Lions of Timbavati

[Potato]

Tanda Tula update

That is not to say that I had had a bad week, but it was a little more work than the previous weeks.  The River Pride and their cubs remained in the eastern sections along the Machaton River, but sadly it appears as though they too have lost a cub, with there now only being signs of four cubs (instead of five).  We caught up with the pride a couple of times when I was on drive, but I was sad that they missed out on a large buffalo bull carcass just east of camp.  The pride had been resting not far off during the day, but returned to the den that evening.  During the night the hyenas found the carcass and began their fighting – usually enough to draw in some lions, and with the roars of a single Vuyela male getting closer, we headed out in the morning fully expecting to find a male lion or five feasting on the carcass.  Instead we found about ten very nervous hyenas; even when the vultures descended to finish off the remains later in the morning, it failed to bring in any lions.  The next morning, with very little of the carcass left, there were signs that a lion had been there, but without any real meat to be garnered from the carcass, he decided to move off.

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The roars of the four Birmingham Breakaway males to the south-west may have drawn their attention, but we heard no response from the Vuyelas to the intruders’ roars.  The next morning the foursome of young males moved west, but time will tell if they will be tolerated this close to Vuyela male territory.  It was possible that these roars did keep the Sark Breakaways further north; they were seen twice on our north-western boundary, and we had them for a day on Nkhari after they had been found with a warthog kill – not a great meal for 16 lions, and it was clear that the young cubs were struggling to get a good meal with so many adults around.  The Giraffe Pride was reported a couple of times in the west this week, but none of us ventured that far west to see them. Reply