In an Analysis of Hunting by African Lions, Biologists Filmed

Essay

In an analysis of hunting by African lions, biologists filmed prey captures from thesafety of their vehicles. The capture of prey was divided into a sequence of events forstudy, one of which is the stalk, defined as the reduction of predator-prey distance forprey that has been specifically located and the prey is unaware of or minimallyalarmed by the predator. The investigators identified two types of stalk: (a)"crouching," -- the lion is concealed and either the lion advances toward the prey orthe prey advances (unaware) toward the lion, and (b)"running," -- the lion is lessconcealed and advances toward the prey in a rapid manner.Data on lions' stalks of Thomson's and Grant's gazelles from a random sample of 151kills is summarized in the table below. Researchers believe that the proportion of stalks that are the crouching type is about 0.87. Do the data above provide evidence that the researchers' belief is incorrect andthat the proportion of crouching stalks of Thomson's and Grant's gazelles is differentfrom 0.87?