Lion takes pride of place in zoo

TWO young lionesses can be seen at the new ‘Asian Forests’ facility in Dublin Zoo.

They arrived recently from Mulhouse in France. Like their counterparts in the wild, zoo animals are not really owned by anybody; international travellers, they spend periods of their lives at different locations. No money changes hands for transfers; the receiving institution just pays the travel bill.

In the zoo world, pedigree is everything. A ‘stud-book’, the animal equivalent of Burke’s Peerage, is kept for each species. Its holder decides which individuals should breed and with whom. Those whose genes become too prominent in a population are discouraged in favour of under-represented ones. The aim is build up as diverse a gene-pool as possible, especially for globally threatened species. Dublin’s new youngsters are Asiatic lions, aristocrats of the feline world. Only the best-equipped zoos are allowed to host such critically endangered animals.

During Roman times, lions roamed much of Africa, Asia and southern Europe. Persecution, habitat destruction and trophy hunting rendered them extinct north of the Sahara; those further south survive only in reserves. The King of Beasts, which gave its name to the tribe of Judah and refused to eat Daniel in the famous den, was exterminated in the Christian West and the Islamic Middle East. However, thanks to the Hindu doctrine of rebirth, with its reverence for all life, a few continued to roam the Gir forest in Gujarat, Mohandas Ghandi’s home state. Gir is a remote wilderness of trees and scrub where temperatures can reach 45º C and monsoon rains deluge the parched earth. Lions and leopards live beside semi-nomadic pastoralists whose livestock are taken by the cats.

In the days of the Raj, the viceroy would hunt there at the invitation of the local ruler, the Nawab of Junagah. In 1906, alarm bells sounded; there seemed to be only 13 lions left for the viceroy’s annual visit. Thanks to a ban on hunting, introduced by the Nawab, numbers had reached 234 by 1936. A census in 2010 yielded a total of 411, more lions than Gir can comfortably support.

The Asiatic lion is smaller and lighter than the more familiar African one. The male has a shorter mane and a fold of skin runs along its underbelly. It’s the cat’s social structure, however, which is of greatest interest to scientists; it seems to throw light on an old mystery.

Lions live in groups known as ‘prides’ and zoologists argue as to why they do so. Cats are stealth hunters and must hunt alone to catch their prey. Communal hunting is the preserve of the dog family; lions are the only cats to indulge in it. A pride working cooperatively can secure more ‘kills’ than an individual working on its own. However, there may be 20 or more animals in an African pride, a lot of mouths to feed. The alpha male, who doesn’t hunt, eats first. He and his leading females take ‘the lion’s share’ of the food and lower ranking pride members may go hungry. A lone hunter may kill less often but it doesn’t have to share the catch. Why then did communal hunting evolve? The Asiatic lion may offer part of the explanation. Its prides, with just one or two mature females, are much smaller than African ones where there may be four to six. Also, Asiatic males live separate lives, only visiting the pride to mate. Prey animals in India, mainly deer and antelope, are moderately sized and working in smaller groups is more effective. Solitary hunting is also possible there. In Africa, however, lions target larger and more aggressive animals, which an individual operating alone could not hope to bring down. Cooperation, it seems, evolved to facilitate ‘big game’ hunting. The lion of India, with its more traditional feline lifestyle, may be the behavioural ‘missing link’ between the African big cat and its ancestors.

A male will join the Dublin pair soon and breeding will commence. It’s rumoured that a suitor from Rotterdam Zoo will be on his way to Dublin as soon as another lion has been found to replace him.