The Brutal Lioness is Not Dead!

Yesterday I saw a dead lion.

Well, that is you believe everything you read on the internet.

This image above shows the apparent ‘dead’ lioness (one of the Tshabalala females) on the left. The image was taken two mornings ago as she walked down one of the roads in the Madikwe Game Reserve along with her sister, mother and one of the pride males.

So… not dead then.

If you have been following this Blog for a while you will recall a post called “Brutal or Amazing… You Decide.” You can read the post here.   Otherwise the shortened version goes as follows:

• Lioness who just killed it starts feeding.
• She discovers the antelope was pregnant.
• She removes foetus and places it one side.
• She reacts strange and seems upset by what she found.
• She gently picks up the foetus, as if a cub, and places it under a thicket close by.
• She returns to the kill where she does not continue to feed but lays down and falls asleep.
• This particular post described one of the most memorable sightings I have ever had in the wild and has now apparently done the rounds on the internet as during the last few days I have received a number of emails from people all around the world asking whether the female did in fact die.

The question has come in various forms all having to do with the female dying due to a range of emotions such as sadness, loneliness and even stress.

A lot of the comments on the original post had people in quite a spin because ‘how dare I impose human emotions on an animal’ etc etc. I found it fascinating and quite sad how many people would just fire away and write long, extremely opinionated comments, and sign it as anonymous but I suppose that is one of the ‘luxuries’ of the internet. Not going there again… Moving on…

To clear up all the confusion and in answer to all the emails – the lion is definitley still alive!!

The cropped image above, taken on 11 September 2008, shows the young female as she started feeding on the carcass mentioned in the Brutal or Amazing post.  Notice that her left ear has a very distinctive ‘V’ shape cut at the top.

The following image was taken of the exact same lioness on Sunday morning, 10 May 2009.

A little bit older. A little bit larger, but the tear in the left ear is still apparent and as you can see she is very much alive. (The fact that she was one of the two lionesses we had to chase out of our lodge’s electric fence a week ago also proved this.)

I will always remember the sighting we had that day as it went against everything we ‘know’ about nature and what we read in books. Whether the lioness ever ‘thought’ about what happened on that day, or afterwards, is a completely different matter and we are all entitled to our own opinion.

If you have received many other ‘versions’ of this story I would love to hear from you.

As always I look forward to hearing from you.

Until next time.

Gerry