The Mighty Mapogos

[BA0701]

(12-15-2024, 08:54 AM)Mapokser Wrote:

(12-13-2024, 10:43 PM)BA0701 Wrote: We were discussing the situation at Elephant Plains, on the Kruger thread, and it got me thinking about the things that happened back then. The loss of Rasta was a really big blow, just as the loss of KT was even bigger, but, I still believe that the loss of Dreadlocks, to poachers, was the biggest loss to the 6 Mapogos. They had been able to regroup and recover from all of the others, and Dreadlocks played a big role in that. Once Dreadlocks was killed, the end of the Mapogo reign came relatively quickly afterwards.

Yeah, they were still the strongest coalition around before Dreadlocks died, though even before his death, they had already given up on their entire north and east territory, accepting the Majingilane rule, which came with Rasta's death and PB's injuries. Even after PB very quickly full recovery, they never attempted to challenge Majingilane for Londolozi, Northern Sector or MalaMala. I think, however, that if Mr.T had not killed the Ximungwe cubs, bringing the females back to estrus, there might have been a chance for them to make another move against Majingilane.

Still, technically speaking, Dreadlocks wasn't poached, to say he was poached would be to say someone illegally sneaked into the reserve and shot him, but he was killed outside Sabi Sands and the demand to kill him instead of allowing him to get darted and brought back, came from leaders of some local tribes.

But anyway, back to the dynamics, lion strategy or whatever, one should give full credit to Majingilane, I'm sure luck always plays its role, but the bond, intelligence, coordination and teamplay of the Majingis was out of this world, they had competition and clashes with coalitions of 6 ( Mapogo, Matimba ), 5 ( Bboys ), 4 ( Selati ), 3 ( Sand Rivers ) and never lost any members, hell, no member has even been seriously injured, their only lost ever was that of 5th in their first territorial challenge, after that they went into an insane spree off successfully competing with other males.

The Ximungwe are still suffering from what Mr. T did, they have never recovered from it. If the elder Xim lioness is unable to give birth, and raise offspring to adulthood, his actions may, yet, result in the eradication of that pride.

As for Dreadlocks death, yes, perhaps poached is a poor choice of words, but he was still killed by humans, and it resulted in the downfall of the coalition, shortly afterwards.

As for the Majins, yes, it does seem as if they, as a group, learned a tremendous amount from the loss of the 5th. I have seen people ponder how powerful and dominant they may have been had he not suffered that fate, but, in all honesty, as you mentioned, I am not sure they could have done any better than they did without him, not sure it is possible. Reply