Stressed Lions: Stressful Captivity and Stress-Filled Wilderness

Summary: Rescues of two abused cubs Oct. 23-24, 2018, in France reversed a fortnight that began tragically for lions with Nyack's death Oct. 22, 2018.

photos of weeks-old, unweaned female lion cub rescued Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, by Marseilles branch of Douane Française (French Customs) by Douane Française via AP: ITV News @itvnews, via Twitter Oct. 26, 2018

October appears to be a month of orphaned and semi-orphaned lion cubs with a death in Indianapolis and three separate rescues of sequestered cubs in central France, southern France and the Netherlands.

A caged four-month-old cub that braved the elements in a field outside Utrecht belongs to the Lion Foundation in the northern Netherlands since Oct. 7, 2018. French police carried a six-week-old female lion cub, still unweaned, from an apartment in Valenton, Val-de-Marne region southeast of Paris, Oct. 3, 2018, to wildlife officials. French customs agents delivered a one-plus-month-old female lion cub from a travel cage in a garage in north Marseille Oct. 24, 2018, to wildlife-specialized non-governmental organizers. Ten-year-old Nyack expired during violent exchanges with stressed 12-year-old Zuri, mother of his three cubs, despite three-year-old Sukari's presence Oct. 15, 2018, in the Indianapolis zoo.

Year-round breeding feasibility fits into 15-year life cycles more from accessible prey, shelter and water; amenable weather; available mates than from predictable mating-friendly months and seasons.

Physically and sexually mature three- to four-plus-year-old female lions get three matings per hour during three-plus-day matings with males from the same female-formed prides (extended family). Calls, hyperactivity and scents hint of reproductive hormone-driven estrous cycles and herald 105- to 110-day gestations of one- to six-cub litters in burrows, dens and nests. Slow-crawling, tawny, 2.21- to 4.41-pound- (1- to 2-kilogram) cubs blind 11 days, non-walking 15 days and non-running 30 days ingest no meat the first 90 days. Lionesses, as adult females, journey back and forth nocturnally with dead prey for three-months-olds and live prey for near-weaned cubs and with weaned six- through 18-month-olds.

Female and male cubs keep within birth prides under one to seven adult males and two to 18 adult females as lifers or two- to four-year-olds.

Spotted cubs and short-coated, tawny adults with black-backed ears, spotted abdomens and legs and tufted tails live on 8- to 800-square-mile (20- to 2,000-square-kilometer) home ranges. Adults manage 36-mile (58-kilometer) hourly speeds, daytime ambushes of waterhole prey and night-time kills of such ungulate (hoofed) animals as buffaloes, giraffes, waterbucks, wildebeests and zebras. Adult lions, scientifically named Panthera leo ("Panther lion"), net 62- to 100-inch- (160- to 250-centimeter) head-body lengths and 24- to 40-inch- (60- to 100-centimeter-) long tails.

Adult lions, outlined scientifically in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), obtain 270- to 570-pound (120- to 260-kilogram) lower-ranged female, upper-ranged male weights.

Mature lions present 3.61- to 3.94-foot (1.1- to 1.2-meter) shoulder heights and six incisors, two canines, six premolars and two molars per lower and upper jaw.

Adult females and, with black to blond manes and carrying roars for 5 miles (8.05 kilometers), males respectively queue up at perimeter patrols and homeland centers. They require 15-pound (7-kilogram) daily meals of fresh-killed, suffocated prey with crushed muzzles or windpipes and scavenged remains in mixed bushlands, grasslands, scrublands and open woodlands. The International Union for Conservation of Nature serves a vulnerability status on southwest Asian and sub-Saharan African lions from habitat loss, legal kills and trophy hunting.

Lions thrive on extended families, fresh-killed meat, nightly hunts and runnable, spacious grassy, woody territories, all of which captivity's human-controlled schedules and noisy, smelly crowds thwart.

Three-year-old Sukari witnessed the fatal confrontation between her mother, 12-year-old Zuri, and her father, 10-year-old Nyack, Monday, Oct. 15, 2018, at the Indianapolis Zoo; family portrait of Zuri (left) and Nyack (right) with two of their three cubs, about eight months after the cubs' birth (Sept. 21, 2015): Indianapolis Zoo @indianapoliszoo, via Facebook May 26, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

photos of weeks-old, unweaned female lion cub rescued Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, by Marseilles branch of Douane Française (French Customs) by Douane Française via AP: ITV News @itvnews, via Twitter Oct. 26, 2018, @ https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1055895078772850688

Three-year-old Sukari witnessed the fatal confrontation between her mother, 12-year-old Zuri, and her father, 10-year-old Nyack, Monday, Oct. 15, 2019, at the Indianapolis Zoo; family portrait of Zuri (left) and Nyack (right) with two of their three cubs, about eight months after the cubs' birth (Sept. 21, 2015): Indianapolis Zoo @indianapoliszoo, via Facebook May 26, 2016, @ https://www.facebook.com/indianapoliszoo/photos/a.75919767575/10154917614127576/

For further information:

Agence France-Presse in Marseille. 26 October 2018. "Roar Deal: Tiny Lion Cub Found Caged in Marseille Garage." The Guardian > News > Environment > Wildlife.
Available @ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/26/roar-deal-tiny-lion-cub-found-caged-in-marseille-garagev

Associated Press. 26 October 2018. "Look What We Found: Tiny Female Lion Cub in French Garage." The Washington Post > World > Europe.
Available @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/look-what-we-found-tiny-female-lion-cub-in-french-garage/2018/10/26/2bf6ba32-d941-11e8-8384-bcc5492fef49_story.html?utm_term=.f582267d639b

Brown, Andrew, ed. 1997. "Lions." In: Encyclopedia of Mammals. Volume 9, Lio-Mol: 1224-1249. Tarrytown NY: Marshall Cavendish Corporation.

Chiu, Allyson. 22 October 2018. "'She Seems to Have Crushed His Throat': Lioness at Zoo Kills Father of Her Cubs in 'Unprovoked' Attack." The Washington Post > Nation.
Available @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/22/she-seems-have-crushed-his-throat-lioness-indianapolis-zoo-kills-father-cubs-unprovoked-attack/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.35548d56aa9a

Indianapolis Zoo @indianapoliszoo. 26 May 2016. "Are we open on Memorial Day? Fur sure! And starting Friday, we're extending our hours for the summer. So bring your wild things to see ours!." Facebook.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/indianapoliszoo/photos/a.75919767575/10154917614127576/

ITV News ‏@itvnews. 26 October 2018. "A tiny female lion cub has been found in a garage in France." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1055895078772850688

Linnaei, Caroli (Carl Linnaeus). 1758. "1. Felis leo." Systema Naturae per Regna Tria Naturae, Secundum Classes, Ordines, Genera, Species, cum Characteribus, Differentiis, Synonymis, Locis, Tomus I, Editio Decima, Reformata: 41. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/726936

Solly, Meilan. 24 October 2018. "A Lioness Killed the Father of Her Cubs in Rare Attack at Indianapolis Zoo." Smithsonian > Smart-News.
Available @ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/lioness-killed-father-her-cubs-rare-attack-indianapolis-zoo-180970621/

Toon, Ann and Stephen B. "Lion: Panthera leo." In: Michael Hutchins, Devra G. Kleiman, Valerius Geist and Melissa C. McDade, eds. Grzimek's Animal Encyclopedia. Second edition. Volume 14, Mammals III: 379. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group, 2003.