More Man-Eating Lions

One of the books we are reading together in the unit about the African Savannah is "Born Free: A Lioness Of Two Worlds" by Joy Adamson. Today's chapter happens to be on man-eating lions. Not the same lions we witnessed in the Field Museum, but still a threat to man.

The author offers an explanation to my question from before:

"Most lions take to man-eating because they have some infirmity: either they have been wounded by an arrowhead or damaged in a trap, or their teeth are in bad condition, or they have porcupine quills in their paws, or they are very old and in this state turn to less agile forms of food than is natural to them. But there are exceptions, cases where one can only guess at the whim of nature which has induced them to hunt human flesh. Has this taste been aroused by the carelessness of the tribesmen who often sleep at night outside the thorn fence which protects their livestock? If a hungry lion who was considering the painful act of breaking through the fence to kill an animal inside were to find a dinner asleep outside, he would be tempted indeed; could he be blamed for taking the easier course? Such a happening might well become a habit and give birth to another man-eater. Naturally his cubs would learn his way of hunting, and so the trait might be carried on by teaching rather than by hereditary instinct."

Frightening but fascinating!