Big cat breaks the cardinal rule of hunting in Africa
A new study finds that due to global climate change, cheetahs, usually daytime hunters, are switching their activity to hotter dawns and dusks weather. Rising global temperatures and abnormal weather could lead to the extinction of at least one, and eventually several species of big cats. Changes in the activity of predators can cause conflict with night hunters – lions and leopards.
In a study published on November 8 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, the British Academy of Sciences sounds the alarm that cheetahs may become extinct due to climate change. These cats, whose population has declined by 90 percent over the past hundred years, are beginning to change their daily routine, including their hunting patterns. This creates potential conflicts between cheetahs and nocturnal predators such as lions and leopards, the study authors said, according to the Associated Press.
Until this study, it had not been clearly proven that climate change and abnormal temperatures could affect animals. But now University of Washington biologist and co-author Briana Abrahams says the issues are connected and may be forcing changes in the behavior patterns of large predator species.
The main difference in the diet of big cats is that cheetahs eat only fresh meat, but lions and leopards sometimes cheat and snatch food from smaller predators. Behavioral biologist Betona Wachter, who specializes in cheetah research at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, says that lions and leopards usually kill their prey themselves, but when faced with a cheetah hunting, they prefer not to interfere with it and accept it. The scientists also note that “cheetahs will not fight larger cats, they will simply move away.”
“These climate changes could become really critical if we look into the future – it is predicted that in this part of Africa, where cheetahs live, it will become much warmer in Botswana, Namibia and Zambia,” Wachter noted.
Hunting at different times of day is a long-standing strategy to reduce encounters between the multiple predator species that share the mixed savanna and forested landscape of northern Botswana. This is a basic rule of Africa, which can be violated by cheetahs due to their activity at the wrong time.
The study found that on the hottest days, when the maximum daily temperature soared to almost 45 degrees Celsius, cheetahs preferred wait until dusk and night, which increased the chance of meeting other big cats during an hour of hunting by 16 percent.
“There is a greater chance of frequent hostile encounters and decreased food availability for cheetahs,” admits University of Washington biologist and fellow member of the nonprofit Botswana Predator Conservation Trust Qasim Rafiq.
To research and develop a strategy for saving the carnivore population, scientists placed collars GPS tracking for 53 large predators including cheetahs, lions, leopards and African wild dogs. Their movements and actions were recorded over a period of eight years. The study compared all data with maximum daily temperatures.
Scientists have concluded that the seasonal cycles from 2011 to 2018 should be seen as a point of change in behavior, and also provide a glimpse into the future of global warming and its consequences.
Next, it is planned to use audio recording devices and accelerometers that often used to measure gravitational acceleration. Such studies, as Qasim Rafik emphasized, will help “document the frequency of encounters between large carnivores, especially among big cats.”
As noted on the website of the specialized publication Science X, additional competition among cheetahs is created due to fragmentation their habitat and conflict with people. Before this, big cats faced the fact that they did not live in a protected area of the reserve: farmers exterminated them, poachers hunted them. This has led to the fact that cheetahs are now endangered. Now there are less than 7 thousand of the fastest land animal left in the wild. The cheetah is considered the rarest big cat in Africa.
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