Why don't elephants just kill and eat all the predators in the wild? They could if they wanted to, and it would give them a lot less to worry about.
basic risk assessment
the energy it would spend to go after a predator would make them vulnerable to other predatorsbetter to just conserve that energy to repel attackers
>>5134596They aren't built for pursuit hunting and are too big to sneak up on things. The only chance it would have at being close enough to a predator to kill and eat it would be if a predator were attacking the elephant without other predators to back it up.
>>5134596All animals of the same species are in competition with eachother. Any behavioral gene that causes a single animal to put itself at risk will give its competitors an advantage over it and it will die out. That's why prey never turn the tables on a predator no matter how much they outnumber them
>>5134609Elephants seem like they'd be smart enough to hunt as a team; surrounding their target, maybe even building rudimentary traps. Frightening to consider. Thankfully they are gentle and noble of spirit.
>>5134653>That's why prey never turn the tables on a predatorWhat are you talking about? That happens all the time.
>>51345961) Predators can't fuck with them anyway.2) Other herbivores would explode in numbers and they'd have nothing to eat.
>>5134829They do that to protect themselves. No animal would fight a predator that's not chasing them to save another animal, and certainly a whole herd wouldn't gang up on predators, they run in a stampede
>>5134977>No animal would fight a predator that's not chasing them to save another animalWronghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVrLYHFN-3chttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3dCSIgwuighttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvlAwaHruvAStallions will attack predators for merely getting too close to the herd, and they're not special in this behavior. This is why herbivores can be more dangerous than carnivores because it can attack you for merely being too close regardless if it's hungry or not.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ8PRqy8vQIHumpback whales will protect even other species from orcas.>and certainly a whole herd wouldn't gang up on predatorsYou don't know what mobbing is?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovBvGelWHIk
Elephants are too big to fight off predators effectively. Much less a whole pack of them.
