Abstract
Lions and their prey are threatened across most of their range but
especially in West and Central Africa. Prey availability influences
carnivore densities, social structure, prey preference and home ranges,
and changes in prey are important for carnivore management. Scarcity of
large prey in many West and Central African ecosystems has been
described as leading to a preference for hunting smaller prey in smaller
groups. Here we investigated the changes in prey selection of lions in
Zakouma National Park (Chad), a restored protected area in Central
Africa, by collecting feeding data through opportunistic observations
and GPS cluster points of lion collars. Compared to pre-restoration
data, lions preferred larger prey and fed in larger groups. Our results
show that diet shifts due to prey losses can be reversed with
restoration of the ecosystem, and we speculate that this may be true
across large carnivores and across regions.