Bosco Atukwatse以及攝像師Luke Ochse，希望通過跟蹤Jacob和Tibu的行動來捕捉兄弟倆狩獵的視頻並找到其他獅子。在烏干達野生動物管理局的監督下，Ochse在無人機上操作了高清熱探測攝像頭。
1月底，該團隊目睹了雅各和蒂布在48小時內與其他雄獅進行了兩次惡鬥。其他獅子試圖將雅各和蒂布趕出他們的領地，雅各首當其衝，Braczkowski和研究合著者，北亞利桑那大學環境科學與政策副教授兼Olajos-Goslow主席Duan Biggs說。提布帶領其他獅子離開雅各，不久之後，他們走近了通道。
兄弟倆曾三次嘗試穿越海峽，在前兩次嘗試中轉身返回岸邊。視頻片段顯示，在兄弟倆的一次嘗試中，有一個熱信號尾隨他們，這可能是一條鱷魚。
雖然獅子是可怕的捕食者，但尼羅河鱷魚可以很容易地殺死水中的獅子，Braczkowski說。據研究作者稱，鱷魚的體重是雄獅的四倍，並且已經觀察到在大型貓科動物遊動10到幾百米的任何地方時殺死獅子。
每次嘗試之間只有大約15分鐘的短暫時間，兄弟倆在第三次嘗試中成功了，花了大約45分鐘才過河。雅各落後他的兄弟 98 到 131 英尺（30 到 40 米），但兩人都安全地到達了另一邊。
“最大的驚喜是，它們正在進入高密度鱷魚和河馬的水中，”Braczkowski通過電子郵件說。“但是，對於雄獅來說，找到與之繁殖的雌性獅子比它們自己的健康或被鱷魚和河馬殺死的潛在風險更重要。
獅子們本可以走一座小橋，但研究人員懷疑橋上的人類人行阻礙了兄弟倆選擇這條路。
Jacob's leg was amputated after getting it caught in a steel poaching trap.
雅各的腿在被鋼製偷獵陷阱夾住后被截肢。
[Shifting lion populations]
Braczkowski has studied ratios of male to female lions, and his findings suggest that the lion population within the park is dropping.
“In healthy lion populations sex ratios are 2 females for every male, in Queen Elizabeth (it’s) the opposite,” he said. “Our latest lion census suggests lions in the park have declined by 50% in just 5 years.”
Other African reserves, such as the Maasai Mara or Serengeti, boast large lion populations, but they have measures that limit poaching and prevent lions from encroaching on livestock populations.
“In Queen (Elizabeth National Park) in contrast, you have 60,000 people living in the park, there are thousands of cows, and poaching rates are high,” Braczkowski said. “When these threats converge lions decline rapidly.”
Unlike other big cats, lions are social creatures, said Dr. Craig Packer, founder and director of the Lion Center at the University of Minnesota and Distinguished McKnight Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior. Packer was not involved in the research but has dedicated decades to studying African lions and is the author of “The Lion: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation of an Iconic Species.”
Previous research has shown that big cats such as lions and tigers can swim when necessary.
“They have these big plate-like feet, they’re strong, and they’re going to look for ladies somewhere,” Packer said after seeing the video. “There was terrific incentive to get across.”
[獅子種群的變化]
Braczkowski研究了雄獅與雌獅的比例，他的研究結果表明，公園內的獅子數量正在下降。
“在健康的獅子種群中，性別比例是每隻雄性2隻雌性，而在伊莉莎白女王（情況）恰恰相反，”他說。“我們最新的獅子普查表明，公園裡的獅子在短短 5 年內下降了 50%。
其他非洲保護區，如馬賽馬拉或塞倫蓋蒂，擁有大量的獅子種群，但它們有限制偷獵和防止獅子侵佔牲畜種群的措施。
“相比之下，在女王（伊莉莎白國家公園），公園裡有6萬人，有數千頭奶牛，偷獵率很高，”布拉茨科夫斯基說。“當這些威脅彙聚在一起時，獅子會迅速衰落。
與其他大型貓科動物不同，獅子是群居動物，明尼蘇達大學獅子中心創始人兼主任、麥克奈特生態學、進化和行為學傑出教授克雷格·派克博士說。派克沒有參與這項研究，但幾十年來一直致力於研究非洲獅子，並且是《獅子：標誌性物種的行為、生態學和保護》一書的作者。
先前的研究表明，獅子和老虎等大型貓科動物在必要時可以游泳。
“他們有這些大盤子一樣的腳，他們很強壯，他們會在某個地方尋找女士，”派克在看到視頻后說。“有很大的動力去交流。”
[Looking out for one another]
Packer’s research has shown that when male lions stick together, they sire more cubs. And females in prides tend to give birth at the same time.
“So you get these cohorts of youngsters that grow up together, and they form a coalition,” Packer said. “Now if you’re a single male and you see a coalition of nine males, you would do more than just swim across the channel.”
[互相照顧]
派克的研究表明，當雄獅粘在一起時，它們會生下更多的幼崽。驕傲的雌性往往會同時分娩。
“所以你讓這些年輕人一起長大，他們形成了一個聯盟，”派克說。“現在，如果你是一個單身男性，你看到一個由九個男性組成的聯盟，你會做的不僅僅是游過海峽。
Jacob (left) and Tibu stretch before going on an evening hunt.
雅各（左）和蒂布在去打獵前伸展身體。
Lions of the same gender are incredibly affectionate with each other, and they regard each other as lifelines, he said. Even grouPS of two or three males have a much better life expectancy, and solitary lions have a smaller chance of survival, Packer said.
So, it’s no surprise that Jacob and Tibu have stuck together, which has enabled them to survive. Multiple agencies have also stepped in to provide Jacob with veterinary assistance over the years, Braczkowski said.
But the biggest threat to lion populations is dwindling land, Packer said.
As the human population near wildlife reserves grows, more land is dedicated to agricultural spaces, reducing the areas where lions can roam and hunt for prey. Then, the lions cross over into populated areas and attack cattle.
Seeing Jacob and Tibu’s river crossing shows the lengths lions will go to for new living spaces and mates, Braczkowski said.
“These kinds of behaviors are emblematic of wildlife having to make increasingly risky decisions for resources and mates in human dominated landscapes,” Biggs said in an email. “If conservation is going to work for lions in places where people live, we need economic models that will support the communities that live closely to lions and suffer the brunt of their conflict with cattle.”
他說，同性別的獅子彼此之間非常親切，他們把對方視為生命線。派克說，即使是兩到三隻雄性的群體也有更好的預期壽命，而獨居獅子的生存機會更小。
因此，雅各和提布團結在一起也就不足為奇了，這使他們能夠生存下來。Braczkowski說，多年來，多個機構也介入為雅各提供獸醫援助。
但對獅子種群的最大威脅是土地的減少，派克說。
隨著野生動物保護區附近人口的增長，更多的土地被用於農業空間，減少了獅子可以漫遊和捕食獵物的區域。然後，獅子越過人口稠密的地區並攻擊牛群。
Braczkowski說，看到雅各和蒂布的過河表明獅子將竭盡全力尋找新的生活空間和配偶。
“這些行為象徵著野生動物不得不在人類主導的景觀中為資源和配偶做出越來越冒險的決定，”比格斯在一封電子郵件中說。“如果保護要在人們居住的地方為獅子工作，我們需要經濟模式來支持與獅子生活在一起的社區，並在與牛的衝突中首當其衝。 |
微信扫一扫
