Hatfield Richard Stratton, Parmuntoro Lemein, Thomsett Simon, Reynolds Patrick, Elliot Nicholas B
Wageningen University and Research Wageningen The Netherlands.
The Kenya Bird of Prey Trust Naivasha Kenya.
Ecol Evol. 2024 Sep 13;14(9):e70148. doi: 10.1002/ece3.70148. eCollection 2024 Sep.
In many intact African savannah ecosystems, martial eagles are the top avian predator, while lions are the top terrestrial predator. Here, we report seven records of martial eagle predation or attempted predation of lion cubs in the greater Mara region, Kenya. These events resulted in the death of nine lion cubs, most of which were at least partially consumed, and are the first detailed records of this behaviour to be published. While these observations represent intraguild interactions, we suggest that they reflect neither intraguild predation nor interspecific killing. Rather, the ecology of both species coupled with the details of our records suggest that martial eagles opportunistically kill lion cubs purely to eat them. We hope that by publishing these records we will encourage others to share their observations of raptors predating on large mammalian carnivores, thus improving our understanding of a behaviour that we suspect may be more widespread than the current lack of evidence suggests.
在许多完整的非洲稀树草原生态系统中，猛雕是顶级鸟类捕食者，而狮子是顶级陆地捕食者。在此，我们报告了肯尼亚大马拉地区七次猛雕捕食或试图捕食狮子幼崽的记录。这些事件导致九只狮子幼崽死亡，其中大多数至少被部分吃掉，这是此类行为首次发表的详细记录。虽然这些观察结果代表了同域物种间的相互作用，但我们认为它们既不反映同域物种间的捕食行为，也不反映种间杀戮。相反，这两个物种的生态习性以及我们记录的细节表明，猛雕纯粹是为了食用而 opportunistically 杀死狮子幼崽。我们希望通过发表这些记录，鼓励其他人分享他们所观察到的猛禽捕食大型哺乳动物食肉动物的情况，从而增进我们对这种行为的理解，我们怀疑这种行为可能比目前缺乏证据所显示的更为普遍。 （注：“opportunistically”这个词在中文里较难找到完全对应的精准词汇，这里暂且保留英文，以便读者理解原文含义。）
