“They called me because they were puzzled, and I agree it’s puzzling,” [said Craig Packer, principal investigator with the University of Minnesota’s Lion Center] said. He added of the attack: “It was completely unprovoked and it was certainly not typical."
Zuri killing Nyack is bizarre for two reasons, Packer said: He was the father of her cubs, and she engaged him one-on-one.... The incident, Packer said, may stem from the “unusual combination” of a “meek male” and an “all-powerful female.”
“I don’t usually associate this kind of personality with a female lion,” he said. “The fact that it developed at all is fascinating.”
Nyack was described by the zoo as “laid back.” Zuri, however, was “large and very dominating,” Packer said. According to the zoo, Zuri weighed only 25 pounds less than Nyack. Male lions are usually much larger than females and more aggressive, and “being next to a large male is like living next to a keg of dynamite,” Packer said. “The females will be annoyed with the males sometimes and will kind of swat at them, but they’re pretty careful not to provoke them too much,” he said....
“Apparently, the male was always very subordinate to her, which is totally strange,” Packer said.... “The female just seemed to be having a bad day,” he said.
October 22, 2018
"She apparently dominated him for the whole time they were together. That in itself is almost unheard of. I’ve never heard of a female that was that dominating of a male, ever."
Said an investigator quoted in "'She seems to have crushed his throat': Lioness at [Indianapolis Zoo] kills father of her cubs in ‘unprovoked’ attack" (WaPo).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
34 comments:
She was pissed that he wouldn't build her a second front door.
Toxic femininity.
He should have taken ED pills.
The limp dick crisis seems to have reached the lions, too.
PMS? A #MeToo response to his advances? Post-partum depression? Whatever it is, we can expect she'll be lionized by the feminist movement.
Pre-estrus syndrome.
If they were in the wild, the meek male would have been removed from the equation by other forces.
Just a heads up, you give a lion welfare, 3 hots and a cot, and tell them that their family choices do not matter and as a matter of fact the governing body will make better decision about how to form a family, you get this. I guess Zuri is Swahili for Julia.
Nice kitty.
Go woke.
Neck broke.
There's the occasional butch female in the wild, complete with male looking manes. The famous 'Martina' comes to mind. Females do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to hunting s to me it doesn't seem surprising there's some overlap of the sexes in terms of dominance.
“The female just seemed to be having a bad day,”
It seems the male had a worse one.
A female lion in captivity with all of her needs being met needs a male lion like a fish needs a bicycle.
“I don’t usually associate this kind of personality with a female lion,” he said. “The fact that it developed at all is fascinating.”
This is how the '70s went wrong.
Male lions sometimes kill lion cubs because a lioness with cubs won't go into heat. I understand this also happens with some other cats. My theory is this female had some reason to suspect that the male was considering "cubicide" and killed him preemptively.
The female just seemed to be having a bad day,” he said.
No female must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything , ever.
The female had recently been seen singing in an elephant graveyard with three hyenas.
Trump may also have been involved.
Kipling wrote The Female of the Species is deadlier than the male, did he not?
The incident, Packer said, may stem from the “unusual combination” of a “meek male” and an “all-powerful female.”
The most unusual fact about this case is that you put wild, territorial animals in an enclosed space and then wonder about their unusual behavior.
That headline really caught my eye until I realized it was about lions.
I did not know that the University of Minnesota had a lion center.
A Bad Hair Day?
And you thought "Cat People" was just a 1942 movie and 1982 remake.
Jaydub - I first read "cubicide" as "cube-icide" and thought it advocated killing Picasso.
"Male lions sometimes kill lion cubs because a lioness with cubs won't go into heat. I understand this also happens with some other cats. My theory is this female had some reason to suspect that the male was considering "cubicide" and killed him preemptively."
Definitely happened to my partner's cats growing up. She brought a purebred Siamese cat home in kindergarten. Her parents allowed her to keep it, and she named it Tiki. Her mother had grown up on a ranch, didn't believe in keeping pets locked in the house, so about a decade later, Tiki was bred by one (or more) of the neighbor cats. Shortly after the litter was born, a male got into the house, and was killing the kittens, when her mother intervened. Tiki had hid them in a closet. Hadn't hidden them well enough. One survived, and that was named Tiki Two (T2). The mini-cat we recently acquired is Tiki Three (T3) for his Siamese markings. Except I call him Buddy. Doesn't seem to confuse him though - he comes to either, to the dismay of my partner, who has to instruct me at least once a day to call him T3. I forget. She can't figure out yet whether I am being recalcitrant, or my memory really is that bad.
This isn't unique to the cat family. Turns out that maybe the biggest threat to brown (probably other bears too) bear cubs are male bears. Who, being opportunistic omnivores, then proceed to snack on the young that they just killed. Thus, very likely, why female bears are so viciously protective of their cubs, esp since males tend to substantially outweigh the females. I expect though that this inter species predation has little to do with forcing the females into estrus (wrong time of the year), and more to do with being on the top of the food chain, where everything smaller than they are is considered food.
Henry said...
"I did not know that the University of Minnesota had a lion center."
With a "principal investigator", no less. Someone's tax dollars hard at play.
The meek male is not a prototype of the masculine gender. Chivalrous, yes. Meekness, no.
Is her name Cecile? #HimToo
Remember when people used to say "humans are the only species to kill their own kind?"
It was the sort of thing educated people said, because no one who actually dealt with animals on a day to day basis believed it. There's a lot of such sayings today.
COEXISTFLAP... and lions. Oh, my.
This is what happens when you have an arranged marriage
:-D
How did Zuri keep up with recent events in human culture? That's the real mystery.
1. She took "...not if you were the last male lion in the world" to a definitive conclusion.
2. As many upthread said: the unnatural part started with the move to a bed/breakfast in Minnesota.
That poor guy just needed a mongoose body guard.
Estrogen in the water supply?
RE: The lioness was just having a bad day.
There seems to be a lot of female anger out there. See NYTimes editiorials.
Vesper: "How was your lamb?"
Bond: "Skewered. One sympathizes."
-- Casino Royale, Vesper meets Bond on the train
Post a Comment