Tanzania – YLoveBigCats https://www.ylovebigcats.com/en Big cats from the world,<br>a world of big cats Mon, 30 Oct 2017 13:58:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Eagle vs. leopard (in a tree) https://www.ylovebigcats.com/en/2015/05/12/eagle-vs-leopard-in-a-tree/ Tue, 12 May 2015 14:20:10 +0000 https://ylovebigcats.com/en/?p=948 It is quite usual to see a leopard in a tree. After all, these big cats climb up there quite commonly and often bring their dead prey into the high branches to protect them from the competition (like a wandering hyena). But it is quite rare to see a leopard hunt in a treee. When, it is confronting an eagle, we reach great heights of weirdness.

Anyway, Paul Steyn observed such a behaviour (a leopard female trying to enter the nest of an eagle). But, in the end, even if the eagle flew avoding any risk, the leopard did not catch anything.

Acrobatic Leopard Raids Eagle’s Nest

]]> Don’t bait the lion after a full Moon https://www.ylovebigcats.com/en/2011/10/01/dont-bait-the-lion-after-a-full-moon/ Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:40:50 +0000 https://ylovebigcats.com/en/?p=763 When your safari guide tells you not to go outside of your tent at night, you should always respect this advice. Night is the right time for predators like lions to hunt. Most accidents in Tanzania happen in the last hours of the day or the beginning of the night.

This is shown in the peak appearing on the right of the graph I borrowed from a scientific study titled “Fear of Darkness, the Full Moon and the Nocturnal Ecology of African Lions” and published in Plos One by Craig Packer, Alexandra Swanson, Dennis Ikanda and Hadas Kushnir.

They have looked at lion-involved accidents in Tanzania statistics. They have drawn a few conclusions:

  • Fear of darkness is there for a reason.
  • Attack rates double during the 10 days following a full Moon.
  • North Tanzania is a lot safer.
  • Lions are dangerous.
  • Human beings are not well equipped to fight one or more lions.

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