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Lions of Sabi Sands - Printable Version

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RE: Lions of sabi sands - vinodkumarn - 04-18-2017

(04-18-2017, 07:52 AM)sik94 Wrote: fathered by which coalition?

Majis most likely.. Matimbas as well mated in the beginning.. But its most likely Majis

RE: Lions of sabi sands - sik94 - 04-18-2017

(04-18-2017, 08:26 AM)vinodkumarn Wrote:
(04-18-2017, 07:52 AM)sik94 Wrote: fathered by which coalition?

Majis most likely.. Matimbas as well mated in the beginning.. But its most likely Majis

I think we will be able to tell once they get around 3-4 years old. Majingalane and Matimba offspring usually have distinct features. They are around 11 months right now, right? 
Tough times for these guys ahead, I don't see the Majingalane having territory a year from now. Might end up being kicked out early by another coalition if the Majingalane lose their territory.

RE: Lions of sabi sands - Fredymrt - 04-20-2017

Future kings

Photos Credit: brucearnott

Tsalala\Marthly boys

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Three male lions walk their way through dying grasses and wild fox glove in the early hours of an overcast day.
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from 2012 4 Majingis on chitwa chitwa

RE: Lions of sabi sands - Sideliner - 04-22-2017


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This morning, after a long tracking session, the Southern Pride were finally located and looking for their next meal. They were lucky enough to find a waterbuck, however, they were unsuccessful in their hunt with the waterbuck sprinting away into the distance.

RE: Lions of sabi sands - vinodkumarn - 04-22-2017

The Mangheni pride
Credits: Rob the Ranger


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RE: Lions of sabi sands - sik94 - 04-22-2017

(04-11-2017, 09:35 AM)Gamiz Wrote: Hilda's Rock Male with the two Young Charleston males.

By Rashida Suliman‎

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According to the Charleston lion pride facebook page, the lioness apparently was killed in the kruger. The two younger males look a bit too young to be independent yet, I guess the Hilda's rock young male will have to take care of them until they reach 3-4 years old. It will be a remarkable achievement if he pulls this off. Should be an interesting story to follow providing they come back to the sabi sands.

RE: Lions of sabi sands - vinodkumarn - 04-23-2017

Londolozi Blog posted April 21st, 2017: 
One of the TSALALA Breakaway Pride young males walks past the vehicle. These lions have been focusing around one particular rocky outcrop on Londolozi, where we believe the tailless lioness is denning. Normally males of this age will be forced out of the pride by their fathers but because there is no male permanently with this pride they have not yet dispersed.

Photograph by Callum Gowar.


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RE: Lions of sabi sands - vinodkumarn - 04-23-2017

Londolozi Blog posted April 21st, 2017: 

Three of the TSALALA Pride youngsters rest together in a huddle. This pride has been focusing their movements around the Londolozi camps recently, meaning we have been seeing a lot of them in the last week.


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RE: Lions of sabi sands - vinodkumarn - 04-25-2017

Othawa female and her youngsters relaxing in the sand.
Credits: Lepord hills private game reserve


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RE: Lions of sabi sands - Fredymrt - 04-25-2017

THE RETURN OF THE 7TH CUB…

Southern/Selati pride

BY: CALVIN KOTZE   (BUSH LODGE RANGER) May 18, 2012

We made our way closer to the lions only to find them scattered across an open area. The excitement was high, and the smiles on my guest’s faces said it all… I sat quietly for quite some time giving my guests a chance to appreciate what we were seeing, as the warmth of the morning sun heated our bodies, I started to tell my guests a little bit about this pride and pointed out to them that the one cub had been missing for quite some time. We all counted them together and noticed that one cub was quite a distance away from the rest of them but thought nothing of it. We spent the next 30 minutes watching various behavior, yawning, grooming and social bonding through touch as all the females gathered into a closer nit group around the cubs.


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I noticed that the 7th cub had stood up and started walking towards the pride.

Immediately I saw that something was wrong, this young male was not in a good condition and the way he was walking clearly indicated that he was not himself. His eyes told a cold story and looking into them made me fear the worst, for some reason he had a very sad energy coming from him and it was felt by all that were there.


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Southern pride lion cub

With his head held low and his eyes drooping he slowly limped towards the pride, he veered off and went and sat behind our vehicle keeping his distance from the pride, I found this very strange as lions are sociable cats and form very tight bonds, but yet none of them seemed to care about this young cub. We sat discussing what could potentially be wrong with him, we had gone from complete excitement and happiness to sadness in a matter of minutes and one could not help but to feel sorry for this young male cub. No one could have expected what was about to happen next… With sadness still in our hearts, fearing this young lion would not make it much longer, he stood up and started approaching the pride again, crouched and head still lowered he walked behind a bush which separated him from the pride, inside I could feel all he wanted was the love and affection of his family again, it was almost as if he just needed that and everything would have been fine, but he had taken one step too close.

The female that was sleeping closest to him snarled and immediately stood up only to cause a chain reaction as the whole pride stood up and started snarling intensely. The two closest females to him growled loudly and started charging at him through the bush that separated them from him. There was pure anger and all the signs of a real charge were present.


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I knew this was not going to end well as the two females proceeded to attack this cub.

The cries of distress hollowed from the young lions mouth but they were drowned by the anger that was being heard from the rest of the pride as they attacked him
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Trying to get away, he stumbled and left only to find himself surrounded by the pride who also started to attack him.



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The sounds were spine chilling and the anger and power of these cats were felt by everyone, some guests couldn’t watch as they thought that this cub was about to die.


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It felt so inhumane – this is one of their own cubs – why are they doing this? He just wants love? Questions were rushing though my mind, as I watched this pride of lions continuously attack their own son. Speechless and emotional I watched the pride walk away leaving this little cub lying there, the extent of his injures unknown, also unknown was if he was alive or not. After a few minutes the cub struggled to stand up and injured much worse than before, made his way to a shady tree a few meters away. I now knew why he limped towards the pride and kept his distance at first and I couldn’t help but think of what this poor cub must have been through in the last 24 hours, not only physically but emotionally too. The pride walked a few hundred meters away and stopped to look back as if to make sure he is not following them, it was a cold, distant look, like they never cared.

Lions at sabi sabi

I turned to look into his eyes one more time before leaving and I could now see the story that they told, it was a story of pain and suffering, a story of determination and heartache, a story of fear and loneliness but most of all it was a story of a broken bond.

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Southern Pride lion cub at Sabi Sabi


Credits: kyle de Nobrega

The last stand

The kruger Males and Southern/Selati pride

"An unfortunate set of events for this young male cub lasted over a month until his last stand against these 2 Kruger males. The cub had been rejected from the southern pride and trailed them like a shadow for over a month. It had managed to scavenge some of the remains from the kills that the southern pride had made. On this particular morning, sick and injured, it limped its way towards the pride which lay about 200m from these 2 male lions. The cub called in agony, hoping for some sort of acceptance and response from the pride. Its vain attempt at acceptance caught the attention of these 2 male lions, which inevitably caused its death.


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The cub was met with extreme hostility

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The cub, clearly standing no chance against the male, 

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Immediate engagement from the male
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The second male shows interest, but plays hardly any part in the event
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Intense powerHe holds his grip , finally ending the suffering the cub endured.
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He carrries the lifeless body off into a thicket.

This was one of the most intense things I have ever seen in the bush. This event, filled with mixed emotions was just a raw insight as to what happens in the life of lions, so I consider myself lucky to have witnessed this, however it was hard to watch as the cub stood no chance in his last few moments spent against some of the most powerful beasts on earth. The cub , if it had made it to adulthood, would of inevitably himself been a culprit in such an event."

RE: Lions of sabi sands - Gamiz - 04-26-2017

Tsalala male Solo and Hilda's Rock Male-Lion Sands Reserve- April 24,2017
Credits to Yun Hai

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RE: Lions of sabi sands - Gamiz - 05-01-2017

Avoca male lion - Sabi Sabi Reserve - April 27,2017

The two Avoca males are still on the reserve after having been here a few days already. This morning we found them on what remained of a Kudu Bull kill they had made
Photo by:Kyle Strautmann

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RE: Lions of sabi sands - Fredymrt - 05-02-2017

The Epic Story of the Tailless Lioness: Then and Now
by Amy Attenborough on May 1, 2017

At 15 years old, the Tailless lioness has given birth to what we can only assume is her last litter of cubs. In a rather beautiful turn of events she has chosen to den them in the exact place her mother (who also lost her tail) gave birth to her 15 years ago. The very place the epic saga of the Tsalala Pride began. The story of these two lionesses is a truly remarkable one and the parallels in their lives go beyond the mere stumpiness of their rears. Today I’d like to recount how these legends have impacted the lion dynamics of the Sabi Sands and how despite all odds they started two formidable prides, alone. But in order to do this, we must go back to the beginning.


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The original Tailless lioness who was born in 1998. This image was taken before her encounter with the hyenas that left her tailless.

Let’s first discuss the original Tailless lioness. She was born in 1998 and had a difficult life as a youngster. In fact at just the age of four her mother died, leaving her as the only member of her pride. Shortly after this she gave birth to her first litter of two cubs around a rocky outcrop called Ximpalapala Koppie and miraculously raised them to independence. Lions are the only truly social cats in the world and rely on support from other pride members to successfully raise their young. This particular lioness began her adult life alone though and the success of this first litter should have served as a sign for what she would be capable of.


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Ximpalapala Koppies: The rocky outcrop that has housed many generations of the Tsalala Pride’s cubs.


Jump forward a few years to 2005 and by this point, the ‘Tailless’ lioness (who still had her tail at the time) was with her now-bigger pride (made up of her original two cubs and a younger litter of four). She had killed a zebra and all seven lions were feeding on the carcass. The commotion and noise caused by the pride feeding drew the attention of a clan of hyenas who came into the area to steal the kill. By the time rangers arrived, a fight had ensued between the lions and hyenas and the older lioness had been very severely mauled. A hyena had managed to bite her tail and remove a large chunk from the base of it. What progressed over the next few days shocked everyone as this lioness actually chewed away her own tail to curb the infection, a desperate last resort for survival. For many weeks she could hardly move and was unable to hunt. As a result she lost two of her cubs to starvation. What she gained though was an enormous amount of respect from those who witnessed her fight for her life. She had proven the extremity of her strength and resilience.


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The Tailless female after the encounter with the hyena. Subsequent to this she actually bit her own tail of

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The Tailless female after removing her own tail. At this point the wound had begun to heal and she could move about and hunt again.

Then in 2010, the Tailless lioness would show her resilience and character yet again. At the time the Majingilane coalition arrived on Londolozi, the Tsalala pride numbered 11. Fathered by the Mapogo males, the youngsters were not Majingilane blood and in the typical spirit of a lion takeover, the Majingilane males killed four of the Tsalala cubs in the space of a few months. This left the Tsalala Pride in a precarious position. The pride had to make a decision. What transpired was that two of the adult lionesses in the Tsalala Pride (Tailless lioness’ daughters) left their natal pride, choosing to move off and mate with the newly-dominant Majingilane coalition. The Tailless lioness could have done the same. It most certainly would have been the easier decision to make to abandon the cubs and begin again with the new coalition but she did the opposite. She gathered the remaining cubs, headed into the north west of the Sabi Sands and subsequently raised them on her own. In almost the same way that her adult life had begun, she was once again raising cubs as a solo female. The subsequent pride that she saved was the beginnings of what we all now call the Mhangeni Pride. This pride is now the largest in the Sabi Sands and has even had to split recentlydue to its size. It is amazing to think how different the lion population would look had this female not gone out on a limb to save these cubs.


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The arrival of the Majingilane coalition was a very difficult time for the Tsalala Pride. These new males chased and killed four of the Tsalala Pride cubs in their first few months on Londolozi, forcing the Tailless female to leave her natal pride in order to save the remainder of the cubs.

Although the cubs were all a similar age and we can’t be sure, we believe that the cubs that she saved were actually her daughter’s and not her own. Essentially they were carrying her genes but it is incredible that she would risk her life to raise these youngsters, proving the strength of their social nature and the power of pride relations. Although we can never know her reasoning and although we try not to attribute human emotion to it, it seems she willingly made this sacrifice for the greater good and future survival of a pride she had fought so hard to begin.


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The original Tailless female with the sub-adults, photographed during the arrival of the Majingilane on Londolozi. Photograph by Adam Bannister

In 2011, the similarities between the two lionesses I speak of really began to get bizarre. One night the Tsalala Pride caught and killed a zebra beyond the southern boundary of their territory. During the night hyenas stole their carcass and when rangers found the pride the following morning, the adult lioness (Tailless lioness’ very own daughter) had had her tail bitten clean off by what we can only assume was a hyena. Within the space of a few short years, both mother and daughter had met the same fate in some eerily similar circumstances. The Tsalala Pride was in huge danger at this point because of her injury but just when rangers thought the newly injured lioness would die, the original Tailless re-joined her natal pride and helped them to kill a buffalo after ten days of not eating. After she had fed with them she returned to the Breakway Pride. Once again the Tailless lioness had come to the rescue.


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The more recent Tailless female after losing her tail in the same set of strange circumstances as her mother. Photograph by Adam Bannister


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The obviously recognizable Tailless lioness, photographed in profile as she crosses the Sand River.

This lack of a tail wouldn’t be the last similarity though. The way in which the original Tailless lioness chose to save cubs that weren’t her own by taking them to an area away from new dominant males looking to kill them was to be replicated by her daughter, the current Tailless lioness

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The current Tailless lioness looking in the direction of her pride’s newest threat, the Matimba males.

Back in 2015 the Matimba males arrived at Londolozi. They were not the fathers of the Tsalala Pride cubs (these youngsters had been fathered by the Majingilane) and therefore posed a significant threat to their survival. At the time the pride had three adult lionesses (Tailless, her sister and her daughter) and four sub-adult cubs (three males and one female). What followed was the current Tailless lioness taking the four sub-adults, of which she was the aunt and moving them to safety, to raise them alone. The two remaining females mated with the new Matimba males and have subsequently sired five youngsters from this coalition. The Tailless lioness and four cubs have formed what we call the Tsalala Breakaway Pride and have been on the move/ run throughout the Sabi Sands until now. Remember that not only is this lioness now responsible for hunting for these youngsters and trying to teach them to hunt, she is also having to traverse areas that are not actually within her territory. This means that she is having to dodge other lionesses and coalitions of males that would not appreciate the presence of this breakaway pride. This feat is a remarkable one and at the moment, all youngsters are fit and well.


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The arrival of the Matimba males on Londolozi. These two males shook lion dynamics up once again, causing the current Tailless lioness to take the four sub-adults and disappear from Londolozi for over a year.


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The Tailless lioness heading east with the youngsters. This lioness has traversed most of the Sabi Sands in the last year or so, dodging other territorial prides and coalitions of males in order to keep these cubs safe.

To raise young as a lone lioness is a strange occurrence and one can’t help but wonder if this lioness observed and learnt this behaviour from her mother. She certainly learnt some of her mother’s rather unusual hunting techniques. "Both these lionesses are renowned for leading their prides on hunts during the hottest part of the day. This is most likely a carry over from when the pride was small and to hunt during the day meant they would have more chance to feed before hyenas got active in the evening. Prey species may also be less aware during the day or may concentrate around water holes and shade, making them easier to locate. It’s shown us that there is so much more to lion dynamics than we realise, that pride behaviour differs from area to area and that their social systems and decision making are incredibly complex. Maybe it’s also shown us that there are even more loving elements to a pride than the mere instinct of gene continuation we’ve attributed to them in the past."


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A portion of the Tsalala Pride catching and killing a buffalo. This pride is renowned for hunting during the heat of the day when most lions choose to rest.


A few days ago I watched this old lioness, with her easily recognisable stumpy tail, climb up to a rocky section of Ximpalapala Koppies. Two of her month-old cubs bounded out to meet her and she settled down to let them suckle from her in the grass. At the base of the Koppie lay the four sub-adults she was responsible for saving. It struck me that 15 years ago another ranger could have been witnessing this identical scene. A tailless lioness, nestled amongst the same rocky outcrop, beginning a pride with just two tiny cubs. She could never have known at the time the legacy she was creating and what resilience she would teach both her daughters and all of us lucky enough to watch their stories unfold over the years. In the moment it struck me that we’ve now seen the Tsalala Pride come full circle in a crazy sort of symmetry. Two lives sharing scarily similar parallels, one ending where the other began. These lions have certainly left their mark and we can only hope that their bloodline is carried forward in the Sabi Sands for many more years to come.


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The current Tsalala Pride crossing the Sand River with their five cubs. This pride carries the genes of these two legendary lionesses and we will have to see what the future holds for them.

RE: Lions of sabi sands - Spalea - 05-02-2017

@Fredymrt :

About #568: What an incredible and amazing story ! Lionesses are like the woman, we are speaking about lions ant their facts of fights (and some would say warfare), but silently and discretly the mother lionesses can have some unbelievably resilient, courageous and heroic behaviours, against the adversity (hyenas...), in order to save their offsprings.

Of course, the same events occurency of these two stories of 15 years apart is incredible too. We could (easily) believe there exists an "heroism gene" that is transmissible from a generation to the following ones. But by saying that may be I'm anthropomorphic, I don't know, but, perhaps too, the harshness side of life implies this kind of behaviour in order the species could survive.

Big cats are clearly surprising animals...

RE: Lions of sabi sands - Gamiz - 05-15-2017

Charleston male-Kirkmans Kamp-Uploaded,May 13,2017

A young male lion glares at vultures gathering around the entrails of the giraffe carcass.This male and his brother were the second coalition of lions to feed on the carcass,after the dominant males had moved off...!!!
Photo by:Josh van der Ploeg

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