For nine months in 1898, the lions of Tsavo held the British Empire at bay. They preyed on workers at a construction camp in Kenya, and prevented them from building the railroad. By the time they were finally shot and killed by Colonel John H. Patterson, they had eaten 135 of the workers—at least if you are to believe Patterson’s own account, or the 1996 film “The Ghost and the Darkness,” starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer.
Two scientists at UC Santa Cruz decided that they didn’t believe it. Though Patterson’s book won the praise of no less a hunter than President Teddy Roosevelt, Justin Yeakel and Nate Dominy decided to check the facts out for themselves, and examined the lions’ pelts, which are now on display in Chicago. Their conclusion was disappointing to say the least. Based on an analysis of carbon levels in the tufts of hair found on the lions’ tails, they determined that the lions preferred zebras and gazelles. All in all, the dreaded lions of Tsavo only ate about 35 people, not 135.
The numbers are disappointing, to say the least, but they are also worrying. After all, lions rarely attack humans, so Yeakel and Dominy tried to understand why they went on a rampage back then. In an article published in today’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, they argue that what happened back then mimics the current problems we are facing with climate change and human encroachment on the wilds. Buffalo were once the lions’ chief prey, but these were wiped out by a virus brought by European settlers. That only left plant-eating gazelles and zebras, but there numbers declined sharply because of a drought and because the workers themselves had destroyed much of their food supply.
And so the workers became the lions’ snack of choice—but only 35 of them, not 135.
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