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A cat in paradise: hunting and feeding behaviour of Eurasian lynx among abundant naive prey

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Abstract

Kill rates of predators typically increase when they come into contact with naïve and abundant prey. Such a situation can lead to surplus killing or the occurrence of parallel kills (i.e. additional kills that predator makes while still consuming the carcass from the previous kill). However, there is limited information on the feeding behaviour of predators during such events and how they affect kill rates. Here we report on hunting and feeding behaviour of a male Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) that dispersed into a region where this apex predator had been absent for several decades. We also report on the kleptoparasitism by wild boar (Sus scrofa), which effects on lynx prey consumption have not yet been explored. We found 66 ungulates killed by the lynx, among which 39% were part of parallel kills. Compared to the single kills, lynx fed on parallel kills for 2.7-times longer, while the kill rate was 37% higher, resulting in one of the highest kill rates reported so far for male lynx in Europe. We did not detect differences in search times following single or parallel kills and the average distance between consecutive kills was similar in both kill types. We also recorded the highest kleptoparasitism rate by dominant scavengers on Eurasian lynx, as 48% of kills were usurped and consumed by the wild boars. Kleptoparasitism reduced the average time lynx was able to feed on prey for 52% compared to kills not found by wild boars. However, the lynx did not compensate for these losses by increasing the hunting effort, probably due to abundant naive prey available in the area.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to M. Daněk, A.Krása, Č. Šnoblt, R. Mezera, D. Franc, A. Ždánský and other volunteers for their help collecting data, and L. Purchart, M. Kutal and K. Uherková for scientific background and project coordination. For assistance with animal capture and use of equipment, we would like to thank P. Forejtek, J. Krojerová-Prokešová, M. Slamka, P. Kaštier and M. Kalaš. We are also grateful to the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic PLA Administration Moravian karst, Training Forest Enterprise Masaryk Forest Křtiny, Institute of Vertebrate Biology Czech Academy of Sciences, National Forest Centre in Zvolen and the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic for cooperation and project support. We are also grateful to T. Oliveira for making the animation of lynx movement. This study was partly financed by the Dean’s office of the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno and Training Forest Enterprise Masaryk Forest Křtiny. M.D was supported by the Erasmus + programme for the traineeship held at Department of Forestry and Renewable forest resources, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana. M.K. was supported by the Slovenian Research Agency (Javna Agencija za Raziskovalno Dejavnost RS (SI) Grant P4-0059).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest Ecology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědelská 3, 61300, Brno, Czechia

    Martin Duľa

  2. Faculty of Agrisciences, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 1, 613 00, Brno, Czechia

    Martin Duľa

  3. Department of Forestry and Renewable Forest Resources, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Jamnikarjeva 101, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Miha Krofel

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  1. Martin Duľa
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Correspondence to Martin Duľa.

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Supplementary material 1 Examples of using parallel kills by the Eurasian lynx (MPG 32486 kb)

Supplementary material 2 Examples of wild boar kleptoparasitism on Eurasian lynx kills. Description of the video: Two examples of kleptoparasitism by wild boars on male Eurasian lynx recorded with an automatic camera in the Moravian Karst, Czechia. In the first part, wild boars usurped and consumed carcass of a young male mouflon that was killed by lynx 2 days before the recording. The wild boars found and partly consumed the carcass already before the cameras were set up. After deployment of cameras, wild boar returned for another 31 min of eating, after which only non-edible remains of carcass were left when the lynx returned. In the second part, wild boars and lynx were present simultaneously at the vicinity of a kill site with remains of female roe deer. After the encounter, lynx was recorded at the kill site, but only for a couple of seconds and then abandon the carcass. After this, the carcass was completely consumed by the wild boars (MPG 265730 kb)

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Duľa, M., Krofel, M. A cat in paradise: hunting and feeding behaviour of Eurasian lynx among abundant naive prey. Mamm Biol 100, 685–690 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42991-020-00070-6

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