![]() ![]() John Lund, of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said that he had never documented surplus killings that extreme from grey wolves. In March 2016, a pack of 9 grey wolves in Wyoming was found to have killed 19 elk. In late autumn, least weasels often surplus-kill vole and then dig them up and eat them on winter days when it is too cold to hunt. ![]() Up to 19 spotted hyenas once killed 82 Thomson's gazelle and badly injured 27, eating just 16%. Similarly, two caracal in Cape Province killed 22 sheep in one night, eating only part of the buttock of one carcass. One leopard in Cape Province, South Africa killed 51 sheep and lambs in a single incident. In mainland Australia, a single fox once killed around 74 penguins over several days, eating almost nothing. In Tasmania, in a single dog attack, 58 little penguins were killed. Some of the other animals which have been observed engaging in surplus killing include orcas, zooplankton, humans, damselfly naiads, predaceous mites, martens, weasels, honey badgers, jaguar, leopards, lions, wolves, spiders, brown bears, American black bears, polar bears, coyotes, lynxes, minks, raccoons and dogs. The term was invented by Dutch biologist Hans Kruuk after studying spotted hyenas in Africa and red foxes in England. Surplus killing, also known as excessive killing, henhouse syndrome, or overkill, is a common behavior exhibited by predators, in which they kill more prey than they can immediately eat and then they either cache or abandon the remainder. Animal and human predatory behavior A stoat surplus killing chipmunks ( Ernest Thompson Seton, 1909) Multiple sheep killed by a cougar ![]()
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