So on the one hand, it’s an amazing story of adaptability in the face of climate change:
“In 2015, the lions found the sea again and started hunting coastal prey on the beach, after a drought decimated their usual inland prey of ostriches, oryxes and springboks. “The seals were a blessing,” says Van Malderen. “Climate change has pushed these desert lions to the edge, forcing them to adapt in extraordinary ways, to survive along the beaches of the Atlantic coast.””
OTOH - It’s devastating for the seal population who likely had become accustomed to land being a safe haven from ocean predators.
“Van Malderen has watched Gamma grow up, first encountering the lioness when she was three months old. She is now three-and-a-half years, “almost an adult,” she says, adding that the lioness has become a fearsome hunter capable of killing 40 seals in a single night.”
‘Their resilience is a lesson to us all’: The maritime lions hunting seals on the beach
What, a lesson to humans? To be able to go anywhere and eat anything? We’re the global champions at that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human
Humans are omnivorous, capable of consuming a wide variety of plant and animal material, and have used fire and other forms of heat to prepare and cook food since the time of Homo erectus.
They are apex predators, being rarely preyed upon by other species.
By using advanced tools and clothing, humans have been able to extend their tolerance to a wide variety of temperatures, humidities, and altitudes.[131][138] As a result, humans are a cosmopolitan species found in almost all regions of the world, including tropical rainforest, arid desert, extremely cold arctic regions, and heavily polluted cities; in comparison, most other species are confined to a few geographical areas by their limited adaptability.
The combined biomass of the carbon of all the humans on Earth in 2018 was estimated at 60 million tons, about 10 times larger than that of all non-domesticated mammals.
I feel like they are hunting seals because they can’t hunt other animals because the population of other animals is too low.
