Step-dads from Hell

"Better a serpent than a stepmother."
     Euripides (480-406 BC)

Over the millennia, step-mums have received some seriously bad press. From Cinderella to Hansel and Gretel, our folklore is brimful of stepmothers behaving badly. But where are the wicked step-dads? Stepfathers have gotten away with murder. And of course they still are, if you happen to be a lion.

Alright, I admit it, this post is about lions.  Again.
Not that I'm becoming obsessed by the creatures...

It's just I've got a horrible suspicion they've followed me home (my house is six kilometres from my study site, as the lion pads).
Just paranoia? Well if so, I'm not the only one. Last night a herd of waterbucks (shaggy, horse-sized antelope) settled down to sleep 12 metres (39 feet) from my backdoor. There they all sat, nonchalantly chewing their cuds, while the TV blared and my lights blazed, and the dogs yapped at the porcupine and I hollered at the dogs. This is NOT normal waterbuck behaviour. Even the dogs knew something was up, and pointedly ignored them (Wizard's aberrant feelings about waterbuck are elucidated here).

It reminded me worryingly of my visit to Yellowstone National Park, where I spent several days fruitlessly searching for an elk (a species I'd never seen) before stumbling upon dozens, all sitting about calmly amid the shops, cars and people inside the (wolf-free) camps. Were the local waterbucks using me as an anti-predator device? If so, it didn't work. A couple of hours after the dogs and I had retired, we were startled awake by a volley of explosive alarm barks and the wild crashing of waterbucks taking flight... from something...

On average, a lion eats 5-7 kg (11-15 lbs) of meat a day. But when push comes to shove, it can put away 50 kg (110 lbs) at one sitting (that's 30% of its own weight). Phew! Photo by Arno and Louise Meintjes.

The two lions that may, or may not, be wandering around outside my house are not step-dads. In fact, it's pretty safe to say any male lion you see lounging about is not a step-dad. When a male lion has step-kids, he's busy: hunting them.

You see, at the heart of every lion pride is a sisterhood of lionesses (mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces) who happily fix dinner together and suckle one another's cubs. The pride males are outsiders; war-hardened fighters who've forged alliances to overthrow their rivals. Now you probably already know that when new males take over a pride, they kill any cubs less than 12 months old. This isn't just wanton violence: freed from the needs of their cubs, the pride's mums will be ready to mate with their offspring's murderer in just a few days or weeks. What I hadn't realised, is the precariousness of this system.
The problem is, a lioness only gives birth once every two years (all being well) because it takes 18 months for her ankle-biters to learn to fend for themselves. But the average tenure of a pride male is only two years (at least in the Serengeti, where the long term studies have been done). So even the most paternal, fun-loving and altruistic step-dad simply can't afford not to get blood on his paws. Unless he rids the pride of dependent cubs, he won't have enough time to rear his own brood before his successor rushes in and murders them. It amazes me that any cubs survive at all (as it is, only 50% make it to 12 months of age).

Like an exclusive coffee circle, the number of adult lionesses in a pride is fixed (by the size of the pride's territory) and stays stable, year after year, even though individual members change. If the circle is full, the pride's daughters must leave home, but if places fall vacant - and there are no female cubs to fill them - even unrelated lionesses are allowed to join. Photo by Arno Meintjes.

Of course the whole system is pretty poxy for the lionesses too; after all, they invest much more in the cubs. Sometimes the girls will band together and successfully drive out the new males, and occasionally a mum will go into exile to save her cubs. But even when the wicked step-dads have done their evil deed, the lionesses still have some tricks up their... er... fur. After a change in males, the lionesses go through three or four months when they're very interested in sex. But they don't actually enter oestrus or conceive. This honeymoon period, not only encourages the males to hang around (rather than mating and abandoning the pride) but also allows time for any bigger and better males that might be lurking in the area, to overthrow the incumbents, before the girls have invested in their cubs.

It's been calculated (field biologists are a sad lot) that lions copulate 3000 times for every cub that survives to yearling age. Ovulation in lady lions is brought on by love-making, so he's got to get it right, if he wants to be a dad. Photo by Arno and Louise Meintjes.


Of one thing you can be sure, if lions have folklore, wicked stepfathers will be a very prominent feature.

A cub of one's own. Photo by Arno and Louise Meintjes.

Megafauna meltdown

The Lion

If you're attacked by a lion
Find fresh underpants to try on
Lay on the ground quite still
Pretend you are very ill
Keep like that day after day
Perhaps the lion will go away

Spike Milligan


Why am I writing a post about lions?

After all, I live and work in a lion-free environment.

In fact, I went to a lot of trouble to find a study site that didn't harbour big and bitey beasts (lions and elephants) so I could walk with the mongooses, fear-free.

So why am I now concerning myself with these massive, great carnivores?

Yesterday, when I arrived at Bugbears' favourite termite mound, I didn't find the usual merry gathering of giraffes. I was a bit surprised, but then I saw why they'd disappeared. Trailing past Bugbears' termite mound were the tracks of two large lions. Now, I'm no great tracker. I tend to waste hours poring over smudgy paw marks, vainly hunting for the forensic subtleties that separate hyena from dog, leopard from cheetah. But when it comes to an adult lion, there's no mistake. Spread your hand as wide as it will go, and you still won't span the pug mark of a lion.

These two males are enjoying a holiday from the nearby Greater Kruger Park. Much to my chagrin, lions tend to wander through here once or twice a year. Generally, once they'v left the park, they don't have much of a shelf-life; sooner or later they chow down on a valued commodity (cow, buffalo calf, sable, roan, etc.) and get themselves shot as a result. I've never yet encountered a lion when on foot and, since Kruger's lions tend to retreat from pedestrians (unless, of course, you stumble upon their kill or cubs), I began to cross my fingers that I'd see them.

But then I met the stump-lions. Stump-lions will be familiar to anyone who's tried to spot lions when game-viewing (i.e. on safari). They're actually close relatives of stick-snakes, and they're normally quite rare around here. Not this morning. It only took a couple of encounters - my heart leaping and the gasping panic tingling through to my finger tips – before I realised I didn't really want to meet a lion on foot after all. I mean what does one do? Obviously retreat slowly, but to where? How wide is a wide berth for lion? With more than half a kilometre of bush between myself and the car, there's no 'place of safety'.

It was while I was pondering these weighty questions, that I realised my stump-lions weren't even realistic. They were more like stump-St Bernards. Thanks to our familiarity with large dogs, we all have a mental picture of big predatory mammals, and most wild carnivores (from jaguars and wolves to hyenas and cheetahs) fit the bill. But lions are outside the box. Put simply, lions are BIG. And I'm not just talking Great Dane/Irish Wolfhound big. The shoulder height of your average male lion is 1.2 metres (4 feet) which is also my shoulder height (give or take an inch). And lions weigh three times as much as I do. Oh, and did I mention their length? From nose tip to rump, males can measure 3.3 metres (11 feet) which is bigger than your average four-seater lounge.

Having scared myself silly thinking about all this, I decided to give up on Bugbears and visit Ecthelion instead. Here I found even fresher lion tracks and was treated to a rousing chorus of yowling by the local jackals (who undertake such performances when they've sniffed out a body).
I spent less time in the field yesterday than perhaps I should have.

To cap off a stressful day, I arrived home to find two sets of massive elephant prints marching down my driveway. A few of Kruger's elephants usually roll up here in the late dry season (searching out fresh greens) but they're a month early this year. Although I think it's wonderful that such animals exist, and l love seeing them mooching past the house, walking the dogs becomes an exercise in courage as we venture forth into Jurassic Park.

Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes. 

NOTICES:

 Check out the blog carnival I and the Bird (# 131) at The Flying Mullet for lots of intriguing posts about our feathered friends.