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Habitat and social situation both have a major role in this.

Because the Kgalagadi has less bush (with its associated thorns, branches etc.) and more open spaces than KNP, superficial injuries during hunting and just plain everyday existence is less likely and thus less common.

The second factor, in especially males, is the lower population numbers, which means less contact and less conflict with other lions. This means less opportunity for scars and wounds.

Advanced TB will also start to affect the general health and thus the general "look" of a lion.

Imberbe,

Can you tell me how Lions infeckt themselvres with TB? I thought the will infeckt themselves by eating sickprey.I haven´t know that Lions can infeckt each other.When this is the case how comes that the sickness mainly occur in the south! That is quite intresting.

Best regards Malealea

Lion are social animals, there are a lot of contact between members of the same pride. Like ordinary human TB, bovine TB can also spread through the air by coughing or directly by contact with mucus from an infected lion.

Transmission from prey species is often by eating infected tissue such as the lungs. But TB can even be spread there where one antelope browses on leaves that has been recently browsed on by an infected antelope.

The concentration of TB in the South is because that is the area where it entered the park from infected cattle. It took time to travel up North as animals and especially the types usually infected by TB do not regularly travel the length of the park, but tend to keep to a certain area. So it was a gradual spreading process. But at this stage it has reached the North, though the levels of infection is not as high as in the South.

Thanks Imberbe.

This lioness was heavily affected by TB but that did not stop her from having a go at a buffalo on the H7 in what came to be known as " Battle on Orpen road ".

Despite being in a shockingly poor condition the endurance and determination with which she launched a single handed attack on the buffalo was amazing.

Perhaps it comes with the knowledge that if it is unable to feed itself substantially it is in real danger of being fodder for scavengers given its compromised immune system. Realy sad to see them in such a state though

Thanks Imberbe... that is some really interesting information.

Whilst I completely agree with letting mother nature take it's course - and i TOTALLY agree with the sentiment that life and death is a natural cycle... I can't get over the fact that the TB was introduced to the KNP lions from cattle in the south.

If the problem is caused by humans to begin with, i.e. cattle farmed by humans...



...doesn't that mean that us humans should be intervening in order to halt a disease which ultimately came (indirectly) from us in the first place?

Donny - thank you for taking the time to post that picture and story. It is amazing how tough these creatures are... could you imagine being sick with TB and going out to hunt for your own food? I don't reckon I'd make it to the local corner store - or even to my letterbox. Truly amazing animals.

Thanks again for everyone's comments - this is a really interesting (and very sad) thread

If the gurus knew how, they would have ridden the KNP of this terrible desease long ago! It is not always just a matter of "humans should not intervene". Many species of animal are still alive because of human intervention! And of course on the other hand, many have vanished because of human activity!

Yes, considerable work has been done to try and get a solution to this problem. There is an active scientific study running even as we speak and it has been running for quite a few years already.

At a time it was actually considered to cull all the buffalo in the south and to re-populate KNP from the north. This could not be done because a. TB is not restricted to buffalo and b. TB was much more widely spread than initially thought.

Medication is not a workable option at the moment because of the scale of the problem, and the problems associated with accurate and blanket medication, and the need for repeated medication of affected animals.

There is a program to breed disease free buffalo from Kruger stock, to ensure that the genes are safeguarded.

Many types of animals are affected by TB including lion, giraffe, kudu, leopard, baboon and impala. Buffalo are seen as the main carriers of the disease, and are most affected by it.

TB is a long running illness and does not kill over night. As such TB does not pose an imminent catastrophic thread to any species in KNP at the moment. It may however have more subtle influences, by changing population dynamics.

We have just returned from our trip to the KNP. The Croc bridge pride were feasting on a carcass for about 4 days and we had very good sightings of them all (12 adults and sub adults) . Most of them (that I could see) had been branded and one had a colar, so it is obvious that this pride is being studied and monitored. Several of them showed clear signs of tb, while the others seemed in good shape. What really struck me was the gender balance. We could find only 2 females, one of which seemed to have tb. Could it be that females are more vulnerable to tb?