Assessing the Social Cohesion of a Translocated Pride of White Lions Integrated with Wild Tawny Lions in South Africa, Using Social Network Analysis

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Lions in South Africa are protected in national parks and smaller fenced private wildlife reserves. Population sizes and genetics within fenced reserves are managed through moving lions between reserves. One component of successful lion movements is their ability to form prides post release, which is influenced by the strength of social bonds and interactions between individual lions. White lions are a natural colour variant of the African lion, occurring within certain tawny lion prides in the Greater Kruger National Park, South Africa. Human impact, including trophy hunting, led to the removal of white lions in the wild until their reintroduction in 2006. The social behaviour of a pride consisting of captive-origin white and wild tawny lions was compared to captive-origin and wild tawny lion prides, with similarities and differences in the social behaviour of prides found. The study concluded that the pride of white and tawny lions was more strongly bonded than either the captive-origin or wild tawny prides. This suggests that a constructed pride of captive-origin white and wild tawny lions can successfully form a socially functional lion pride and indicates that white lions are capable of surviving in the wild in the absence of negative human impact. ABSTRACT: In South Africa, lions are protected in national parks and smaller fenced reserves. Translocating lions between fenced reserves, whilst necessary to maintain genetic diversity, is disruptive and can impact survivorship and pride cohesion. Critical to translocation success is pride cohesion. White lions are a natural colour variant occurring in the Greater Kruger Park Region, where anthropogenic threats eliminated this population until reintroduction in 2006. Through social network analysis (SNA), the sociality of a released pride of captive-origin white and wild tawny lions was compared to two captive-origin and wild prides of tawny lions. Social interactions and pride dynamics were recorded for each pride. For all prides, cubs and subadults were central to the play network, while adults received the most social interactions. White and wild tawny adult males initiated more social interactions than captive-origin tawny males, whilst a keystone adult female was identified in each pride. For the constructed pride, social interactions were more evenly distributed, suggesting a high level of connectedness and cohesion. This is the first study to demonstrate that captive-origin white and wild tawny lions can form a socially functional pride, suggesting that white lions would survive in the wild in the absence of anthropogenic threats.