Isla Camille Duporge

HOME
ABOUT
PUBLICATIONS
CONTACT

© Isla Duporge 2025

During April-August 2025, I carried out an experimental study involving ten focal captive lions at Lion Country Safari in West Palm Beach, Florida. The experiment used simulated prey in the form of mechanized lures that I mechanically towed along a variety of trajectories designed to mimic natural prey escape paths. As the lions chased the "prey" their pursuit behaviors were recorded using a UAV. These behavior trials elicited naturalistic hunting responses of both male and female lions, producing a rich dataset of over sixty high-resolution UAV videos. This dataset is currently being analyzed using pose estimation software to gain novel insight into the geometric principles and physical laws that govern lion attack behavior Example Trial. Our fieldwork in Florida received notable attention from local press and broadcasters. CBS-12, Sun Sentinel, Florida Weekly, Palm Beach Post,. A peer-reviewed article documenting the findings is forthcoming. The image shown above was shot by Alex Frias, the invaluable fieldwork assistant with whom I worked on this project.