As you might have noticed from this Blog, Brett from SUNSAFARIS is fascinated by lion pride dynamics. Therefore please find below the latest news from the lions at Duba Plains. Duba Plains is one of Botswana's most remote camps and Brett's personal favourite! PS: Watch the DVD, Relentless Enemies by Derek & Beverly Joubert to witness the Tsaro Pride in action.
The buffalo herd is still looking very healthy, and constantly moving around the concession due to pressure from the Tsaro Pride. They often cross to the wetter part of the extended Duba area (Paradise and Sakoyi Islands in the east) that we cannot access due the presence of permanent deep water channels, although they never seem to spend too much time in these areas. Overall we are of the impression that buffalo numbers are increasing and attribute this to decreased hunting success of the local lion prides and the resultant better recruitment rates of calves into the herd. The respective strategies of the buffalo herd in defending their number from the lions and the lions in attempting to outwit the herd continue to enthral us. Interactions between the two species very often result in badly injured cows and calves that have been rescued from death by the herd. This can lead to infection and the wounded buffalo may die. In the month of July we came across two calves and a cow that appeared to have died in such circumstances.
We are very pleased to see an addition of two lions to the Tsaro Pride. Junior the young male who is almost two and half years now, is doing very well. He has been seen on several occasions initiating the hunting, but we think that he still needs a little more time to learn! Very often he has narrowly missed the fierce horns of buffalo and is slowly realising those horns can do him serious harm. The second addition is a female cub of about seven and a half months. We hope she will make it as well as she has already passed the most vulnerable stage of being killed by other lionesses (which was the fate of previous litters). We think this is a result of her being looked after by two lionesses which are extremely protective over her - the same reasoning applying to Junior.
It was very impressive recently to see one of the most ruthless cub killers, 'Silver Eye', growling and exposing her deadly canines at this cub. She was badly attacked by the two females that look after this young cub, and since then has very often been denied any chance to get anywhere close to her. One of the lionesses ('Machine Gun') had cubs on the northern side of the camp, probably wanting to keep them away from the rest of the pride until a certain stage. This worked out well for that period as the cubs at least made it to at least 4-5 months, but unfortunately after only five days of introduction to the rest of the pride they were all found dead. We are not sure if 'Silver Eye' was responsible for any of the deaths. In one case only did the guides witness the death of a cub. It was killed by two other females, which was not really surprising as they have been witnessed killing cubs before. These two lionesses associate more with the silver-eyed female than any other lioness in the pride. The bereft mother (Machine Gun) was already seen mating by the second week of July. Currently we have one lioness with one cub estimated at three months old. Despite their age (about 16 years), the Duba Boys still continue as the proud leaders of the Tsaro Pride in their domain.
The Skimmer Pride has only been seen once in July. They were seen in the vicinity of the buffalo herd on the north-western side of the camp. This was from a distance, as the Tsaro Pride was very close to the herd and prevented the approach of the Skimmer Pride. The composition is still three lionesses as from about seven months ago. We are now beginning to be convinced that the rest of the pride has emigrated from the area completely. The three that we see are all the young females of about 4 and half years old.