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Plains Camp Males
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 (05-18-2024, 04:01 AM)Mapokser Wrote: If the 3 female subs avoid the PCM and survives the takeover, there will also be them to mate with the PCM eventually. Man, the Manghenis just recently got some stability, and look how quickly they began to rebuild, now this. I hope they can take care of the cubs better than previous attempts. This is awful, for everyone involved. Ximungwes and the Manghenis just are not in a position to be able to continue to lose cubs. You meant that the Nkuhuma subs would become the new Nkuhuma Breakaways, and not the Xims, right? 
@BA0701 No, I meant that the Ximhungwe will be the new NK Breakaways in the sense they'll be another small pride ( 2 adults and 2 cubs ) that the PCM stops visiting after they take over a bigger pride.
PCM borderline stopped visiting the NK Breakaways after they took over the Mangheni pride. Luckily for the NK Breakaways though is that they were still in the core of the PCM territory so they didn't lose any members to other males, but in compensation lost the 2 adults to the Manghenis. However the Ximhungwe are at a great risk of losing all their protection since in this case the PCM would be moving to another territory far away from the Ximhungwe. In the Mangheni case the Manghenis's historical territory was already in the PCM core territory so the PCM didn't shift their territory to take over them. Another reason I think contributed for the PCM stopping visiting the NK Breakaways was Purple Eye's death. With only 1 adult lioness available the PCM were probably less motivated to visit, it's not like Ridge Nose could offer them much food. Solo females are rarely visited by their dominant males. In the case of the Manghenis, it may be the case that the PCM are already not visiting them often anymore, in the past 2 months or so we only had 1 sighting of them together ( a few days ago ), it could be that it's because we don't get much sightings of Singita, but the sightings we had of them were never together, either we saw Manghenis by themselves or the PCM by themselves. Another member pointed out that this might also be because the cubs are over 1yo ( age the NK Breakaways were when the PCM stopped visiting ), the older Mangheni cubs are a few months over 1yo now and the youngest cub turns 1 next month. 2/5 Mangheni females are very old, let's not forget, they'll probably not live for much longer, with the cubs getting older and if 2 females die, the PCM will have even less motivation to visit, less food and in their eyes cubs that are already too big to need much attention. We saw, however, what happens when dominant males abandon their cubs too early, the Styx pride was decimated and probably only still exists ( as well as the 2 Southern daughters of Ndhzengas ) because the Gijimas are surprisingly tolerant of female subadults. We can also look at the Talamatis, S8 died and very quickly his subs followed him, currently I think only the male sub is accounted for... If we go back a little longer, Majingilanes died and 10/12 Mangheni subs died with them. If the PCM abandons any of their 2 prides before the cubs are at least 3yo, things might not end well for them, especially if they get abandoned before they are even 2y, and the oldest Mangheni cubs need 9 more months till they turn 2yo, Ximhungwe and youngest Mangheni cub need around a year. (05-18-2024, 05:41 AM)Mapokser Wrote: @BA0701 No, I meant that the Ximhungwe will be the new NK Breakaways in the sense they'll be another small pride ( 2 adults and 2 cubs ) that the PCM stops visiting after they take over a bigger pride. Ah, OK, I totally see what you mean now. This entire situation really sucks, in every way possible. Problem is, even if they stick with the Nkuhumas, it's not like they have a ton of females old enough to appease them for any length of time. As soon as they impregnate those females, they'll be off searching for more, again. 
We shall see what happens. There are multiple reasons for male lions to prefer to hang out with one pride over the other, or for one pride to seek out or avoid males.
The reason why we never see the PCmales that much with ridgenose may be becouse the pride was down to just one lioness feeding multiple still inexperienced but hungry subs. So it could just as well have been the pride that decided to hide from the PCmales to prevent them from stealing kills they cannot afford to lose. The Mangheni pride is a big pride with lots of older cubs. So it would be a lot easier for them to defend kills and any kill made would be rapidly consumed before the PCmales could arive to steal it. With also no lionesses receptable for mating, there would be no reason for the PCmales to hang out there. The Ximhungwe pride is a much more ideal situation for them. There only being two adult lionesses with a few cubs means that hunting is not difficult with any decent sized kill resulting in plenty of food to go around. The constant threat of Skorro also meant that the pride had a good reason to not avoid the males as they need them for protection. The Ximhungwe lioness may also come back into estrus again any moment now, so it makes sense that this pride became their main base of operations. Still after all those years pushing towards the west. They still haddent forgoten about the first pride they had success with, the Nkuhuma pride. So they kept an eye on the east part of their territory aswell. Always ready to react once there was a female ready to mate with. So if they, and thats still a big if, they decide to make Nkuhuma pride their new base of operations. They will likely still traverse towards the Ximhungwe pride occasionally to check on the situation there. Aslong Skorro doesnt return, (I still have my doubts about this friendship with Nym.) that will probably be fine as the mayor pressure for the PCmales always have came from the east by the BDM, Kambulas and Nwas as any other direction is fenced in. Though there is always risk of a coalition slipping through and wreaking havoc in the deep west. Should the Kambulas get their act together and start challenging the PCmales though. Then the PCmales will likely retreat to Ximhungwe pride themselves. Putting Mangheni and Ridge pride at risk.  
Makhunga is back in the West, I think we'll see him with the Ximungwe pride soon. Not sure where his brother is.
The bigger Plains Camp male seen in Dulini
Western Sabi Sands 18.05.24  *This image is copyright of its original author
These guys are covering a ton of space in very short timeframes. Amazing for a species that males are known to sleep a lot.
(05-18-2024, 02:53 PM)Vengeous Wrote: Makhunga is back in the West, I think we'll see him with the Ximungwe pride soon. Not sure where his brother is. Perhaps his brother is nearby, and just not photographed. If not, if he remains in the north, or otherwise not near by his bigger brother, this could be signs that their recent travels to the north may have created a new chink in their armor, they are now traversing an enormous area. We have rarely seen these boys not near one another, I have likened their bond to that of the S Avocas, many times. With them being so close, it made them a very difficult task to defend against for anyone. Only time will tell, if they are beginning to allow greater distances to exist between them, but even the mighty PCMs cannot withstand confronting the Kambulas, and most certainly not the Nwas or the Gijimas, alone. I'm not even sure they could withstand the Skorro Jr - NYM pair, depending on how close their recent bonds have become, and NYM's response to his previoud interactions with these boys.
So, it seems very strange. It seems that the smaller PCM has beaten the Nkhuma's out of Big Mak, and as a result they seem to be splitting up more. Is this the first kink in the armor of their spectacular bond? Was it only good as long as the smaller one was submitting? I have to say, separately, they aren't as scary.
 (05-20-2024, 09:50 PM)T_Ferguson Wrote: So, it seems very strange. It seems that the smaller PCM has beaten the Nkhuma's out of Big Mak, and as a result they seem to be splitting up more. Is this the first kink in the armor of their spectacular bond? Was it only good as long as the smaller one was submitting? I have to say, separately, they aren't as scary. They’ve actually split a few times before, most notably, one stayed with the Mhangenis while one stayed with the Ximhungwes for a few days. I believe this was around the time Kambula males were venturing further West so they got lucky Kambula males either weren’t confident enough or didn’t realise the advantage they had. Right now they’re both in the North anyways which isn’t great for their prides but for the males themselves, they seem untouchable. I wouldn’t look too much into it tho unless they start getting real competition. 
This is just a bad time I was hopeful the othawa girls would mate with the plains camp males to keep them in the west but they’ve moved north 2 males with that big of a territory is not good at all either they’ll stay with the nkuhumas or stay in the west I don’t think they can do both 2 coalitions are already in the north (4 kambulas and 2 southern black dam males) and 2 males have just went into their territory in the west skorro jr and nkuhuma something is bound to happen unfortunately
Mating and returning to the west can be sustainable?? Is it known how many PC males there was originally?? Just these 2 or did they lose some bros along the way??
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