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Tiger kills elephant in Corbett Reserve
News » States » Other States
Rishikesh (Uttarakhand), January 29, 2011
PTI

A 20-year-old female elephant has been killed by a tiger in the Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR), a forest official said.

The half-eaten body of the pachyderm was found by a forest patrolling team on Friday morning, Uttarakhand Chief Wildlife Warden Srikant Chandola said.

‘Rare incident'

“The killing of elephant calves by a tiger is a common incident in jungles, but this is a very rare incident when the tiger has attacked and killed an adolescent elephant,” he added.

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Tiger kills mother, baby elephant

Thursday November 23 2006 10:37 IST

BHUBANESWAR: It was a fight that even surprised the Forest officials of Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR). A duel between a tiger and an elephant in which the big cat prevailed. The tiger reserve rarely has witnessed such incidents in the past although tigers are known to kill elephant calves. Every year, two or three calves are hunted by the tigers in the reserve.

This incident was not any different. A male tiger, trailing a calf, came face to face with its mother in Jadapola in Nara South range of STR.

On Tuesday, the Forest officials detected carcass of the female elephant in the deep forests. There were enough indications of a tiger attack on the carcass. Moreover, officials found pugmarks of the tiger. And the calf, whose presence was evident from the footprints, was missing.

‘We have recorded several incidents in which the calves are made prey for, big cats have a liking for the calves. But what was surprising was that both the mother and the calf were not in their herd. They were isolated which is rare,’ STR Field Director Dr Debabrata Swain said.

The incident is believed to have occurred in the first week of November but was discovered only on Tuesday. The carcass was sent for post-mortem and the finding confirmed a tiger attack.

Swain said Forest guards had been sighting a male Royal Bengal Tiger in the Jadapola area for the past few weeks. That’s the one they think has killed the mother-baby duo.

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20061123001623&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0

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"Over the 4 years, we observed a total of 74 elephants killed by lions, including eleven elephants in 1993, seventeen in 1994, nineteen in 1995, and 27 in 1996, suggesting an increasing hunting success rate. All the elephants killed, with one exception, were from breeding herds (females and young). The exception was an adult bull, previously wounded by another bull, who remained alive for several days before eventually being killed by the lions. The great majority of the young elephants killed were males, and two-thirds of the kills were of elephants in the age range 4-15 years, with highest hunting success achieved for elephants aged 4-9 years (Table 1). The animals killed were commonly on the periphery of, or straggling behind, the breeding herds, with nearly half killed more than 50 m away from the main herd. Hunts were less commonly attempted on calves which were under the age of 4 years, which remained more closely associated with their mothers. Hunting success for elephants older than 4 years apparently doubled from 33% (n = 9) in 1993 to 62% (n = 61) in 1996. Many attempts to kill adults bulls were made in
1996, when we saw lions attacking elephant bulls almost nightly although only one hunt was successful. All except one of the kills were made at night, and hunts occurred more commonly on dark moon nights than when the moon was bright."

Joubert D. 2006. Hunting behaviour of lions (Panthera leo) on elephants (Loxodonta africana) in the Chobe National Park, Botswana. Afr J Ecol 44:279-281. DOI

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"The two Lionesses had just brought down an elephant cow of approximately ten years old. Slowly everybody moved into a position from where they could observe the lions, as the staff were unsure where the remaining lions of the pride were, this, however was only for a few of minutes before they all made their way back to the bar."
http://lionprides.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/elephant-kill-at-savute-safari-lodge/

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Two lionesses kill a subadult elephant, from 56:00 onwards:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4c99d3

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Over the 4 years, we observed a total of 74 elephants killed by lions, including eleven elephants in 1993, seventeen in 1994, nineteen in 1995, and 27 in 1996, suggesting an increasing hunting success rate. All the elephants killed, with one exception, were from breeding herds (females and young). The exception was an adult bull, previously wounded by another bull, who remained alive for several days before eventually being killed by the lions. The great majority of the young elephants killed were males, and two-thirds of the kills were of elephants in the age range 4-15 years, with highest hunting success achieved for elephants aged 4-9 years (Table 1). The animals killed were commonly on the periphery of, or straggling behind, the breeding herds, with nearly half killed more than 50 m away from the main herd. Hunts were less commonly attempted on calves which were under the age of 4 years, which remained more closely associated with their mothers. Hunting success for elephants older than 4 years apparently doubled from 33% (n = 9) in 1993 to 62% (n = 61) in 1996. Many attempts to kill adults bulls were made in 1996, when we saw lions attacking elephant bulls almost nightly although only one hunt was successful. All except one of the kills were made at night, and hunts occurred more commonly on dark moon nights than when the moon was bright.

There was a close resemblance between the methods that the lions used to hunt elephants and the technique commonly used to hunt buffalo. This tactic included first opportunistically detecting a straggler, or targeting a vulnerable member of the herd, then circling behind the selected prey. The lions then attacked by running in as a group. One or more lions leapt up onto the back or lower flanks and orientated along the spine of the prey. They then bit down on the backbone. The lion positioned highest up the spine would still be behind the ears of the elephant and just far enough back to be out of reach of the extended trunk. The elephant was then pulled down to its knees, not collapsed because of any fatal bite to the spine. Another approach involved a running hunt causing confusion and bunching of the elephant herds. This often resulted in one elephant falling or getting separated. In all cases a rear attack was employed, never a frontal attack. In one notable case, a single male lion ran at nearly full speed into the side of a 6-year-old male calf with sufficient force to collapse the elephant on its side. On only one occasion was a lion injured by an elephant in these hunts. In that case, the elephant collapsed on top of the lion. The resulting injury to the head was therefore recorded as accidental rather than as a result of a counterattack by the elephant.

When these young elephants finished and called out to their families, the lions attacked. There was surprisingly little response from other nearby elephants. Older calves were attacked and killed within 50 m of the drinking bulls. The distress calls of the young elephant and lion growls seldom distracted them from drinking.

Source: Lion predation on elephants

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Download the full-text pdf here: Lion predation on elephants in the Savuti, Chobe National Park, Botswana