How do large mammals cope with such heavy predation?
There are several reasons they can cope. 1st) The predators aren’t as successful at hunting as nature shows on TV suggest. Most large carnivores fail about 5 times out of 6. The exception in Africa (given that we’re using zebra as an example) are the now very seriously endangered African wild dogs, also known as cape hunting dogs or painted wolves, which have an 80 to 90% success rate in hunts. Zebra are not easy prey – they are alert with good senses and fast reactions, they can run faster than their predators and can keep running for a long time and if needs be they can defend themselves with powerful kicks and nasty bites (lions have been known to die after having their skulls fractured by a zebras kick.) 2nd) No predator-including the wild dogs-hunts only zebra, there are lots of other large herbivores about so when a predator is hungry it will go for whatever it finds first that looks like it might be possible to catch and that won’t be a zebra every or even most times. 3rd) A sin
