The Southern Male lions continue to hunt buffalo successfully, while the Ximungwe cubs are still alive as they have been doing well at avoiding the new Southern Male coalition. Lets hope they can make it!
Paddy and the Savanna Team sent this update:
“The Southern males have been demonstrating a remarkable talent for hunting buffalo, with the four big males bringing down an adult bull in less than five minutes earlier in the month. Unfortunately, they brought it down in some thick vegetation, limiting viewing at the carcass, but providing fantastic viewing in the Sand River when they rested or came down for a drink.
They have been keeping to their habits of moving constantly, covering all corners of their new territory from the northern boundary to the grasslands near Savanna, looking for the female prides. Although most of the Ximungwe pride moved east off our concession for much of the first two weeks, the one female without cubs remained in the centre of our area and finally met up with the new coalition. One of the males was seen mating with her, showing that they are starting to accept that the new coalition is here to stay.
The rest of the Ximungwe pride finally returned to the west later in the week, but still showed signs of avoiding the coalition, as all four cubs are still alive. They are looking very good, with the cubs growing quickly!
The Ottawa pride have also been moving quite a bit since losing their cubs and have been on our concession quite a lot. On one occasion, we had a fantastic sighting of the three females as they moved east past Shidulu Dam and came across a rhino cow and her calf. Neither of the two species seemed to be perturbed by the presence of the other, but rather appeared to be only slightly interested in each other! Initially, the lions crept closer to the rhino, after which the rhino then followed the lions as they moved off and at one stage was in between the lions! The calf at one point got too close to one lioness, forcing her to trot off at a quicker pace… Eventually they split and went about their business of finding food.”
Copyright © Photographs taken by Paddy Hagelthorn, Neil Whyte, David Wilson and Greg Coates
