A three-legged lion has learned to hunt in a completely unexpected way

A lion that lost one of its legs to a poacher's snare has defied the expectations of conservation scientists by adopting an inventive new hunting strategy.

Jacob, an 11-year-old lion from Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda, made headlines last year when he and his brother were filmed swimming 1.5 kilometers across a river filled with crocodiles – the longest swim ever recorded for their species.

Wounded predators usually rummage through the trash, take livestock, or if they're lucky, rely on the pride for food, but Jacob, who is also missing an eye after being gored by a water buffalo, has only his brother Tibu to support him.

Researchers were convinced he would starve to death after losing his left hind leg in 2020. “Instead, he refuses to give up,” he says. Alexander Brachkovsky V Kyambura Lion Monitoring Projectwhich is supported by the Volcano Safari Partnership Foundation, a Ugandan non-governmental organization dedicated to conservation and community development.

Even Braczkowski, who had been studying Jacob since 2017, was puzzled by his survival. But now thermal drone footage has revealed its secret: this lion has learned to behave like a leopard.

Since he cannot overpower his prey as lions typically do, Jacob ambushes at close range in dense thickets and scrub forests, lying in wait and pouncing on, or digging out, his prey.

It also targets prey that lions don't typically hunt, Braczkowski said. Filming at night, he captured Jacob hunting 200-pound bush pigs, making kills both alone and alongside his brother.

“Jacob can't run, so he doesn't have the ability to chase prey,” Braczkowski says. “Because he's targeting a very specific pig, that tells us he's changed his diet. That's why he's acting more like a leopard and taking a lot of risks. But he has to – and it works.”

Losing limbs due to traps is a “common” occurrence, the feline says. Andrew Loveridge Panthera, a global wild cat conservation organization.

Like adaptation, adds Craig Packer from the University of Minnesota, who has studied lion behavior for decades. “I expected to see similar behavior in other groups of lions,” he says, “all of which had four healthy legs in the same area.”

But that's not the case here, notes Braczkowski, who says Queen Elizabeth's lions focus on large, fast-moving game such as antelope and water buffalo.

“Lions sometimes act like leopards and climb trees,” says George Schallerwhose field studies of Serengeti lions in the 1960s were first major study about predator-prey relationships.

But even tree lions retain their distinctive hunting style, and lions without limbs, called tripod lions, are usually supported by a pride, Schaller adds.

Braczkowski has tracked Jacob as he swam across the Kazinga Strait 10 to 20 times over the past two years. Its daily movement of an average of 1.73 kilometers – less than that of a healthy lion, but quite far for an injured animal – could be due to a lack of suitable prey or the need to find a mate, he says.

Jacob's new hunting strategy could be a learned behavior that could help reverse the decline of lion numbers in a region facing habitat loss, climate change and encroaching communities. That's why Jacob is important “symbolically and genetically,” Braczkowski says.

This individual lion is a testament to survival, Schaller adds: “They're kind of fighters.”

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