People ask, “Do female lions kill male lions?” The answer is, rarely yes. It should be noted, however, that my excellent reference books on this matter do not refer to lionesses killing male lions or attacking them in the ways described in articles on the Internet. This points to the rarity of these events and the ones reported in the news media concern only captive lions: the West Midlands Safari Park in the UK and Indianapolis Zoo in the USA, which is probably a major influencing factor in these unusual attacks.
Lionesses defending their cubs in the wild
In the wild, lionesses defend their young with great commitment and vigour. They are defending their cubs against incoming lions who want to kill them in order to father their own young and to induce the female into becoming sexually receptive almost immediately after her cubs are killed.
My reference book does not tell me that under these circumstances females can sometimes kill males, but I will speculate that it may happen if, for example, one or two or more females defend their small cubs together as a group and succeed in killing the male intent on infanticide.
That’s a possible way why lionesses might attack a male lion and kill him.
Indianapolis Zoo
The zookeepers at Indianapolis Zoo were mystified when Zuri, a lioness of 12-years-of-age and weighing 25 pounds lighter than her male counterpart, Nyack, attacked him with a throat bite in order to suffocate him to death. She was successful. The zookeepers could not separate them and save the lion.
The zookeepers speculated that the attack was due to “discordant personalities”. In other words, she decided they didn’t get along anymore, and she wanted him dead. Pretty basic stuff and perhaps a unique event but it does shed some light onto lion behaviour although it makes me think that this may be an aberration in lion behaviour due to the nature of their captive lifestyle.
Nyack’s personality may have played a role because he was submissive. Zuri attacked Nyack twice. The first time he ran off and returned behaving submissively. She attacked him again.
Nyack had been hand reared with may have played a very important role in his submissive and passive personality. And also, it was decided that Zuri was more dominant than a typical female.
I sense, as mentioned, that this perhaps unique event was possibly caused by the fact that Nyack was raised by humans resulting a personality which was abnormal as perceived by the female and which allowed the female to singlehandedly kill a male larger than herself. The male was made passive by the hand rearing. That’s my guess.
West Midlands Safari Park
It was shocking to visitors to the safari park to suddenly see a male attacked by no less than nine lionesses. They watched and filmed. One lady, an amateur photographer, Mya Beverstock captured the event (see header picture which I have modified).
It is believed that there was a dispute over food. Once again, this was a captive lion situation and I sense that this event wouldn’t have occurred in the wild. It appears to be a product of the abnormal lifestyles of captive lions and the stresses built up as a result.
In the wild, lionesses do most of the hunting while the strongest male lions eat first followed by other members of the pride. There is a hierarchy and order about the feeding process whereas in the West Midlands Safari Park that order appears to have broken down resulting in the lioness group attack with what appears to be an intent to kill.
The zookeepers stepped in to break up the attack. The ‘victim’ was sedated and treated while the females were held captive in their pens while they figured out what to do next.
