Coalitions of Kruger National Park

[Fredymrt]

From: Singita KRUGER NATIONAL PARK | NOVEMBER 2017

November was another amazing month.
Although we have had a little bit of rain the rivers have not yet started flowing and the remaining pools in the N’wanetsi River have been attracting quite a lot game to the central and southern areas of the concession.

Lions: Once again, the lion sightings have been phenomenal! The central grasslands of the Kruger National Park tend to attract quite a few zebras and wildebeest, which in turn attract lions. This part of the park is therefore well-known for lion sightings and many tourists come to the Satara area looking for these big cats. The Singita Kruger Park Concession lies to the east of Satara and we are in the fortunate position where we also have amazing lion sightings. In fact, one of the prides that we see in the concession, on occasion, is possibly one of the most famous prides in the Kruger Park. This pride is known as the Shishangaan Pride (often referred to as the Shish Pride).

Approximately 70 % of this pride’s territory lies outside of the concession, but fortunately we do see them fairly often. This pride is very large – at present there are between fifteen and nineteen members. The pride used to be larger, but a few years ago it got so large (approximately thirty members) that it split into two (or more) separate groups. The smaller portion moved out of the concession and seemed to have settled in the area nearby our staff quarters (which is a twenty-minute bus drive from the lodge). There are no roads in this area and as it is not part of our concession we do not venture there, other than driving the access road to the staff quarters. A few months back three lionesses were seen in that area and they had six small cubs with them. We believe that these lionesses are part of the break-away group from the old Shish mega-pride. The portion of the Shish Pride that we sometimes see in the concession is not only famous because of the numbers of individuals, but also due to the fact that it has a leucistic individual (a white lion) in it. This leucistic individual is a sub-adult male and is of the age where he will have to leave the pride soon and he will then have to go and search for a territory of his own. In fact, many of the subadults in the Shish Pride are males and they are all at the age where they will have to leave the area soon. Once they leave it may give one of the other prides, such as the Mountain Pride, to start growing in numbers and to become more dominant in the area.

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Photo by Brian rode

The Shish Pride have been pretty active in the concession this last month and we have had great sightings of them. On at least four occasions we have seen them feeding on buffalos. On two of these occasions the guides and guests were lucky enough to witness the whole stalk and kill.
On the afternoon of the 6th Chantelle, Nick and Henry plus their guests were watching the pride resting in the river. Nick describes the sighting as follows:
“The pride was resting up along the northern bank of the N’Wanetsi river just east of Dave’s crossing and to begin with it was a standard lion sighting. As impressive as it is to see 19 lions there wasn’t much sign of life! There were one or two who looked half-awake while the others were completely out for the count. It actually always amazes me how much they tolerate us. Even with three vehicles moving in and around the pride they didn’t bat an eyelid! We were actually describing exactly that - how our noise and movement is treated like white noise and completely ignored and can be compared to us being in a foreign country with everyone speaking a language we don’t understand. That foreign noise simply goes over our heads but if someone speaks our first language we listen to the conversation. It is the same for the lions - they completely ignore us but if they hear something relevant to them, like an impala alarming, elephant breaking a branch or something moving through the grass (their language) they react quickly and respond to it. Suddenly, a few lions rose to attention and started staring towards the southern side of the bank, all eyes and ears fixated on something moving through the brush. It took us a while to see what it was but eventually we could see a small bachelor herd of buffalos heading straight towards the pride! With all of us parked in and around the pride we actually couldn’t move as we did not want to affect the outcome of the hunt. Of all the hunts and stalks I’ve been lucky enough to see I’ve never seen them escalate as quickly as this did. I think the sheer number of lions boost their confidence, especially when it comes to hunting old arthritic buffalo bulls! The chase wasn’t a long one, and as we came up and over the rise half the pride was on top of and all over the bull, while the others were still chasing after another bull. The take-down was an impressive one as well, where even with the strength of the buffalo the big pride was just too much! From beginning to end it look less than ten minutes; the buffalo was down and entire pride was feeding. The next morning the entire carcass was finished and all the lions were once again resting in N’Wanetsi River, sleeping in a food coma”.

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Photo by Nick du plessis

On the afternoon of 15th the Shish Pride had split up into two groups, which were lying on either side of the river by Dumbana Pool. Henry was watching one group sleeping on the southern side of the river when he noticed that they all suddenly perked up and then started running towards the northern side. At the same time Wessel came on the radio saying that the other group of the Shish Pride were in the process of bringing down an adult female buffalo. Henry quickly crossed the river to the other side and Jani, who was also close by, quickly headed there to watch the action. The lions managed to pull down the unfortunate buffalo and then started feeding upon it, growling and fighting amongst each other to get a position at the “dinner-table”. At one point, one of the lionesses managed to get inside the buffalo carcass and, with a loud popping sound, pulled out a foetus. The lioness quickly ran away from the rest of the pride, that were squabbling over the meat of the adult buffalo, and managed to feed on the delicacy on her own, without the harassment from the other members of the pride who were still fighting to get a mouthful from the bigger carcass. Some of the guests were a little distressed by what they had witnessed (it was quite graphic), but most were completely enthralled by what they had just seen.

the Mountain Pride We have seen the Mountain Pride regularly in November. This is the only pride in our area whose territory falls entirely within the concession. At present the pride consists of three adult females and a cub of approximately one year of age. This pride is often seen with one of the large Shish Males. On the morning of the 23rd they were seen feeding on a waterbuck to the north of the dam.

The Xhirombe Pride were seen on a few occasions. This pride usually consists of three lions viz. an old lioness, a subadult male (of approximately 4 years of age) and a subadult female. The younger female has not been seen for a few months now. We initially assumed that she was pregnant and that she had left the pride to give birth to cubs but, due to the fact that we have not seen her for quite a while, we are not sure if she is still alive. The other two lions mainly utilise the area along the Mozambique border, high up in the hills to the east of camp, although on occasion they are seen near the N’wanetsi River close to the camp. The young male now has a full mane and is starting to look quite impressive.

The Shish males The four dominant male lions in the concession are known as the Shish Males. We have had regular sightings of these male lions this last month. They were seen on at least thirteen occasions.
On the morning of the 7th we had found a female cheetah on a large mound of sand at Sticky-thorn Quarry When one of the Shish Males (the male with one blind eye) came walking across the grasslands behind the cheetah. At first the cheetah did not notice the large male lion approaching and luckily for it the lion had not seen the cheetah either. We were all wondering what was going to happen next as the lion was getting closer and closer to the spotted cat. We were all hoping that the cheetah would realise that the lion was in the vicinity before it became too late and, luckily, she turned and spotted him early enough. She rapidly slunk into the grass and sneaked down the mound, quickly disappearing out of view. The lion walked straight past the area where the cheetah had, just seconds before, been resting without even noticing that the other cat had been there. One can say that the cheetah just “cheated” death, because if the lion had managed to surprise her he would easily have killed her.

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Photo by Nick du Plessis.

Towards the beginning of the month we found two of the Shish Males and one lioness near Pony Pan. One of the lions was sleeping while the other mated with the lioness. We are hoping that this coupling will result in new cubs for the Mountain Pride in a few months.

Shish Male lions

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

Images by Collensibuyi. DEC 20, 2017 Reply