Richard Collins: Why did the three-legged lion swim more than a kilometre through predator-infested waters?
Tibu and Jacob. Picture: Alex Braczkowski / Wildlife Conservation Network / Lion Recovery Fund
He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted — The Book of Job.
Jacob, a 10-year-old lion, is the Job of the feline world — he has endured the most appalling trials and tribulations. Poachers and human encroachment are rendering Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park, where Jacob lives, a dangerous place for lions. According to Zoologist Alexander Braczkowski, who studies them, numbers have been almost halved in the last five years.
Happy #WorldLionDay - here’s a video I shot of one of Uganda’s favourite lions, Jacob. He’s sending you a holler from a giant fig tree 40 feet high 🇺🇬 pic.twitter.com/cNxRDvsqD9
— Alex Braczkowski (@alexbraczkowski) August 10, 2019
As a cub, Jacob was caught by the leg in a wire snare set by poachers. Wildlife vets freed him and managed to save the leg.
Six months later, his family was poisoned and the body parts sold to the bogus medicine trade. Most of his relatives died but Jacob, and his brother Tibu, managed to survive.
In the third of his nine lives, he was gored by a buffalo. But worse was to follow; Jacob was caught in a lethal spring-trap set by the poachers. This time, the leg could not be saved; it had to be amputated. Although, like Job, ‘his grief was very great’, Jacob dusted himself down and went on to triumph over adversity.
A three-legged lion has little prospect of surviving for long in the wild; Jacob would have difficulty hunting. Losing out in confrontations with other males, he could not hope to impress lionesses, establish a pride of his own, or father cubs. But our hero was not deterred.
Big cat males won’t normally tolerate rival males on their patch but, occasionally, they form ‘coalitions’. Two males, usually close relatives, may bond. Lions, almost uniquely among cats, are cooperative hunters. Two can operate more effectively than one. This applies also when seeking out receptive females.
According to Doctor Braczkowski, "competition for lionesses in the park is fierce and our hero lost out in the fight for female affection". There were suitable partners, however, on the other side of a waterway known as the Kazinga Channel. But to reach them, the pair would have to cross it. There’s a small road-bridge but increased human presence deterred the lions from approaching it. The duo’s only option was to swim for sex.
Lions can swim but will do so only very occasionally and over short distances. The Kazinga Channel teems with crocodiles. There are hippos, the most dangerous animals in Africa; more people are killed by hippos than by any other African mammal. A lion venturing into the water there would be highly vulnerable.
But the intrepid pair took the plunge. They entered the water at night. Heat-detecting cameras, mounted on drones, recorded their progress.
Jacob and Tibu travelled more a kilometre through the predator-infested waters six times. This may not seem much, but these are the longest swims ever recorded for lions anywhere. Doing so with only three legs is even more remarkable. Indeed, this is the feline equivalent of Alcock and Brown’s flight from Newfoundland to a Galway bog in 1919.
Job "had seven sons and three daughters and saw his sons, and their sons, even over four generations". How many descendants can Jacob hope to have?
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