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Wildlife biologist Paula White noticed something odd about her teeth while examining lion skulls to estimate the animals’ ages. Rather than simply showing the normal, gradual wear that occurs over time, some large cats have a sharp, V-shaped notch on the trailing edge of their canines.

It turns out that the strange markings are caused by traps, which are circular wire traps that are tightened like a noose around the neck or paw of an animal. Traps are typically a death trap, but Dr. The lions whose skulls White was examining managed to escape by pulling the wire with their teeth.

A researcher affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, Dr. Putting it together “was a real a-ha moment,” White said. “It was a little creepy, but also fascinating.”

Also at UCLA, vertebrate paleobiologist Dr. White and her colleague Blaire Van Valkenburgh realized they had stumbled upon a valuable dataset. Frequency of non-fatal, human-induced injuries to large carnivores.

Their findings, published Thursday, Journal Frontiers in Conservation Sciencewas worse than expected. There was evidence that more than a third of the lions and more than a fifth of the leopards they studied had been trapped at some point in their lives. More than a quarter of the lions also had lead shotgun pellets embedded in their skulls, suggesting previous encounters with poachers or other humans.

Dr. “If we want these big cats to thrive, we need better data, particularly on the nature and magnitude of threats from humans,” said Van Valkenburgh. “We can obtain this data by documenting the history of insults recorded on his bones and teeth.”

African lions are in rapid decline. Between 1993 and 2014, population numbers decreased by 43 percent. 23,000 wild individuals remaining today. Less extensive evidence suggests that the leopard numbers are falling additionally.

Habitat loss is the primary threat to lions and leopards, but humans also pose a significant danger to big cats through poaching. although it is illegal international lion trade and other felines on the rise, for now, some of the big cats are being killed in retaliation for farm animal predation. Others are killed by traps set up for animals such as gazelles and antelopes that are part of the bushmeat trade. The traps harm the survival of the big cats by taking out the prey they depend on for food and incidentally catching and killing predators.

However, it is difficult to determine the exact extent of the impact of pincers and conflict with humans. Animals are often killed in remote locations and cases go unreported. Dr. “Often times animals disappear and you don’t know what happened to them,” White said. If wildlife officials manage to collect any data, it’s often more about deaths than injuries.

The researchers aren’t sure how the injuries they’ve documented affect lions and leopards, but they suspect it must be significant.

Dr. “You’re looking at an animal that relies on its ability to hunt and take down large prey, which is not an easy way to make a living,” White added. “Any kind of physical injury will make his life more difficult.”

The new research – possibly the first to systematically document such injuries – came about by accident. Dr. White was initially working with the Zambian government on a project that photographed the skulls and skins of adult male lions and leopards legally hunted as booty in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley and Greater Kafue Ecosystem.

The archived photos were the starting point for the new work. Dr. White and Dr. Examining the Van Valkenburgh skulls, they found that 37 percent of the 112 lions and 22 percent of the 45 leopards had evidence that they had been trapped at some point in their lives. And 27 percent of the lions had been shot in the face by shotgun bullets.

The results were almost certainly underestimated. For trap calculations, the researchers considered only animals with both tooth wear and corresponding scars on their skin, not animals with tooth erosion. For the shotgun estimates, they were only able to examine images of the skulls, not the entire skeletons of the animals. Dr. As White puts it, “Our reported numbers are conservatively low although high.”

While the findings cannot be directly predicted for other lion and leopard habitats, Dr. Van Valkenburgh noted that the approach “could be easily replicated in countries without deep pockets or access to advanced technology.”

Joel Berger, a biologist at Colorado State University and the Wildlife Conservation Society, who was not involved in the study, agreed that the new method has “really broad value.”

“This is a remarkable paper that uses an inventive diagnostic approach,” he said.

Dr. Berger added that human-caused carnivore deaths are a major problem worldwide, but few studies have shed light on the issue at the local level. However, such fine-scale information is needed if wildlife managers are to do more than just make blind guesses about how best to help carnivores survive.

According to Amy Dickman, a conservation biologist at Oxford University, Dr. White and Dr. Van Valkenburgh’s “valuable and alarming” findings “show that entrapment and conflict may be far more intense threats than previously anticipated.”

Dr. Dickman emphasizes that this should be prioritized to find solutions to these problems. For example, he said, people would be less likely to trap animals if they had access to adequate food, and would be less likely to retaliate against predators if they were given education and support to better protect themselves and their animals. Dr. Dickman said involving people directly in conservation and ensuring that they get tangible benefits from living with wildlife is also part of the solution.

But conservation is complex, and even in the best of circumstances wildlife can still face pressure from humans. For example, the landscapes in Zambia, where the study was conducted, are considered conservation strongholds with strong anti-poaching and community engagement programs. Dr. The fact that trapping and human-wildlife conflict are so high even in these places is a sobering revelation, White said.

It’s hard to say “increase the effort” because obviously there’s a lot of effort already involved,” he said. “But if it doesn’t work, you should reconsider.”