Lions of savo

In March of 1898 when the British started to build a bridge over the Tsavo River, two lions mauled and killed 140 railroad workers. To escape the rampaging lions, the workers fled Tsavo and the construction of the bridge was put to a halt. Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson was chief engineer in the project. He was the one that had to eliminate the lion’s threat. After the lions were killed, the workers came back to Tsavo to finish the bridge. Researchers are trying to figure out why these lions acquired the taste for human blood. These lions were maneless male lions which means they may have had genes that differed from normal lions with manes. Why did the lions kill all of those people?
The male lions of Tsavo, Kenya, which gained notoriety in the late 19th century as man-eaters, are unusual for two reasons. They lack the mane commonly associated with male lions, and they have been found to have an uncommon family life. Bruce Patterson, who works at the New York State Museum, came up with a theory that the social structure and the absence of the mane all boils down to hormones and testosterone. This suggests that the prides are social groups made up of adolescent males whose testosterone levels have not yet peaked. Another theory is that the male lions have a high level of testosterone. In humans, men with high testosterone levels experience baldness. This may be directly related to the maneless lions of Tsavo. This high testosterone also triggers aggressive behavior.
A lion’s mane is used for impressing female lions in courtship and as well as warding off other male lions. Researchers say that a lions mane is linked to the climate in which the lion lives. If a lion is in a warmer climate then the mane will not be as thick as it would be if it was in a cooler area. It was earlier thought that manes grow thick based on nutrition. The lion’s mane is very impressive but there are down sides to the big fluffy mane. It takes energy to grow and maintain. It gives away the lions position when hunting for prey. Also, the mane gets caught in brambles throughout the thick vegetation. There is another theory proposing that the maneless lions of Tsavo do not have manes because of high heated areas.
Lions usually stay away from humans. They do not see humans as a normal food source, although the killer lions in 1898 preyed on many humans. There is a theory that suggests lions kill and eat humans when there normal food sources of antelope, baby elephant, zebra, reptiles and even crocodiles vanish. Humans are a last resort. The killer lion’s food sources must have been non-existent. They saw many humans working on the railroad and became desperate for food. Once they ate a human they realized that it is an easy meal. Humans are very vulnerable, because humans are slow moving, bipedal source of protein the lions make little effort to hunt and kill. Humans were available to be preyed upon so they stayed and hunted about 140 people. They became accustomed to eating humans and may have acquired the taste for humans. John Pickrell wrote in National geographic that man-eaters become what they are because of certain environmental conditions, such as food loss or habitat change. All of which is caused by humans moving into an area. In the Journal of East African Natural History states that even now lions are killing people. A pride of lions have killed nine people since December 2002, and continue to terrorize people in central Malawi. The region is currently in drought, forcing wildlife to travel closer to human populations for food. Damaged teeth or jaws can lead to carnivore- human conflicts. Humans have soft flesh and it would be easy for a lion with a damaged mouth to eat them.
Apparently lions ate people in Tsavo before this particular incident happened in 1898. In the early 19th century, Tsavo was on a slave route in which about 80,000 people died from sickness or injury resulting in free food for the lions. The sickly humans were easy prey for the lions and they took full advantage of this situation. When the humans came into the area, the lion’s normal prey disappeared leaving the humans as the only available food source.
In a few well-documented, localized incidents, man-eating appears to be a learned behavior. Once lions establish a pattern and begin to prey regularly on humans, they can pass it on to their offspring, along with sophisticated strategies and techniques, such as never returning to the same place two days in a row. This would definitely cause the lions to be man-eaters and could be one of the reasons this happens. When the cub is born it is programmed to think that humans are a type of prey, it will be their instinct when they get old enough to hunt. They won’t think twice about stalking a human.
Lions are not the only big cat to attack humans. In Asia the human population is booming. Farmers and loggers are working where tigers live. This causes conflicts between tigers and the humans in the area. While man-eating tigers are a rarity in most parts of Asia, they are big in the Sunderbans, a 10,360 square kilometer densely forested area by a river in India and Bangladesh that is the home to about 250 tigers. No one lives in the mangrove forests and swamps of the Sunderbans however; people do go in there to fish and gather wood and honey. The Sunderban tigers have targeted humans as prey, and human casualties are reported every year. There are tricks that people have thought up to stop tiger attacks. One trick is to put dummies out in the woods that are connected to car batteries. When a tiger touched the dummy the tiger is shocked. This teaches them not to attack humans. Another trick is to where a mask which looks like a normal human face on the back of the head. Tigers mainly attack from behind and these masks help confuse tigers. These attacks are occurring because of sharing an area with the tigers. The tigers prey runs out and they are forced to hunt humans. This is related to the attacks in Africa. These may be the one reason why these attacks occur. Then these hunting methods are passed down to the offspring.
There could be more than one reason for the attacks in Tsavo. It might turn out that the mane has nothing to do with attacking humans at all. It may be just because of humans moving into the lion’s territory. Either way lions do start to acquire the taste for humans and see us as a normal food source after duration of hunting them. The two “killer” lions of Tsavo killed over 100 people because they became used to eating humans. No one really knows exactly why these attacks occurred but the theories keep turning up, there could be many reasons the lions ate so many people. The events that occurred in 1898 will never be forgotten. Scientists won’t rest until they find out exactly why lions attack humans. Was it just cold blood murder, or were there complicated reasons for these attacks? Were the lion’s freaks of nature or were they normal lions desperately need of food. Only lions can tell us why this happens and zoologists will study and study until they find the answer.