The Mighty Mapogos

[Mapokser]

(03-15-2023, 08:40 AM)afortich Wrote:

(03-15-2023, 08:15 AM)Mapokser Wrote:

(03-15-2023, 06:40 AM)afortich Wrote:

(03-15-2023, 06:01 AM)T_Ferguson Wrote:

(03-15-2023, 05:22 AM)Mapokser Wrote: @T_Ferguson Mapogos definitely fought the KNP, IIRC more than once, but were defeated and after the last clash both KNP males were sighted in top condition before Limper was finally seen in bad shape.

Unless some small injury infected or he had another fight with Mapogos then his death is unrelated to them. I doubt it was another clash with Mapogos because Mapogos had no idea the enemy was injured/dead and they left the area defeated.

Not doubting you, and my ignorance on this is pretty well known while I get up to speed, and I'll never know as much as many of you that have been there, or have contacts on the ground, but I've read at least 2 reports similar to this that say Limper was injured by a fight with the aging Mak and PB.  They even say that the KNP's won the fight and made the Mapogo's flee, but that Limper died within a couple of weeks.

The dead of limper is unknown. 
However, the report link provided by @T_Ferguson, in a summary, states that Limper was seen in a very bad condition about the 20th of July, which is a few days prior to the fight with the Mapogos, then, the trackers determined that on or about august 28 that the date of Limper's dead was back to 3-4 weeks ago, which is consistent with the time around the 20th of July. Therefore, Limper's dead could've been caused by the fight with the Mapogos and would not rule Mapogos out. see the quotation below from the Londolozi Blog.

Quote:The mighty two Mapogo Males were both seen alive and well a few days ago south of our boundary. This rules out it being one of them. A sighting of the Southern Pride together with the two Kruger Males over a month ago though does shed some light. Rangers reported that one of the males looked in a bad way. We had received reports of a big clash between the Kruger and Mapogo Males just a few days prior to this. On about the 20th July this male was seen again alone; this time in exceptionally poor condition. Where he lay motionless, was about 200 meters from where we found the lion remains! Since then, that Kruger Male, known by many as Limper, has not been seen by any of the lodges in the Sabi Sands. Tracker, Solly Mhlongo, aged the lion remains at 3-4 weeks old…winding back the clock and it all fits perfectly

Fight was in July 12, this was the report about Makhulu's injuries:

Richard de Gouveia from Sabi Sabi reports this morning that one of the Mapogo was seen running at high speed past Earth Lodge, and in hot pursuit were the Kruger Males. The sighting was accompanied by lots of roaring and aggression! It was before game drive, so they were not able to follow immediately. On subsequent follow ups it seems that it was a small altercation with minor injuries.

Then later:

News flash! Just heard from Mele Andru that apparently the one Mapogo’s testicles have been badly damaged in the fighting this morning. Not good news at all.

By Savanna.

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I hope it was a fitting article for such an influential coalition! News from the fight yesterday morning is that one was seen briefly with quite bad injuries to his testicles amongst other areas…but we don’t know the extent of the injuries just yet.

By Sabi Sabi.

KNP's conditions:

While scouring the surrounding roads in the hope that they might still be around, we received a radio call from ranger Dean Smithyman that he and tracker Freddy Ngobeni had heard the sound of lions fighting to the east of us. Three vehicles immediately moved into the area, and within half an hour the pride had been found, far to the north of where we expected them to be, outside their usual territory, deep in the territory of the Sparta Pride.

We will never know what the reason for the growling and snarling was. Had the two enormous male lions with the pride (known as the Kruger Males) had a run-in with the Majingilane coalition? Had the pride been fighting over a kill? Blood on the nose of one of the males and a cut on a lionesses’ flank were the only clues as they headed steadily back to more familiar ground in the South.


By Londolozi. James Tyrrel says this sighting above happened on July 14 and adds that they were seen again after that in different occasions.

So it's hard to believe that the fight on July 12 where Makhulu got his testicles injured was the cause of Limper's death as the only injury mentioned on the KNPs is a bloody nose in one of them. Unless that infected like crazy to deteriorate him to a point he was in very poor condition on July 20, that fight can't be the reason of his demise.

I mean Mapogos aren't ruled out as we don't know what happened between July 14 and July 20, but it's just that the Mapogo v KNP July 12 fight seems to be a bloody nose.

It was also said that after the fight on July 12, Makhulu went missing for more than a month:

No worry Shirley, the fight you are talking about was with the 2 KNP males where Mak was injured and went missing for just over a month. He has since rejoined with PB and they moved off our reserve and went in to try steal a buffalo kill that the Southern Pride had pulled down and the remaining KNP male was with them. On their approach to the kill about a week ago the Southern Pride and KNP male chased them all the way into Kruger which is when Tony Parks photographed them.

So could have Makhulu after the fight on July 12 and sightings of both KNP in good condition on July 14 had bumped onto Limper and injured him before July 20, then went hiding to recover until he finally showed up again a month later and rejoined PB? I guess it's theorically possible, but with all things considered, his age, injuries and their previous encounters, I doubt he could have taken the prime and just bloody-nosed Limper, lame hip or not.

Is there any other report describing better what happened to KNP boys?? because the one above focus on Mapogos' testicle injury and they don't mention which KNP boy was bleeding.

Not to my knowledge, but if any of the males were in bad condition Londolozi would have reported that, but they only said one had a bloody nose. Reply