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Australia is doing its best to be uninhabitable for normal humans.

Not one or two but five lions have escaped from a zoo in Sydney, and the zoo issued a 'Code One' alert (whatever that is) and evacuated the zoo or staff and visitors.

Allowing for Aussie zoo staff being quite adept at handling crocs and snakes, I am surprised they are taking lions seriously.

Maybe the lions should be paroled and left to go into the bush and breed, it would be a bad idea, but all levels of appropriate in its own way.

I’m sure the emus would make short work of any lion infestation.

I thought aussie zoos were to protect the dangerous predators from the native wildlife? If the lions get out, I’m sure nature will run it’s course.

Poor kitties.

Good luck to the Lions. Though y’know, ecosystems.

Like a 5 year old in an antique store, it’s enough for me to understand “don’t touch” without having to worry about the why.

 Nevelon wrote:
I thought aussie zoos were to protect the dangerous predators from the native wildlife? If the lions get out, I’m sure nature will run it’s course.

Poor kitties.

Yeah, the Drop Bears will get them…

Lions don't have the traits needed to become an invasive species in Australia. On the other hand, Australia definitely has what it takes to kill lions. Real concern is them lurking at the edges of human development and attacking pets/people.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Real concern is them lurking at the edges of human development and attacking pets/people.

There are actually reports from time to time of people spotting various large cats around the country. Panthers seem to be a common one. Always at a distance and photos are scarce and not very good. The general opinion is that they're either people exaggerating the size of feral (ex-domestic) cats, which do sometimes get ridiculously large, or descendants of former zoo or circus escapees. Which is certainly possible... There used to be a drive-through lion park to the south of Brisbane back in the '80's that did periodically have escaping lions, buffalos and an elephant with a hankering for a neighbouring banana plantation.

 Orlanth wrote:
Australia is doing its best to be uninhabitable for normal humans.

Weather's doing a perfectly good job of that thankyou very much!

Not one or two but five lions have escaped from a zoo in Sydney, and the zoo issued a 'Code One' alert (whatever that is) and evacuated the zoo or staff and visitors.

For the sake of clarity (because the media would neeeeeever misconstrue and hype up a situation like this) it was 1 adult male lion and 4 cubs. The male and 3 cubs wandered back into their pen voluntarily within 10 minutes and the last rascally cub had to be tranq'd, but was ok.
Not sure what a code one is myself, but i'd hazard a guess that it's probably "loose animal w/direct threat to people". (i.e - Big Cats, Hippos and Crocodiles, possibly Elephants and Gorillas too, but they tend to not be super aggressive unless threatened.)

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
On the other hand, Australia definitely has what it takes to kill lions.

We actually really don't. Our climate would be largely conducive to Lions and we don't have anything big enough to threaten an adult lion. There'd be a couple of snakes that could likely kill a lion (Coastal & Inland Taipans, Browns and Tiger snakes) but that's about it. And even then, I'm not sure if their venom would work on Lion physiology.
Honestly, the biggest threat to a lion in Australia, would probably be the Cassowary. Not overly dangerous on a day to day basis, it'll kick the feth out of you if you corner it or get too close to it's nest. So while it could quite easily disembowel a lion, it is at the end of the day only a big flightless bird, so a Lion's not going to have too much trouble with it with a successful ambush.
The only other terrestrial animal in Australia that could possibly see off a lion (although in my professional Australian opinion, I don't see it happening) would be a big male Red Kangaroo, but it'd absolutely have to see it coming. Like the Cassowary, a big Roo is quite capable of kicking the crap out of most things and the Red's are well known for getting dogs/dingos in headlocks and then gutting them with a well placed kick. I'm not sure if they could do that to a full grown Lion, but a sub-adult female, maybe.

You want to kill something via envenomation, well gak you've come to right place! But big scary dangerous quadrupeds that'll take your face off, we don't have.

Honestly, the biggest threat to a lion in Australia, would probably be the Cassowary. Not overly dangerous on a day to day basis, it'll kick the feth out of you if you corner it or get too close to it's nest. So while it could quite easily disembowel a lion, it is at the end of the day only a big flightless bird, so a Lion's not going to have too much trouble with it with a successful ambush.

Lions aren't actually all that great at that (lions in groups have about a 30% success rate at hunting), and these are zoo lions, dealing with unfamiliar terrain and animals. As a rule, lions are better at bullying other predators away from their kills

If you want actually good predators, you need African wild dogs, house cats, or dragonflies.

 Snrub wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Not one or two but five lions have escaped from a zoo in Sydney, and the zoo issued a 'Code One' alert (whatever that is) and evacuated the zoo or staff and visitors.

For the sake of clarity (because the media would neeeeeever misconstrue and hype up a situation like this) it was 1 adult male lion and 4 cubs. The male and 3 cubs wandered back into their pen voluntarily within 10 minutes and the last rascally cub had to be tranq'd, but was ok.

Spoil sport, I read the second line of reports too, but it didn't make for an entertaining thread.
If there was an actual threat I would not have made a thread in this tone.

 Snrub wrote:

We actually really don't. Our climate would be largely conducive to Lions and we don't have anything big enough to threaten an adult lion.

I also think lions would do OK, so long as they stayed away from nastier snakes. They understand ostriches I don't know if they prey on them though. There is nothing quite like a lion in Australia, and I think that would give big cats an advantage there as nothing there has a developed instinct. I like they would learn how to take on roos before the roos learned that big cats are as dangerous as they are.
Only salties are out of their reach, but lions know near identical predators in their instinct.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

Honestly, the biggest threat to a lion in Australia, would probably be the Cassowary. Not overly dangerous on a day to day basis, it'll kick the feth out of you if you corner it or get too close to it's nest. So while it could quite easily disembowel a lion, it is at the end of the day only a big flightless bird, so a Lion's not going to have too much trouble with it with a successful ambush.

Lions aren't actually all that great at that (lions in groups have about a 30% success rate at hunting), and these are zoo lions, dealing with unfamiliar terrain and animals. As a rule, lions are better at bullying other predators away from their kills

If you want actually good predators, you need African wild dogs, house cats, or dragonflies.

I would not underestimate the adaptability of lions. Human pressure has pushed lions into unfamiliar and unwanted territories such as river delta wetlands. Lions living in river deltas became aquatic hunters, and are surprisingly good at it. We know jaguars to be aquatic hunters, but it was not a known trait in lions until it had to be. The prey is the same but the scenario is different. Delta lions are known to swim up to and take out cape buffalo, then drag the corpse ashore.

We are also seeing evidence of social changes of pride dynamics, overlapping territories, changes of behaviour in lion interactions. Male lions are co-existing in scenarios where they would have been killing or driving each other away.

Lions are unlikely to survive in Australia because humans, as humans have proven very damn good at killing lions.

Aside of that, there is actually the argument lions could be good for the Australian ecosystem as a way to control buffalo populations.

 Orlanth wrote:

We are also seeing evidence of social changes of pride dynamics, overlapping territories, changes of behaviour in lion interactions. Male lions are co-existing in scenarios where they would have been killing or driving each other away.

Some of this can be hard to classify if its actual animal behavioural changes or simply that we are documenting and paying closer attention to their behaviour and thus suddenly realising things that we didn't know before. Despite living alongside the rest of nature for as long as we have, our understanding of the natural world is almost child-like in many respects. We have vast gaps of understanding and its only in very recent times that we are really documenting, studying and understanding the natural world in a deeper layer. Eg using computers to record and translate animal languages and finding out that they are far deeper and more complex than we originally thought; heck even domestic cattle are shown to have things such as regional accents and localised phrases.


It's akin to wolf studies and the whole "alpha pack theory". Which within a very short span of time, by the same scientist, was debunked as further study of wild, not captive wolves; showed that it was far less the case of this big brutal dominant alpha and much more the simple case that the "alpha's" were typically parents of the rest of the pack and that it was more of a family unit and that often as not the "lead" animal could shift around depending on situations. Heck I recall watching Meerkat Manor which showed this as the tribe would fragment and reunite and fragment again with different leaders taking a leadership role all the time.



I think I recall that more recent studies of tigers have even shown that they are a more communal feline than earlier studies suggested; cheetah have also been seen operating in family bonded small groups.



Some of it is change due to pressures and situation, some is simply behaviour we've never documented before. Some is both.


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 Tyran wrote:


Aside of that, there is actually the argument lions could be good for the Australian ecosystem as a way to control buffalo populations.

Thing is predators don't control prey species populations.
They are balanced by them and in turn prey species are balanced by predators.

When there is an abundance of prey, predators have an easier time hunting and thus their populations expand
When prey becomes scarce the predators cannot get easy access to food, some starve and the populations decrease
Which lets the prey recover population numbers.


Snowshoe hares and lynx are almost the perfect case study of this relationship


Of course it can be more complex because predators can switch food sources; prey can adapt and change behaviour; environments can also influence both populations and this is before we add humans and artificial food sources and more to the mix.

Predators dramatically affect the success of prey species indirectly; while wolves may only kill a tiny portion of deer, they cause ALL of the deer to alter their behavior to avoid being one of those. Large amounts of time & energy which could otherwise have been spent eating become devoted to avoidance, causing an exponentially greater difference than the actual casualties.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Snrub wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Australia is doing its best to be uninhabitable for normal humans.

Weather's doing a perfectly good job of that thankyou very much!

Not one or two but five lions have escaped from a zoo in Sydney, and the zoo issued a 'Code One' alert (whatever that is) and evacuated the zoo or staff and visitors.

For the sake of clarity (because the media would neeeeeever misconstrue and hype up a situation like this) it was 1 adult male lion and 4 cubs. The male and 3 cubs wandered back into their pen voluntarily within 10 minutes and the last rascally cub had to be tranq'd, but was ok.
Not sure what a code one is myself, but i'd hazard a guess that it's probably "loose animal w/direct threat to people". (i.e - Big Cats, Hippos and Crocodiles, possibly Elephants and Gorillas too, but they tend to not be super aggressive unless threatened.)

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
On the other hand, Australia definitely has what it takes to kill lions.

We actually really don't. Our climate would be largely conducive to Lions and we don't have anything big enough to threaten an adult lion. There'd be a couple of snakes that could likely kill a lion (Coastal & Inland Taipans, Browns and Tiger snakes) but that's about it. And even then, I'm not sure if their venom would work on Lion physiology.
Honestly, the biggest threat to a lion in Australia, would probably be the Cassowary. Not overly dangerous on a day to day basis, it'll kick the feth out of you if you corner it or get too close to it's nest. So while it could quite easily disembowel a lion, it is at the end of the day only a big flightless bird, so a Lion's not going to have too much trouble with it with a successful ambush.
The only other terrestrial animal in Australia that could possibly see off a lion (although in my professional Australian opinion, I don't see it happening) would be a big male Red Kangaroo, but it'd absolutely have to see it coming. Like the Cassowary, a big Roo is quite capable of kicking the crap out of most things and the Red's are well known for getting dogs/dingos in headlocks and then gutting them with a well placed kick. I'm not sure if they could do that to a full grown Lion, but a sub-adult female, maybe.

You want to kill something via envenomation, well gak you've come to right place! But big scary dangerous quadrupeds that'll take your face off, we don't have.

Are you suggesting that other animals are Australia's *only* way to kill?

 insaniak wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Real concern is them lurking at the edges of human development and attacking pets/people.

There are actually reports from time to time of people spotting various large cats around the country. Panthers seem to be a common one. Always at a distance and photos are scarce and not very good. The general opinion is that they're either people exaggerating the size of feral (ex-domestic) cats, which do sometimes get ridiculously large, or descendants of former zoo or circus escapees. Which is certainly possible... There used to be a drive-through lion park to the south of Brisbane back in the '80's that did periodically have escaping lions, buffalos and an elephant with a hankering for a neighbouring banana plantation.

Phantom Panthers and Kangaroos are a world wide phenomena.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Predators dramatically affect the success of prey species indirectly; while wolves may only kill a tiny portion of deer, they cause ALL of the deer to alter their behavior to avoid being one of those. Large amounts of time & energy which could otherwise have been spent eating become devoted to avoidance, causing an exponentially greater difference than the actual casualties.

Agreed, I just think/find that many think of predator-prey population control as predators slaughtering prey like crazy.

Predators don't slaughter prey like crazy, they still help at controlling prey populations. Specially when the alternative is humans slaughtering prey like crazy.

The main problem with lions in Austrailia would be them finding food. They'd have trouble catching Kangaroos and Emus would put up a fight. And this is assuming wild lions with wild instincts, not zoo raised animals that are used to getting fed by humans.

Orlanth wrote:Spoil sport,

I'm an avowed kill-joy, I can't help myself.

There is nothing quite like a lion in Australia, and I think that would give big cats an advantage there as nothing there has a developed instinct.

Interestingly enough, In the 80's/90's it was "common" enough practice for farmers here to go to a zoo and get their hands on a bottle of Tiger/Lion piss. They sprayed it around crops to keep foraging deer and wild pigs away and it worked quite well too. You can't do it as easily any more because the organised crime gangs got wind of it and started using it to guard their marijuana crops from aforementioned deer who are quite appreciative of tasty plants that get you zonked. So now you need permissions and stuff to get Big Cat wee to use on your farm these days.

Grey Templar wrote:The main problem with lions in Austrailia would be them finding food. They'd have trouble catching Kangaroos and Emus would put up a fight. And this is assuming wild lions with wild instincts, not zoo raised animals that are used to getting fed by humans.

Gotta disagree with you on that one. Lion's would have zero trouble finding food sources here. A lion would be unlikely to catch a Kangaroo in an open race despite having roughly the same top speed (~70km/h). Roo's can maintain it for longer and have a higher "cruising speed" oh about 35-40 Km/h.
But emu's, dingos, wombats, brumbies and just about anything else in the outback, aren't able to out run a lion and are therefore fair game. Australia also has (had maybe. We culled a gakload of them a few years back) the highest population of feral camels in the world, so even in the more arid areas of the country, they'd still find a ready food source. Not to mention the ever present livestock. Sheep and cattle galore all across the rural parts.

 Snrub wrote:

Orlanth wrote:Spoil sport,

I'm an avowed kill-joy, I can't help myself.

There is nothing quite like a lion in Australia, and I think that would give big cats an advantage there as nothing there has a developed instinct.

Interestingly enough, In the 80's/90's it was "common" enough practice for farmers here to go to a zoo and get their hands on a bottle of Tiger/Lion piss. They sprayed it around crops to keep foraging deer and wild pigs away and it worked quite well too. You can't do it as easily any more because the organised crime gangs got wind of it and started using it to guard their marijuana crops from aforementioned deer who are quite appreciative of tasty plants that get you zonked. So now you need permissions and stuff to get Big Cat wee to use on your farm these days.

Hold on, let me get this straight, you cant buy an agricultural product easily because drug farmers used it too. They going to ban ploughs next?

Looks like you are not the only kill-joy down under.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Snrub wrote:

Orlanth wrote:Spoil sport,

I'm an avowed kill-joy, I can't help myself.

There is nothing quite like a lion in Australia, and I think that would give big cats an advantage there as nothing there has a developed instinct.

Interestingly enough, In the 80's/90's it was "common" enough practice for farmers here to go to a zoo and get their hands on a bottle of Tiger/Lion piss. They sprayed it around crops to keep foraging deer and wild pigs away and it worked quite well too. You can't do it as easily any more because the organised crime gangs got wind of it and started using it to guard their marijuana crops from aforementioned deer who are quite appreciative of tasty plants that get you zonked. So now you need permissions and stuff to get Big Cat wee to use on your farm these days.

Hold on, let me get this straight, you cant buy an agricultural product easily because drug farmers used it too. They going to ban ploughs next?

Correction - you CAN buy it, there's just some red tape to prove that you're not going to use it to protect illegal activates.
Heck there are likely loads of regulations, restrictions and checks on things like fertilizers as well and loads of other dangerous/potentially dangerous things in farming and other industries.


Heck I'm still amazed that you can buy a chainsaw without any licence or proof of training or anything!

Yes, a lot of agricultural products are rather carefully monitored. After all, one of the primary fertilizers used is ammonium nitrate...

Yeah, but like. Lion piss isn't exactly a harmful product. Its not Ammonium Nitrate, that is an industrial explosive in addition to being a fertilizer.

I'm sure the drug growers were buying clippers to trim their crops too, do they do checks on those too?

Thing is illegal plant growers are often growing off the beaten track and might not have staff or anyone around their crops so that they don't attract attention. A herd of deer or boar can do extensive damage to a crop - even regular crops are under threat. If the plots to grow are already in the "wilderness" then there won't be any associated management of populations, monitoring etc.... of the herds. So those herds could likely do very extensive damage to those illegal crops.

So if you can regulate access to a material that lets them protect their crop easily you increase the chances of damage to that crop; meanwhile legitimate farmers shouldn't have too much trouble obtaining a licence and access for their own needs.

Clippers on the other hand are unlikely to be an issue; however if the illegal growers were using large harvester machines to gather in their crop you'd bet legislation would come out on them.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, but like. Lion piss isn't exactly a harmful product. Its not Ammonium Nitrate, that is an industrial explosive in addition to being a fertilizer.

I'm sure the drug growers were buying clippers to trim their crops too, do they do checks on those too?

Don't give the DEA ideas....

Well the authorities could easily fix the problem by introducing locust swarms in the vicinity of suspected drug farms.

This headline pissed me off. It was one lion and four cubs and they were quickly caught.