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Footage by Jacques Briam, Wild About the Wild: WildAboutThe...
We've said it before and we'll say it again; it's a tough life for lions in the wild, even if they are the kings of the jungle. Even when the small and vulnerable cubs have grown into mighty lions, they are faced with having to fight for their food, and for their territory. Right from the start, lions, just like all the other members of the wild, have to fight to survive.
Yesterday, guests at Africa on Foot bore witness to this concept when the two Ross Breakaway lionesses + cubs endured a stand off with a couple of buffalo. At just over a month old, these two cubs are still very small and they are carried from place to place by their mother. When we saw one of the little fur balls run, panicked, out of its hiding place, we realised just how tiny they are. Watch the video and see one cub narrowly escape from an angry buffalo by running into the open in front of the game viewer.
Both lionesses and the cubs stood their ground as the buffaloes looked uneasily at them from only a few metres away. In the clip, it is clear that the lions are not comfortable and are deciding whether or not it is necessary to move out of the buffalo's way. The moment arrives when the buffalo moves menacingly closer: both lionesses turn and move away, but in the panic, one cub tries to take cover in a bush even closer to the buffalo. In a jaw-clenching moment, the buffalo takes charge and bulldozes its full weight right into the bush where the cub is hiding.
Instincts kick in and the tiny cub jumps out of hiding and into the sand, scrambling to get away from the enemy. As fast as its legs can move, the cub keeps running to escape, briefly stopping to look around for his mother. Luckily, the buffalo didn't pursue the cub and it managed to take cover in another bush where it stayed hidden by itself. The lionesses and the other cub had moved off and we left the sighting not knowing if they returned to fetch the hiding cub.
Then, this morning, nThambo Tree Camp guests were woken to the sounds of lions calling around the camp. After jumping in the vehicle and driving just onto the nThambo access road they found one of the Ross Breakaway females lying down and calling loudly to her sister. Guests watched her and listened to the intense calls until she got up and moved in the direction of the responding lioness who was near the open area in front of the lodge.
When she got there, something unexpected happened. We didn't find the sister lioness she was calling to, but we watched as one little lion cub made a break from its hiding place in a bush and started making its way across the open area towards the lioness. The cub called a few times and paused before turning around and heading back to its hiding place. Maybe it realised the lioness wasn't its mother and returned to safety? Mother lioness was somewhere close by, hopefully with the second cub, and was going to reunite with the lone cub soon, but that is all speculation, and at the moment we don't know the status of this little lion family.