The scenario doesn’t look great for the young males, as besides the high lion competition, one of the males has an injured rear left leg. The injury seems to have been picked up many months ago, yet this young male manages to keep pushing on with the help of his brother. It has been well documented that nomadic male lions are superb hunters as they do not have the support of a pride. On many occasions scavenging seems to be the solution for minimal effort and maximum reward. This method certainly seems to be the answer to countless unsuccessful hunts, due to the disability of an injured leg.
On two occasions within the last week this behaviour has been observed.
Firstly when the young coalition managed to pick up the signal of diving
vultures, they found the experienced Koppies pride feeding on a Zebra carcass.
The stronger of the males managed to push the pride away from what was now
there food, as a limping lion came in to reap the rewards.
On the second occasion, on an evening game drive, we heard the bellowing
of a helpless buffalo 300 metres away. We knew we were in luck, as earlier in
the day we had left the two young males trailing a herd of buffalo. This was
something, as a ranger or a tourist, you would always dream of witnessing, so
the race was on to get to the scene before the events unfolded. Upon arrival we
were shocked to find two hyenas trying to pull a juvenile buffalo to the
ground. The tug of war went on for several minutes until the buffalo had no
fight left to fight. Suddenly the Sizanani brothers came rushing to the scene
and chased the hyenas away, one of which nearly ran into our game viewer as he
got such a fright!
The following events unfolded in the video clip below. The hyenas where out of sight but could be heard calling for support in the background:
Jamie Harrington
Dear Tintswalo,
ReplyDeleteCould you please tell us more about Sizanani Coalition?
Does one of them have a limp? Thanks
These are the Nkuhuma brothers and they have a fan facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nkuhuma-Male-Lions/262446197140721
ReplyDeleteThere you can learn all about them. They seem to have moved north to get away from the Selati Coalition that took over the Mapogo territority. They used to be seen on the waterhole live cameras at Nkorho and Djuma Game Reserves. I am glad to see them still doing well. The limping male, by the way, was injured as a cub.
Thanks a lot for sharing the information. It's always nice to piece together the history of these wonderful cats!
DeleteWe currently have 5 cubs from another pride in the core of their territory. We have not seen them with the cubs yet but do think that it might be theirs. We heard them roaring again last night which is an indication that their confidence is high in this area.
We will definitely be keeping a close eye on these males and provide updates as we go along.
When did you see these 2 new Males first time?
ReplyDeleteHow old are 5 cubs now?
Matimbas were 6. Now you say they are 5.
Do you know what happened with one Matimba? Thanks in advance
Referring to our post 3 June 2012 18:17 an error was made. The 5 cubs mentioned were fathered by the Matimba coalition. These cubs were initially 7 about 6-7 months ago. Three Matimbas males were seen mating with them over a period of 3 months. Nduna spent approximation 6-8 weeks mating with one of the females.
ReplyDelete