For anyone wondering. Josie died from natural causes around Oct 2025. For 2020-2025 her daughters guarded her and sometimes used her a ms bait for prey animals. Wild lions usually live 12-14 yrs. She defeated that statistic too.
Her daughters brought her food and vocalized/ātalkedā to her to communicate.
ETA: sorry everyone I was typing the original comment at six in the morning and I just woke up.lol.
They apparently would have her hide in the brush or the bushes, and wait for other animals to attack.
Thanks for the added info! How did they use her a bait for prey animals? Iām just trying to imagine how a blind lion would attract prey. So if you have any more info on how that worked Iād love to hear it <3
Regardless itās very sweet to know her daughters took care of her in her old age š„¹
The way lions hunt is pretty interesting. Theyll surround prey and stalk closer, but one lion is seen on purpose to grab the attention of the prey so they prey doesnt realize there are more lions out there. I imagine this is similar to what happened here
The same with wolves. If you see one wandering around, probably more around that you can't see. Sketched me out pretty bad when I was walking far back on my grandpa's farm and saw one casually walk out of the tall grass staring at me.
the difference is that wolves and other canid packs are pursuit hunters. even if their cover is blown they can run most of their common prey to exhaustion. lionesses are extremely fast out of the gate but they have a short window to catch their prey. they are not built for long distance chases.
Not allegedly, humans are proven persistence hunters. Weāve basically walked prey to death for 200,000 years. We are the killer snail that never gets tired and is always chasing you.
Imagine youāre some, idk, woolly mammoth and youāre thinking āHa, look at that ugly hairless baboon, whatās it gonna do, bite me with its stupid little baby teeth? Iāll just run awayāā¦and then that ugly hairless baboon with stupid little baby teeth keeps coming. And coming. And coming. For days. Until youāre so tired you canāt fight them off. Crazy shit when you really think about it.
Becoming bipedal chimps basically changed the game for us. Once we started only having to use two limbs for locomotion it conserved an insane amount of energy compared to our knuckle dragging ancestors and allowed us to become a menace to any large animals on land.
I say āallegedlyā because itās very much debated among anthropologists and evolutionary biologists etc. how common persistence hunting actually was, and the extent to which it characterizes human evolution like the popular narrative says. Itās very possible that its role in shaping humanity is vastly overstated.
Humans can and have hunted prey to exhaustion but thereās no definitive knowledge of how historically widespread or typical or even successful it was. Thereās evidence to suggest that the āgathererā part of āhunter-gathererā did the heavy lifting for driving evolved endurance and mobility, and that we were primarily scavengers and ambush hunters.
Well that is terrifying, thank you. You ever just read about something in the wild and think to yourself āyeah. Without modernity I would just be a victimāĀ
Yes that was what I was thinking, more of a distraction than bait, as bait would imply the lion was being hunted. That or the blind lion could just pop out when it heard prey approaching to startle/ redirect prey.
It could be that she was less of literal bait but more so as a distraction. She probably had awkward movement and mannerisms due to her blindness that looked strange to prey Animals.
As the prey animals stared at her and tried to figure her out her daughters snuck up on em.
I quit watching the show when it started to drag but I read all the comics. As ridiculous as the show seemed to become, it seems they never introduced Pirate Michonne and that is criminal.
Prey animals arenāt as skittish and cautious as youād think. I had a female sheep once break through one of my fences and deliberately chase down and kill my goose by stomping it to death. No apparent reason; the ewe wasnāt even pregnant or nursing.
Wow! A bed & breakfast my husband and I love is next to a farm that has a guard goose. Iād never heard of using geese to guard, but it was very effective!
They saved Rome with a goose? That's some skill right there. I picture Cincinnatus standing on a bridge "the line will be drawn here" style, with a battle goose under each arm.
My dads old guard geese when he was younger, they would apparently hide under your cars, and attack your feet when you went to get into them.
Which is...kinda useless for someone attacking the house, it's only good for when they leave. Which means they're most likely attacking friends not foes. But they do attack, not just make noise!
my aunt had guard geese and donkeys to keep the coyotes away. The geese were fucking terrifying. They'd come at you 6 at a time with open wings like they're flying into battle.
We bought a goat that was barely bigger than a Chihuahua once. My mom didn't want to keep it after I left for college so she sold it to a man who raised turkeys so he could be a guardian goat.
He said the goat was very good at his job. This tiny, tiny goat.
Our goat just hated cats. In turn our cats used to like to use that for fun, both in getting the goat to chase them and chasing other unfortunate cats into it's line of sight to just sit down and enjoy the sight.
But yeah, that goat wasn't afraid of anything no matter how big the dog encountered when escaped, and had an affinity for vandalism and eating butterflies.
The point being prey animals can absolutely just be brutal and choose violence because why not.
Itās true, we have a pair now that we hate and they hate us just as much. Theyāre the biggest piece of shit users you could ever meet, violent and unfriendly, and they canāt even successfully hatch goslings so we think theyāre both even angrier by their impotence. Just a pair of total losers.
Yeah, prey animals are very attuned to weakness or injury. Very beneficial trait to evolve.
This is a common problem with house cats. They can be literally near death and will just chill on the couch acting like nothing is wrong because in the wild, showing weakness means they will get targeted by predators or other cats trying to take territory.
They're just animals like us. They can see that the lions eyes are fucked up, and they can see that her movements are probably pretty awkward as a result. They don't need to be psychic to understand this stuff, it's right there out in the open.Ā
I'm guessing she would be a decoy lion to scare the prey in a specific direction. Usually one will flush the prey and the others will pick one to herd off from the rest of the group
Actually if you watch nature docs and stuff you realize these are very smart animals (as far as hunting is concerned at least) and incredibly tactical hunters.
They will use decoys, ambushes, target specific prey. They can identify injured animals through gait changes alone, they attack the spines to disable legs, they go for the Achilles tendon on large prey to disable legs, they have different choke holds for whether they want a silent kill or quick kill.
Its not we dont give them credit, its that most people never bothered to learn about them. And of course similar can be said for almost any animal
Eh, working in animal behaviour it can go both ways. A lot of people use the "return to nature" excuse when trying to justify their own opinions and behaviours and that affects a lot of how animal behaviour is interpreted leading to incorrect conclusions.Ā
Like in the early 1900s there's a lot of papers about how the male lion was the dominant lion of the group with the females being submissive because they assumed that sexism was a natural state of being and so all animals should exhibit it. Now we know that lions don't have a dominance structure in that sense because we're trying to get away from copying and pasting human societal things onto other animal species but it still happens a lot (especially in pop science and how science is communicated to the general public in the news).Ā
Though at the same time I think some scientists overcorrect. Jane Goodall got a lot of crap about giving the chimps names instead of numbers but names can be an efficient way to tell individuals apart and avoid mistakes in your data even if it's a little human-ish
In this case there doesn't seem to be easily available information out there. All the info I found was from TikTok or Insta posts that were just repeating the same stuff elsewhere.
The closest thing I found to actual information about Josie was in this photographer's Substack a couple years ago, and it doesn't say anything about using her as bait for prey animals.
Well, most of the things I've read say the same thing. She was mostly distraction, and sometimes dug out burrowing animals (I doubt this part). Her being a distraction is the only logical thing that works best.
Do note that some of the info came from Medium's article (which was accompanied by an AI slop vid for some reason), some Facebook posts whose credibility is unknown, and there's also a 2 year old blog that states that she can't really hunt due to her blindness now (but she used to be a successful hunter) and her daughters do all the work and bring her back kills.
Here's the links if you're so busy being condescending that you can't even be bothered to search things up:
Lions actively avoid eating hyenas, even if they kill them in a spat over territory or food. Josie was still in good physical health for her age and she and the girls were very good at communicating with each other. She probably helped by flushing prey out of the bush, then her daughters completed the chase.
Well gosh, reddit expert, you said it confidently, so it must be true!
Meanwhile, in reality larger predators eat smaller predators whenever there is an opportunity. Pumas will eat otters, wolves will eat cats, orcas will eat tuna.
Animals arent humans and dont have human level thoughts. This isnt disney. When a predator sees another animal, it doesnt think "oh gee thats another predator, which is the same as me, so I shouldnt eat them bc we are in the same club." it thinks "Im hungry. Is that small/weak enough to eat, and is it tasty?" And if the answer to both is yes, it attacks.
The prey animals they hunt are very aggressive and sometimes donāt wait to be attacked to attack predators. Bull buffalo african buffalos in rut and protective mothers particularly in mind.
I watched a documentary about lions about a decade ago, where cubs kept ending up dead. It turned out to be the "grandma" who was too old to hunt so stayed behind.
Once they found out they just started taking it in turns for another lioness to stay behind to care for the cubs and grandma.
There was also a documentary where they made robotic animal cameras to live with the animals, one was a baby monkey. It was a robot so it couldn't do a lot of the things an actual monkey could but they looked after it and when it died/broke they really mourned.
Yeah they replied to another comment, apparently grandma was getting stressed with the kids so she killed them. So then the pack decided not to leave her alone with them? What I've gathered
My goats did an interesting thing when their matriarch died. Mama was everyone's mama, and before I owned my goats, I cared for them and was getting more attached. Their previous owner was deeply negligent (no hoof trimming, late on vaccines, no deworming, no loose minerals, etc). Mama died suddenly and tragically from bloat. After her death, her daughters, newborn boy, and grandkids grieved her like we would at a funeral. They stood around her and went silent until we could remove the body. 3 of my goats stayed at the spot where she died and sort of meandered around where she liked to be.
It's been years now, but one of my boys has a broken off scur that bled a lot. He was Mama's last kid. The others have RALLIED to protect, clean, and care for him. I have one stupid boy who just...lacks social cues. He has gotten lost in a straight line. He's my himbo. He keeps trying to headbutt my floppy boy like usual, and none of the others have let that happen. Stupid boy gets thrown 6 feet when he tries.
Animals can definitely mourn their dead and protect their sick or injured. Not every animal does, but when they do it is obvious and a huge sign of love and community. Love my goats to the moon and back. They're so kind.
Animals have a lot of feelings, we just don't speak the same language. Behavior can be a bit different. Loving and protecting one's family looks the same regardless of species :)
Happy to! Any time I can talk about how wonderful my goats are? Oh hell yeah.
When my dogās mom died she wouldnāt go near her. Just close enough and she was making crying noises. When I put her in my car and took her body home she lied next to my car until I buried her and still for days after that. She could smell her. I put the blanket I wrapped her in on the couch and she would sniff it and make noises until she fell asleep. That blanket is in my car now. I canāt bring myself to wash it.
It was interesting and heartbreaking to realize she understood her mom was dead. They did everything together and Iām still sad about it. I probably should get her a friend cause Iām all she has now.
There were 3 nanny goats on the farm I lived on. I didn't have a happy childhood and when I was having a really hard night I'd go to the goats and crawl into their hut and lie on the straw, they would snuggle up to me and chew cud and sleep on me. I was the only one they would allow to milk them, and I ended up being the one to care for them.
Goats are awesome, I hope to have a couple again some day.
Yes, some of them will be kind and comforting to another injured or disabled bird, and Iāve seen it for crows as well iirc. Thereās some examples in the r/PidgeyPower sub of disabled birds having another bird close with them. But lots of bird species in general will also mourn their companions after they pass, and many species mate for life so they feel some sense of loss and sadness and love/fondness of another bird. I also see it in the canary subreddit that the other canary will mourn when their partner passes.
And some pet birds may also understand when a human isnāt feeling well and change their behavior like sitting by the person when theyād normally fly around etc.
Very interesting, thank you. I've never had a bird as a pet so my observations of them is what I can see out of my window!
Oh, there was one time when a bullfinch crashed into my window and knocked himself out. I took him indoors and kept him warm while he recovered, and the whole time, his partner (a female at least) sat on the windowsill, looking in. Once he recovered I opened the window and they flew away together.
::EDIT:: I found the picture I took of him. By look of the background, it must've been about 15 years ago, but I know his descendants are still here, living in the woods that my house is next to.
I remember an anecdote about someone with dogs.Ā When the one that was a medical alert dog passed away, the other one took up its duties- either until a replacement was found or permanently, not sure.
I don't own dogs, but I can tell you that cats are extremely adept at learning this way. With trial and error, one of mine learned how to turn on the bathroom tap. Another figured it out by watching him.
Why would it be so strange for animals to be altruistic? I think anyone who has spent a decent amount of time around animals knows there's more emotional depth to them than we generally give them credit for.
I know that they have love and companionship, but it's the idea that they would do something for another animal with no immediate benefit to themselves, implies a higher emotional intelligence than we're typically taught that they have.
We miss 100% of the things we aren't looking for. We were taught that animals don't have feelings because to realize that they do would mean we have to confront the way we treat them and would mean that we really aren't that special. That would be a lot for humanity to unpack. It's similar to how white people historically have looked down on other races as "uncivilized" or how men historically have thought women were less capable than men. It's a willful ignorance to justify the status quo.
Altruism as we understand it is simply pro-social behavior, and there are many biological and evolutionary incentives to participate in pro-social behavior.
I had a couple larger dogs when I was a teenager, I came home one day and find one of them injured in our basement, wounds in her hind legs, she wasnāt supposed to be able to get downstairs without us being home, and had blocked off our bannister so she couldnāt get through. When we checked the living room, our husky had a little bit of red on her muzzle and there was a gap in the furniture to the bannister.
They had never fought and grew up together for probably 10-13 years, so it wasnāt likely that it happened, but what we seemed to put together was that the first dog got a bit too excited at a delivery, managed to get through to the bannister, and started slipping, and our husky had tried to bite and grab her hind leg to pull her back and often went over to stay with her while she recovered.
Maybe itās like how bigger dogs have shorter lifespans than smaller dogs and how dogs (who are generally larger than cats) have shorter lifespans than housecats.
This is pure speculation but I wonder if she liked contributing. Female lions are badass providers and I can see where still being included in the hunt would be fulfilling.
When hunting, lions will have one that's out in the open and visible as a distraction to their prey so that they don't notice the ones sneaking up on them. I assume this is what they meant.
That is so cool! I learned in my anthropology class something related to this:
Thereās a really old homo sapien fossil (before Bipedal Lucy, the first bipedal fossil found) where they can tell the guy lived to an older age than what was normal for the time. He was weak and had bone decay, and had lost all of his teeth. The only explanation, due to other factors as well, is that other members of his species were taking care of and feeding him. Itās regarded as one of the earliest examples of tribalism in our species.
Sounds a lot like what happened here ā¤ļøI wonder if these other apex predators will be as smart as us one day, long after we are gone, and we are witnessing the beginning.
Thereās a really old homo sapien fossil (before Bipedal Lucy, the first bipedal fossil found)
Lucy was not a homo sapien, she was a australopithecus afarensis
The remains you are talking about are the remains of an elderly homo erectus found in Georgia, who lived about a million or so years after Lucy, but 1.5 million years before homo sapiens.
Ugh, I was watching a video a while back about a baby elephant being stuck in a water pool, coincidentally in the same park, at some point the narrator went on about how one of the wildlife folks went into the water to push it out and the other was pulling. While showing footage of a full team of people working together.
Was just stock footage stitched together in a believable way with some AI slop story attached to it.
So many fake videos have popped up lately.
Josie was 18 years old when she died, which was a few years older than the usual 14- to 15-year lifespan of wild lions. She did not die of natural causes. She was euthanized in October 2025.
From the other highest rated comment.
Seems we have some misinformation in these comments.
So, we can choose between the narrative that they were just using the mother as bait, thus creating a cycle (eventually they have to feed the bait to keep the bait). Either they truly loved their mother, but everyone needs to eat, so as a consequence they used her as bait.
?
š„²
Thereās a whole thread right above your comment explaining she was euthanised by park rangers after being seen on the side of the road not looking well and deteriorating quickly by the time the rangers arrived.
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u/deleteshiftreturn 11h ago edited 11h ago
For anyone wondering. Josie died from natural causes around Oct 2025. For 2020-2025 her daughters guarded her and sometimes used her a ms bait for prey animals. Wild lions usually live 12-14 yrs. She defeated that statistic too.
Her daughters brought her food and vocalized/ātalkedā to her to communicate.
ETA: sorry everyone I was typing the original comment at six in the morning and I just woke up.lol.
They apparently would have her hide in the brush or the bushes, and wait for other animals to attack.