Lions of Africa

The White African Lion is almost extinct today. 

It seems pretty unreal but as a child I often played with Lion and Tiger cubs. ‘Prince of Wales Zoo’ in Lucknow was where I would go with my grandfather each morning during the summer holidays. While ‘Daddy’ took a walk and had tea with Dr Khan, the director of the zoo, I would spend time playing with these cubs in his lawns. These cubs were harmless little things and I played with them just as I would play with puppies. The attendants gave the cubs the names some of which I remember till today. They were called Maya, Pinki, Sheroo and Zulfiquar ! The attendants would often take me inside the zoo hospital to show me how the animals were fed their medicines and were operated upon.

 My school, LaMartiniere was very close to the Zoo and in junior school we could hear the roar of Lions while sitting in the class room. The 1971 floods killed quite a few Lions and the school peon told us that many of the carcasses of animals including that of a lioness had been seen by him. The school was on the banks of river Gomti and had been ravaged by the floods of 1971. The Zoo also never recovered after those devastating floods.

A Lion can eat upto 40 pounds of meat at one go. Then he goes off for a 24 hour snooze. He does leave a part of his prey for other animals.

When his stomach is full, Lion often sleeps for almost 24 hours at a stretch.

Lions in the zoo would normally sit quietly and would show their restlessness at meal time when they would roar and pace up and down the cage waiting for the food to arrive.

For me the Lions and Tigers were dangerous animals who would not harm anyone as they were in a cage. The concept changed when I was around 10 years old. The concept changed because in front of me a Lion chased, killed and ate up a man !

 It was just another visit to the Zoo with my grandparents and my little sister , and we saw crowds swelling near the Lion cage and a lot of noise coming from the crowds. People were shouting. Something was wrong. Had the Lion escaped? Granny got scared but my grandfather insisted that we go and see what was happening. What we saw  will remain with me forever. Apparently a youth had jumped into the cage ( don’t know the reason) and then panicked as Lion chased him. What we saw was the youth being chased, bought down and being torn open by the male Lion. The zoo staff managed to isolate the Lion with long poles and spears into the small cage with great difficulty but by then it was too late. The image of the man running , then being brought down and his lower abdomen being torn open is something that I can never forget.

Lions live in Prides and the strength of pride can go upto 30-35. Though there will just be a couple of male Lions in the full pride.

All this had happened almost 4 decades earlier. I had never seen a Lion in the wild. I hoped that our visit to Kruger National Park in South Africa would change that.

During an evening safari I froze when I saw a Lioness suddenly appear and purposefully walk towards the river. Before I could recover from seeing a Lioness from such close quarters, 2 cubs appeared and followed their mother. The mother then came back and escorted the cubs so that no harm would come to them. Our ranger realised what was happening. He informed us that there has been a kill near the river and the pride was collecting to get a share. He took us near the river where we witnessed 2 lionesses with 9 cubs feeding on an animal. We looked at the scene mesmerized. While the lionesses kept a watch, the cubs roared, fought and tried eating the prey. Luckily for them there was no male Lion to spoil their party.

The mother ensures that kids get enough to eat

The Lions can have sex as often as 40 times a day in short bursts of just about 10 second per romp !

Sighting Lions in Kruger is not easy. The tall wheatish  grass camouflages the Lions and as they sleep 20 hours a day, you have to be lucky to see them. Being Nocturnal they roam around and hunt at night. Besides, Kruger has proper roads and you are not allowed to leave these roads and go into the grasslands. You may see them sleeping from a distance but they will not get up and you would get fed up and leave for some better sighting.

Male Lions in captivity can live upto the age of 20 but they rarely live beyond 10 years in the wild. This is due to the fights and injuries they sustain.

We did see a few more Lionesses during our drive from Skukuza camp to Lower Sabie camp. With so many cars gathering on the road at sighting time, it becomes difficult to get a vantage position to get good snaps as these animals are either in bushes or behind some tree. To get a good view of the Lionesses I opened the car door and managed to get a few good snaps. A big mistake. I had an eye contact with the Lioness and she stared intently. Normally the Lions totally ignore presence of human beings while they are in vehicle but I should have known that these predators feel threatened once they see a human out of the car. No-nothing happened but it is likely that in such situation again an attack may come. What actually happens is that you are so focused on photographing and looking at the Lions in front of you that you forget that rest of the pride is lurking nearby. They are capable of creeping up and catch you unawares. There is no way you can get away. There is a footage on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg9Ttc0Jj2M) where man is eaten by Lions in front of his family as he gets off from his vehicle to take a picture of the Lions.  Watch it and you will feel a chill go down your spine.

This Lioness felt threatened to see me step out of the car. in Kruger

Male Lions live in pairs or small groups until they're able to take over a pride. The males defend their large territorial areas against other male intruders to protect their mating rights with the prides that live within their territory.

Just one trip to the Jungle had made me enjoy the wildlife. We had seen the big 5  ( Lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard, and rhinoceros )and many other animals roaming around the park. Watching wildlife and animal behavior on television made me want more of it. Just a couple of months after coming back from Kruger, I was on my way to Maasai Mara. This Kenyan wildlife reserve is full of wildebeest during July to October so the chances of seeing predators is more as they can find and hunt wildebeest at will. There is one thing that I have learnt from being in natural Jungles. You may see giraffes, zebras, elephants, hippos or any other exotic animal – the thrill of sighting a predator of the cat family is unparalleled.

Male and females greet each other not with a handshake but with a rub, which sometimes becomes so vigorous that one gets knocked down in the process !

The Lions love touching and rubbing against each other. It shows bonding.

The mane makes a full grown Lion look majestic. He truly looks like the king of Jungle. He looks harmless sitting in the grass and sleeping. But once he gets up, yawns, stretches , shakes himself and starts walking its like he owns the jungle. I was lucky to see a male Lion on the very first day in Maasai Mara. Luckier still to see male Lions on each of the 3 days in the park.  Maasai Mara is different from Kruger. It is not so developed so it doesn’t have proper roads and organized camps in the park. The grass was not too long so one could at times sight an animal from considerable distance. Actually it is unlike the jungles we are used to. At the time of my visit there was hardly any greenery and the golden yellow park looked like thousands of miles of shrubby landscape. 

The Male Lion with his heavy frame and the mane looks very majestic as he lords over the jungle.

When a Lion takes over a pride by killing the previous head, he kills the cubs also. This is because till the cubs are not mature their mother does not become fertile or become receptive. The King wants his own cubs rather than his rivals so that his genes live on. And he wants sex. It is said that 90% of the cubs get killed before the age of 2 either by predators or the Lion who takes over the pride.

I spent enough time with Lions in Maasai Mara. Our vehicle followed a pride around as it rested, roamed, tried to hunt and met up other members of their pride. At times they would be as far as touching distance from our vehicle. For some reason we felt safe and did not fear them breaking the vehicle glass window, which any one of them could have done with considerable ease. I almost felt affectionate towards these giant beasts as they looked so loving and friendly with each other in their environment.

This Lion appeared to be a veteran of several jungle fights.

Not far from where this pride was , a child was roaming around with livestock so they could graze the grass.He could have very well be attacked by the Lions. No wonder we have a situation where Man vs. Wild debate is raging. In last 50 years the population of Lions in Africa has come down by a whopping 90%. The Maasai villager told us how they poisoned and killed Lions when they or their livestock’s were attacked.They actually demonstrated this to us showing us how the poisoning is done. The slaying of 6 Lions of pride by villagers in June 2012 near Nairobi is a sad commentary on the situation right now.

I have been reading the blogs on the web site of Lion Guardians. http://lionguardians.wildlifedirect.org/. Though the blogs shows pictures of brutality towards the Lions and how the Lions are being hunted down by poachers and villagers in Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya and other African nations – the participatory approach to Lion conservation does give us some hope. 

The Lions look good and confident in their habitat

Note: All photographs above have been taken by me in the wilds of South Africa and Kenya.