The six Lemuny pride cubs are now five months old and are no longer the fur- balls they used to be. They still play furiously but now you can clearly see them play-acting hunting skills. I’ve posted clips of them practicing neck bites, but earlier this week we saw a new level of role playing.
At dawn, we came across Naramat, Nempiris and the six cubs on the plains just behind the camp and a couple of hundred metres away from it. They had hunted and eaten well overnight, and we could see a few faces still bloodied. As the sun rose in the sky, Naramat decided to take her brood into the bushes to sleep for the day. As she started walking towards the ridge, we witnessed an unfolding drama.
One of the cubs decided to be a bit adventurous and started running towards a herd of wildebeest about a hundred metres away. The big antelope weren’t sure of how seriously to take this pocket-lion and didn’t move much. Undaunted, the cub kept feinting at them- running towards them and then back. It not only made no attempt at hiding itself but also kept calling out just in case it hadn’t been seen by the potential prey. We watched a bit perplexed and then as we looked around us, the pieces fell together. Two other cubs were moving in from the left, silently and unnoticed by the herbivores. At 1:30 you can see a cub with bloodied face- clearly different from the first one walking. In the background you see a third cub in the distance. The penny dropped; we were watching nothing so much as a deadly version of soccer. While the centre-forward drew all the attention to itself, two left wingers were gliding down the left flank, unnoticed and ready to go for the target. As it turned out, the cubs were just practising the life-skill of co-operative hunting.
As the clip ends you can see the wildebeest have already left the frame, but a large herd of Thomson’s gazelle is running to the left as a cub moves closer. Had these been full, rather than pint-sized lions, there certainly would have been a successful denouement.