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months. It's all about opportunity and easy prey. These Tsavo maneaters were bad, hyper-aggressive lions. They were actually raised man-eaters by their pride but didn't have an opportunity like this until someone tried to push a railroad through their territory. If you want something to turn your stomach look at the carnage that insued when a different railroad was pushed through black rhino country. The above total was about ten per cent of that slaughter and not a soul was eaten.
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Museum supported
Patterson and the engineers' claim that lions were responsible for the 135 deaths, however it is likely the presence of more soldiers adjacent to the construction site that quelled a simmering conflict with the local population. Incidents of sabotage are recorded along the railroad through the mid-twentieth century, although these are largely recorded in diaries of colonial administrators and known to only a few scholars.
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Most modern anthropologists working in the Tsavo region attribute the story of man-eating lions to a fabrication propagated by certain elements within the
British colonial administration. Nineteenth-century Britain was conflicted about their ever-expanding empire, wars they were fighting in India and
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Last year, Kenya museum officials reportedly met with Sen. Barack Obama about repatriation of hundreds of Kenyan artifacts in the United States. At the time, Kenya museum official
Kibunja Mzalendo said the Tsavo lions were high on the government's list but said the Field had made "a legitimate deal,
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And while a maneless lion within a normally maned lion population would find mates more difficult to acquire, this is not true in any way or form for Tsavo lions (or really any maneless lion populations). Tsavo lions could be maneless as an evolutionary adaptation to the environment they live, or a
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Since there has been recent isotope testing done on the lions, it can be confirmed that these two lions killed at minimum a total of 35 people in the last three months of life. That number goes up based on many factors that are very difficult to test for. First, the isotope testing would indicate a
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people are well documented in diaries. The aberrant behavior of the supposed man-eaters, which includes previously and subsequently undocumented phenomena such as kidnapping and dragging prey for many kilometers and the storage of bones (especially skulls) within caves, is troubling to reckon with
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The isotope test merely confirms the number of humans they killed AND ate. As the article states, they cannot test for the number of humans they killed but did not eat. While Col. Patterson may have exaggerated (we may even say probably exaggerated) the total number of workers killed, his stated
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2. Maneless males are a common genetic fault in the lions of the Tsavo. And much like the tuskless Asian elephant it's a condition associated with higher aggression levels as both manes and tusks are sexual indicators and provide suitability for breeding signs to the females. Males afflicted with
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Most records state around 140, but they should be viewed with suspicion. There was a lot of boasting and exaggeration in those days. Patterson had every reason to exaggerate the totals. If the lions were killing for food alone then these numbers are probably four times the real total. -Ken Keisel
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Given the apprehension of the
British colonial government in London and British population in general to engage in another open conflict, the lion-story likely provided a convenient and non-controversial excuse to send more troops to the area. The killing of the two lions on display in the Field
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Ken, why does that total sound high to you? A 400 pound male lion in the wild likes to eat 5 to 10 per cent of his body weight a day. Plus, not everybody killed was eaten. Look at all the carnage those escaped circus lions did down in South
America (3 males, 5 females). Over 700 llamas in only 2
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South Africa, and substantial investments abroad whilst the economy on the island was suffering. The engineers and railroad workers installing the rail line through the heart of Kenya in the late nineteenth century saw their mission as noble and were financially invested in completing the work.
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Should it not be pointed out, citing the work in reference #2, that there is actually very little reason to believe that the fatal lion attacks (however many there really were) were solely or even primarily due to the pair that
Patterson shot? After all, if it's well documented that fatal lion
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movie and Field Museum researchers have gone to great lengths to perpetuate the story-as-reality of the Man-eaters of Tsavo, actual documentation of this event is sparse, biased and a careful and critical reading of the documents leaves more questions than answers.
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objectionable text, images, or links where they are relevant to the content", I don't see how this adds anything to the understanding of the fact that "man-eating" lions violently killed a few dozen workers, beyond shock value. Other comments would be welcome.
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Also, Kenya
Tourism Board spokeswoman Rose Kwena told the Agence France-Presse in Nairobi: "We will follow the right channels to get the remains of our maneaters back to us. They are part of our heritage and history and it is good to have them
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Field Museum officials
Tuesday denied overseas news reports that Kenya is seeking the return of the Chicago institution's famed "Maneaters of Tsavo" -- a pair of now-preserved lions that killed about 140 railroad workers in Africa in the
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Following the reports, Field spokesman Greg Borzo said Field officials phoned Idle Omar Farah, director general of the state-owned
National Museums of Kenya, and "he tells us it's not accurate and he ought to know .. . this is not their
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and other indigenous peoples of the Tsavo region are known to inter decapitated skulls in rock shelters. Further, those people would have had a strong incentive to resist the intrusion of a railroad across their homelands. Although the
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attacks occurred there before the railroad began, and that lions had been scavenging human corpses there for generations, and that lion attacks were common there long after (right through WWI), what's the significance of these two? -
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lower number if the people the lions are consuming were themselves vegetarians (which is very possible since they were
Indians). Plus that number could easily reach 140 killed from the very common predator behavior of surplus killing (
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Efforts to reach Kenya officials Tuesday were unsuccessful. But the BBC quoted National Museums of Kenya spokeswoman Connie Maina vowing to "use international protocols to repatriate them.
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The lions were shot and killed in 1898 by the Kenya railroad project's chief engineer, Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson. He sold the lion skins and skulls to the Field for $ 5,000 in 1924.
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this condition wouldn't be able to pass on this trait if they weren't more aggressive than normal. (Passive males with no manes or tusks just don't breed.)
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hormonal change due to their much higher levels of testosterone. Tsavo lions are also much larger than other African lions and much more aggressive too.
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of 04 March 2008, as this has been previously refined and corrected. See the history of edits on this article in December, 2007 and in particular
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put it at 128. Most web search results gave figures between 130 and 140, so the latter seems to be correct. Does anyone know better? --
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Citing separate sources, the BBC and the AFP news agency said the National Museums of Kenya want the stuffed creatures back.
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Uhm no the lions did not keep the heads of the men they killed in their cave that is just absurd you are an idiot.
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These two man-eaters were a very unusual case and their unlion-like behavior could only have been them. STCooper1(
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edits of February 8, 2008. The restored information is excerpted from a formal study, and well-cited. -
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on Knowledge (XXG). If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
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on Knowledge (XXG). If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
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need information if Patterson killed lions with rifle or shotgun. and which model. -FX_Shadowmaster
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upper total of all people killed, about 140, cannot be definitely excluded.
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Didn't these lions keep the heads of the men they killed in their cave? --
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Killed by rifle. No record of which model. He had several. -Ken Keisel
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on Knowledge (XXG). If you would like to participate, you can visit the
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Hostile interactions between the newcomers and indigenous Waata and
89:-related subjects on Knowledge (XXG). Please participate by editing
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1. They were Tsavo Lions, a subspecies of the East African Lion.
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http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/552998,CST-NWS-lion12.article
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this black-and-white photo of an anonymous, half-eaten corpse
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I had a couple of questions if anyone minded answereing...
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They only killed from 4-79 people not the 140 you say
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The Field has owned the lions for more than 70 years.
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