/an/ — Why don't elephants just kill and eat all the predators in t

basic risk assessment

the energy it would spend to go after a predator would make them vulnerable to other predators
better to just conserve that energy to repel attackers

>>5134596 (OP)
They 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.

>>5134596 (OP)
All 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

>>5134609
Elephants 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 predator
What are you talking about? That happens all the time.

>>5134596 (OP)
1) Predators can't fuck with them anyway.

2) Other herbivores would explode in numbers and they'd have nothing to eat.

>>5134829
They 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