A lion pride has a complex social structure. When males fight for the dominance of a pride it can be a very traumatic experience with the new dominant male killing cubs and often younger members of the pride or even females who refuse to mate with him.
When in Madikwe I came across a pride of lions lounging in the bush and off to the left we could see a young male and a little further on an older male was mounting a female.
The old male turned and we could see he had a very deep wound to his face and it appeared he had lost his eye.
We then looked to the younger male and could see that he too had wounds on his face. It appeared that they had been fighting with each other
The next morning we returned to the area and found the pride again. The young male was no longer with the pride and we could more clearly see the wounds on the old male’s face. They were clearly very painful as he was salivating and kept rubbing his face. He had not lost his eye but it was a very close call.
The cubs were still playing, seemingly oblivious to the previous days events and quite possibly the fate that would have been theirs had the old male lost. Females lay scattered except for one large lioness who seemed to have won the affection of the male. A young cub walked up to her and with a snarl she sent him off. It was time for more serious things than play time.
We watched the pride for a long time and it was one of those rare privileges that the wild offers us from time to time. My head turned one last time as the pride disappeared within the bush and we bumped back onto the road. I could not help but wonder how many more fights this old male would win or if he would even recover from his wounds.
Lion fight! - Pride - BBC animal drama
No comments:
Post a Comment