Lions of Timbavati

[Potato]

Tanda Tula update

On the lion front, the River Pride and their cubs gave us the run around at the start of the week, but without much sign of the lionesses or the cubs in the area where we tracked them into before the rains, we suspected that they moved off, but a day later, four Vuyela males were hanging around the same area, so we were clearly not the only ones being bamboozled by their movements.  Three of the Vuyela males then headed to the far north of the Timbavati for a few days, while the male with the limp didn’t quite make it that far and spent the week roaring for his brothers.  The lionesses eventually pitched up at Tanda Tula Safari Camp one evening, and we got to see them watching a herd of wildebeest on Nkhari the next day.  The great news is that all three lionesses were present, so it was clearly not one of them that the anti-poaching team found last week.  After that, the pride went AWOL, but eventually returned to the banks of the Nhlaralumi close to Tanda Tula, and most pleasingly, all three cubs were running on tow!   These little ones are just over 3 months old, and we were all relieved that they too survived whatever went down on the eastern front.  The same day, seven members of the Mayambula pride were found in the east having a feast – they had killed both a zebra and a giraffe calf within 80m of each other!  Thinking there would be loads of food on offer for a couple of days for the seven of them, it was a surprise to find nothing mut lion tracks in the area the next morning – although based on the number of tracks, it appears as though the whole pride reunited during the night and polished off whatever was left.  The Sark Breakaway Pride paid us only one brief visit on our western boundary, moved into Nkhari and then moved back west to Klaserie.  The Giraffe Pride was reported in the far west, and our staff saw them on the access road a couple of times too, but we didn’t head down to see them. 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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