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It is common that the animals do not attack each other in a watering in the wild, and because of this, even such a thing appeared as a water truce. We decided to check if this is so.

Many service users questions And answers They are interested in whether it is true that predators do not attack other animals on a watering water. This is written in Blogs And social networks, discuss on forums. Such information can be found on entertainment And cognitive Portals. Sometimes the phrase "water truce" of the media Use How metaphor To describe political situations.

Most likely, the belief that predators do not hunt for a water pump was in the mass consciousness from "Books of the jungle"Redyarda Kipling:“ According to the law of the jungle, death is supposed to death for the murder of a watering, if [water] a truce has already been announced. This is because drinking is more important than food. Each beast in the jungle will be able to somehow interrupt if there is little game, but water is water, and if only one source remains, all hunting stops while the jungle people go to him on a watering. ” Despite the fact that Kipling wrote precisely about a truce for the period of drought, popularity has gained a wider idea that animals, in principle, do not hunt each other in a watering.

Nevertheless, in reality, wild animals are less “law -abiding”, and for water predators, a convenient case to grab the prey that has lost vigilance. Numerous videos of popular science channels like National Geographic and Animal Planet Showthat from the water on drinking animals often attack Crocodiles (for which, however, sometimes Get it surrender from larger and stronger "victims"). The kings of animals Lions Also Do not disdain hunting for a watering hyenas, Wolves and other predators.

Most caseswhen animals are peaceful coexist At the water supply, we are still talking about herbivores, for example, giraffes, zebrahs and hippos that would not attack each other under other circumstances. Similarly, predators of different species (for example, lions and wolves) interact, which are not interconnected by a food chain.

In 2013, zoologists from Oxford University conducted study About the seasonal diet of African lions. They studied 245 cases of murders of other animals in the National Park Hwang (Zimbabwe). It turned out that predators very often kill their victims within a radius of 2 km from reservoirs. Scientists concluded that rivers or lakes can play the role of animal traps, and lions are deliberately looking for prey precisely near water around.

As for the period of drought, then predators do not change themselves, and sometimes even use the lack of water as a strategic advantage, in wait for prey in reservoirs. At least such conclusions A group of researchers from the USA and Germany came. With the help of photoealists, they studied the behavior of the lemurs in the west of Madagascar and found out that during the drought, animals are forced to change their habits and the time of visiting a water supply in order to avoid meeting with predators.

In many posts About the water truce, as an illustration, a photo of a lion and zebras is used, peacefully drinking water next to each other. However, in fact, this image is taken from Advertising Insurance for travelers, the slogan of which was the phrase "Take the risks from life." If you look at the whole video, it becomes obvious that all this is the result of computer graphics. In addition to the lion and zebra, the “heroes” of the video were, for example, birds sitting right on the back of the leopard, Babuin, showing acrobatic tricks in front of laughing hyenas, and a monkey rolling on the back of the crocodile and holding a glass of drink in the paw.

Sometimes on ponds you can really see predators and their potential victims, quenching the thirst side by side. One of these examples I got on the camera Researchers in 2019 in Kalmykia: the wolf and the fox drank from the reservoir, not paying attention to the birds walking next to them. However, there is no reason to believe that predators in all such situations behave just as peacefully.

Thus, a water truce is nothing more than a beautiful artistic image used by the writer Rudyard Kipling and has taken root in the mass consciousness. In the wild, watering is just very convenient places to attack the victim, and lions, for example, prefer to hunt exactly there. Numerous documentary shootings of popular science channels indicate that the lions in this are not at all alone.

Update on May 8, 2023: A description of the study of the behavior of predators and their potential victims on a watering period during the drought was added. You can read the previous version of the material by link.

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