Lion Kills Lioness In Dallas Zoo: Frustration Of Captivity May Have Led To Gruesome Attack

By Gabrielle Jonas on November 19, 2013

Male lions use dense vegetation for ambush-style hunting. (Photo: Reuters)

The lion who bit a lioness to death at the Dallas Zoo last Sunday may have done so in response to the stress of captivity, an animal advocate specializing in big cats said. Carole Baskin, chief executive of Big Cat Rescue was in Washington, D.C. Monday to push for the passage of the Big Cats and Public Safety Act (HR1998, S1381) , that would ban the private possession, breeding, and public contact with big cats.

"American Zoo Association  accredited zoos, like the Dallas Zoo, would be exempt from the ban on possession and breeding big cats, so it would not have prevented this tragedy," Baskin told the International Science Times, "but the sudden killing of one big cat by another happens all the time in non-accredited, roadside menageries and private owner's backyards. It just rarely makes the news." This one did, though, after a male lion delivered a crushing bite to the neck of lioness named Johari at the Dallas Zoo, as families and other stunned visitors looked on, Reuters reported.

Johari died almost instantly, according to Dr. Lynn Kramer, vice president of animal operations and welfare at the Dallas Zoo. "This is a very rare and unfortunate occurrence. In my 35 years as a veterinarian in zoos, I've never seen this happen," Dr. Kramer said in a statement.

The lion who attacked Johari did it so casually, reported Reuters, that many onlookers at first didn't realize she was being attacked. He unobtrusively used his jaws to grab Johari by the throat, then backed away from her apparently lifeless body. "Everyone thought they were playing at first, but then they could see that she was struggling," Jim Harvey, who witnessed the killing, told station WFAA-TV, Channel 8, Dallas, which carried video of the event. After the attack, zoo staff scrambled to remove the remaining four lions in the exhibit from public view, Reuters said.

When lions are put together with unfamiliar animals in close quarters, tensions can ensue, Baskin said. Indeed, according to the Dallas Zoo, though the lion lived with his two brothers, and Johari lived with her two sisters, lion and lioness were not related. "Lions live in prides in Africa that are comprised of family, where they have hundreds of miles to roam and sometimes they kill each other for mates, food or territory," Baskin said. "In captivity, lions are confined to small cages and often paired with others who are not family. Those stresses can lead to fatalities."

"At the night houses in just about any zoo, where the big cats are kept during most of their waking hours," Baskin added, "you will see the lives of deprivation they live and understand how fights could lead to deaths in such dismal conditions."

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