Three-legged lion survives longest swim in croc-infested waters ever recorded

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

A three-legged lion survived the longest swim in crocodile-infested waters ever recorded.

The big cat called Jacob used up another of his nine lives when he completed the "amazing" death-defying 1,000-metre crawl with his equally brave brother, Tibu.

Jacob - who has previously survived being gored by a buffalo, being poisoned by poachers and losing his leg in a steel trap - completed the record-breaking night swim in Uganda.

The feat was recorded by an international research team led by scientists from Griffith University in Australia and Northern Arizona University in the United States.

They say the brothers may have been looking for females to breed with when they set off on their perilous crossing

Griffith University's Dr. Alexander Braczkowski led the team that filmed the two male lions crossing the Kazinga Channel at night, using high-definition heat detection cameras on drones.

He said: “Jacob has had the most incredible journey and really is a cat with nine lives.

“I’d bet all my belongings that we are looking at Africa’s most resilient lion: he has been gored by a buffalo, his family was poisoned for lion body part trade, he was caught in a poacher’s snare, and finally lost his leg in another attempted poaching incident where he was caught in a steel trap.

“The fact that he and his brother Tibu have managed to survive as long as they have in a national park that has experienced significant human pressures and high poaching rates is a feat in itself - our science has shown this population has nearly halved in just five years.

“His swim, across a channel filled with high densities of hippos and crocodiles, is a record-breaker and is a truly amazing show of resilience in the face of such risk.”

Previously reported swims by African lions have ranged from 10 meters to a few hundred meters, some of which resulted in deaths by crocodile attacks.

So why did the lions risk the dangerous kilometer-long night swim in the first place?

Dr. Braczkowski said: "It’s likely the brothers were looking for females.

“Competition for lionesses in the park is fierce and they lost a fight for female affection in the hours leading up to the swim, so it’s likely the duo mounted the risky journey to get to the females on the other side of the channel.

“There is a small connecting bridge to the other side but the presence of people was probably a deterrent for them.”

Dr. Braczkowski has been running a long-term study of African lions and other predators in Queen Elizabeth and several other Ugandan National Parks.

He is currently the scientific director of the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust’s Kyambura Lion Project and has been working with the Ugandan Government since 2017 to build scientific capacity in the wildlife department to monitor lions and other predators.

Dr. Braczkowski said the latest observation is a direct "symptom"of some of his previous research, highlighting skewed sex ratios in lion populations.

He added: “Jacob and Tibu’s big swim is another important example that some of our most beloved wildlife species are having to make tough decisions just to find homes and mates in a human-dominated world."

The study, conducted under the supervision of the Uganda Wildlife Authority , was published in the journal Ecology and Evolution .

The post Three-legged lion survives longest swim in croc-infested waters ever recorded appeared first on Talker .