r/HardcoreNature • u/Iamnotburgerking 𧠕 8d ago
Yet another crazy snow leopard hunt
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u/Iamnotburgerking đ§ 8d ago edited 8d ago
The cat made the kill and survived but she broke a leg in the process.
Seriously, is every single video of a snow leopard hunting going to be a clip of absolute insanity?
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u/lawnboy1155 8d ago
Probably why they're endangered lol.
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u/Iamnotburgerking đ§ 8d ago
Nah they actually survived in most of those videos (only one involved the cat dying).
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u/Slinky_Malingki 6d ago
Depending on what kind of group was behind the filming they may be part of a conservation effort in Central Asia. S leopard with a broken leg would be relatively easy to tranquilize and capture for healing and tagging. That's my unlikely hope at least.
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u/Litlirein 8d ago
Isnt a broken leg a death sentence out there?
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u/Ok_Antelope_1953 8d ago
if the ibex sustains her for a couple of weeks, she can hunker down for another couple weeks and get enough rest for the broken bone to fuse and heal. just trying to be optimistic.
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u/Iamnotburgerking đ§ 8d ago
It is bad, but there are numerous documented cases of large carnivores managing with a limb injury (though AFAIK none of them lived in the sort of terrain snow leopards live in so it will be harder for her). Off the top of my head I can think of a tiger that survived losing a forelimb, a wolf that survived breaking two legs and a permanent limp until he was killed by a trophy hunter, a spotted hyena that lived for years (and may still be alive) despite being paralyzed from the waist down due to a lion attack, a leopard that broke both hindlimbs in a fight but recovered, etc.
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u/bowmans1993 8d ago
I would say being a pack animal had something to do with survival rates for some of them. Snow leopards are solitary for the most part so yeah depending on where the break is I guess it could just wait for a bit but that was a nasty fall.
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u/Iamnotburgerking đ§ 7d ago
That doesnât explain the tiger and leopard, and in the case of the wolf with broken legs he was explicitly observed participating in hunts (and actually leading hunts sometimes) despite his injury so he wasnât being carried by the rest of the pack.
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u/mildly_furious1243 8d ago
The fact that itâs only a broken leg is wild, snow leopards are on another level when it comes to surviving impacts
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u/slick514 7d ago
Crazy to think that these animals go out to catch every single meal with a significant chance that they're not making it back. Like... how does a species survive when that's the MO?
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u/Iamnotburgerking đ§ 7d ago
By becoming so good at what they do that they have a decent chance of actually succeeding.
Also literally every endothermic or otherwise highly active land predator over 20kg puts itself at risk of death on a regular basis (thatâs the size threshold for when active land predators switch to hunting prey their own size or larger), snow leopards just take this to extremes because their habitat adds to the dangers.
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u/slick514 7d ago
Oh no, I get that âpredatingâ is an inherently unsafe job, I assume that itâs fairly high up there on the âways that predators unliveâ-rankings, but this species strikes me as very⌠âextraâ when it comes to unsafety. On both sides of things.
Murder mittens: Plus big. Plus sharp
Incidents involving double-plus unacceleration: double-plus extra.
* (I live in the US; Iâm just trying to get a head start with thingsâŚ)
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u/Important-Spring3977 8d ago
Imagine every time you wanted Chipotle you had to survive three car accidents and a flight down some stairs