The Pride has grown

It was very impressive recently to see one of the most ruthless cub killers, ‘Silver Eye‘, growling and exposing her deadly canines at this cub. She was badly attacked by the two females that look after this young cub, and since then has very often been denied any chance to get anywhere close to her. One of the lionesses (‘Machine Gun’) had cubs on the northern side of the camp, probably wanting to keep them away from the rest of the pride until a certain stage. This worked out well for that period as the cubs at least made it to at least 4-5 months, but unfortunately after only five days of introduction to the rest of the pride they were all found dead. We are not sure if ‘Silver Eye’ was responsible for any of the deaths. In one case only did the guides witness the death of a cub. It was killed by two other females, which was not really surprising as they have been witnessed killing cubs before. These two lionesses associate more with the silver-eyed female than any other lioness in the pride. The bereft mother (Machine Gun) was already seen mating by the second week of July. Currently we have one lioness with one cub estimated at three months old. Despite their age (about 16 years), the Duba Boys still continue as the proud leaders of the Tsaro Pride in their domain.

The Skimmer Pride has only been seen once in July. They were seen in the vicinity of the buffalo herd on the north-western side of the camp. This was from a distance, as the Tsaro Pride was very close to the herd and prevented the approach of the Skimmer Pride. The composition is still three lionesses as from about seven months ago. We are now beginning to be convinced that the rest of the pride has emigrated from the area completely. The three that we see are all the young females of about 4 and half years old.

These Prides & more can be viewed at: www.sunsafaris.com/duba.html

The Buffalo & Lion Interaction

At the moment the buffalo herd is still spending most of their time in our prime game drive area. It has been very surprising that they have hardly crossed into the Paradise Island area this month. Instead they have been hanging around the floodplains that we can access easily during the flood (which is very convenient for us!). As always there have been several exciting sightings involving the buffalo herd and the lion prides. During one of the sightings the guests watched as a cow had just given birth, and soon after dropping the calf, abandoned it to catch up with the rest of the herd. We think this is a tactic of avoiding the risk of falling prey to the Tsaro Pride that was nearby. The pride duly spotted the lonely calf and walked towards it, not aware of the male buffalo that was lying down within the thick bushes close by. It was very interesting to watch another evolutionary tactic in this relentless battle. As the lions caught the calf, the buffalo bull responded to the distress call and ran towards the lions, chasing them off the calf before it lost the last breath! The male then defended the calf against the lions for as long as three hours! Some commitment to a calf that was most likely not directly related to it.
The Tsaro Pride and the Duba Boys have continued to dominate both our lion viewing and lion and buffalo interaction. There has been approximately six kills witnessed in the month of May. As is usual at Duba over the last three years, we are still continuing to witness more lion and buffalo interaction than actual kills which is good to remember when visiting here. We are excited and delighted to report that ‘Junior’, the juvenile male is still alive making him the only cub in the Tsaro Pride to survive the very high mortality rates over the last three years. It has been very exciting to watch the females teaching Junior how to kill prey. There was a time when one of the adult females caught a buffalo calf, and then released it prompting the young male to get involved; it took him approximately 20 minutes to kill a calf that must have been around a week old while the females were just sitting there, not helping but just watching him. We think he still need some time to learn as very often he has been seen trying to tackle full grown buffalo, and he has been stuck between the horns a few times.
At the moment there is one other cub (from a subsequent litter) that is surviving and we’ll hold thumbs for her future. Another of the lionesses is lactating, indicating the presence of very small cubs, but we have not seen these as yet. We suspect that the cubs are hidden somewhere on the northern side of the camp/airstrip. This lioness moves between the northern side of the camp and the south where the buffalo spend most of the time, passing through the camp very often. One of the other lionesses, the well known ‘Silver Eye’, was been seen mating with one of the Duba Boys towards the end of April. Has she conceived? We are look forward to seeing her cubs about end of July.
The Skimmer Pride has been very elusive this month. When they were seen, it was while hunting buffalo in the Tsaro Pride territory – mainly in the area along Molapo Road which is the main boundary between the two prides’ territories. Interestingly, over the last two months when the Skimmer Pride has been seen, it has consisted only of three lionesses (1 adult, and 2 four-year old sub-adults). We do not know what has happened to the other part of the pride (a total of 8 missing). It is very difficult to investigate due to the water level being high and we therefore cannot cross over into Paradise Island which is their main territory. The debate has been that if they were still on Paradise Island, they would not spent 2 months not coming into the Tsaro pride territory at all, while part of their pride was continuing to do just that (especially when the buffalo herd have not crossed onto Paradise Island for a long time). So far we suspect that the pride must have separated, perhaps temporarily while the water levels are high. Also of interest was a sighting of one of the Duba Boys feeding on a buffalo kill with the females from the Skimmer Pride. Eventually the Tsaro females came towards the sighting and met the Skimmer females with outright aggression! This nearly caused another inter-pride fight but the Skimmer females retreated in time across the water into their territory.

These & more Prides can be viewed at: www.sunsafaris.com/duba.html