How several species of predators, and prey, know there is safety in numbers

Predators and their victims attach more survival value to working together than to going solo

Lionesses hunt together, especially when the prey is large and dangerous. (Image credit: Express File Photo)

Because we have brains that work evilly, we have, over time, evolved hunting strategies (and made weapons) that make it impossible for our prey to escape. We’ve been so successful that we’ve wiped out most of our big cats, and large herbivores and we now need to actively protect them. And typically, how did our evil minds work? Want to bag a tiger? Find a potential victim, organise a beat: hundreds of men hammering tin cans marching through the jungle, towards the animal, and ahead position a battalion of elephants in semi-circle formation atop, which intrepid hunters with rifles wait for the traumatised big cat to break through. Neat, eh? Thankfully this is all now a thing of the past, though ‘canned hunting’ in Africa is now its ignoble successor. But it got me thinking.

Animals, like wild dogs too, adopt cooperative hunting strategies. First, they’ll assess a herd of say, antelope, and pick a target and split it from its companions. The pursuit begins and as the animal flees, the dogs fan out flanking it from either side to prevent it from darting hither or tither, while some chase it from behind. The chase can go on for miles and if there’s one thing the dogs have, it’s stamina. One or more animals will race ahead and then hide in the high grass and wait — just like those elephant-borne riflemen. As the tiring victim bumbles into it, well it’s game over. Bounding through the high grass, the dogs keep track of each other by whistles. They have a success rate of 60 per cent, the highest amongst the carnivores.

What boggles the mind is how this astute hunting strategy evolved. How did the dogs first realise they had a better chance of success if they hunted together? Did this happen by accident? A solitary hunter, on the chase, is followed by pack mates. The prey jinks one way and another and some of the followers dart after splitting up. Another bright spark gets way ahead, say by accident, and then finds it is in the ideal position to take down the victim — as the chasers close in. This procedure is repeated in subsequent hunts with equal success and is taught to the cubs in the pack. And becomes an established hunting strategy…

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Other cooperative hunters, like lionesses, too hunt together, especially when the prey is large and dangerous (like buffalo or elephant). When the risks involved are worth the rewards — a meal for the pride for several days. Lionesses will typically attack from the rear, attempting to hamstring the victim before the lead huntress tackles the dangerous front end, clamping down on the throat and asphyxiating the animal. In cases where the victim refuses to go down easily, his royal highness, the lion, might even join in — his greater weight helping to bring down the prey. Again, it’s amazing to think how all this evolved into a template — a typical strategy — with enough room for manoeuvre, depending on the terrain and circumstances. Alas, regardless of whether he has helped or (most often) not, his lordship will take possession of the kill and all the choice cuts and snarl and swipe at even his cubs wanting to get a taste of their first chuck steak.

Chimpanzees, notoriously quarrelsome among each other, will bury their differences when out on a hunt for monkeys. As they move through the forest, their keen eyes scanning the canopy, they’ll maintain radio silence. Once they spot a prospect, they’ll assess the escape routes and various members of the pack will climb up the trees and seal these off. At a signal, the screaming begins, and the panicked victim is chased up, hurtling through the branches in desperation — chased by a chimp — straight into a waiting hunter in the treetops.

Now chimps are fairly large in comparison to the size of their prey — say a colobus monkey — yet, the successful hunter is careful to share the spoils among the pack. Which chimp in the pack is the first to be invited to the table is a matter of social hierarchy but the reasoning behind sharing is sound: Share with the others, and you can be sure that they’ll cooperate in the next hunt. Hunting solo is probably not an option unless it’s fishing for termites! because chimps are large and noisy and their lithe victims can easily escape. They must have figured this out pretty quickly because they’re almost as evilly intelligent as we are!

The victims of predators too have realised that there’s relative safety in numbers. If you’re a lone zebra standing in the plains with lions approaching, you’re a goner. But if you are one, in a herd of 1000, then the chances of you being picked off are one in a thousand. Birds and fish too adopt this strategy: starlings have their astonishing ‘murmurations’ to confuse raptors and sardines and mackerels swim tightly together in shoals, making it difficult for their predators to pick a target. Ironically, some whales counter this by also hunting together, corralling the shoals and blowing rings of bubbles around them to ‘cage’ them and then just swimming into them with their cave-like mouths wide open. Or they simply whack the water so hard with their tails, they knock the fish unconscious, which is rather like using dynamite while fishing!

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But again, it is amazing to think just how all these strategies involving cooperation started and evolved. And how these species realised there was more survival value in working together than in going solo…