Birds of Eastern Africa: Lions of Ruaha!

Sharubu diaries.....

Lions (local name: Sharubu) are the only felines that form social groups. All other cats are solitary hunters. The social groups are called prides. A pride of lions typically includes about five females and two males and their young.

Prides are often described as matriarchal because more females belong to a pride, they remain long-term members of the pride and they live longer than male lions. The life of a male lion is socially more precarious than that of a female lion. Males must win their way into a pride of females and once they do they must fend off challenges from males outside the pride who try to take their place.

Male lions are in their prime between the ages of 5 and 10 years and often do not live long after that period. Male lions rarely remain part of the same pride for more than 3 or 4 years.

Female lions often give birth at about the same time, which means the cubs within a pride are of a similar age. The females will suckle one another's young but that doesn't mean it's an easy life for cubs within the pride. Weaker offspring are often left to fend for themselves and often die as a consequence.

Lions often hunt together with other members of their pride. The prey they capture usually weighs between 55 and 330 kgs. When prey within that weight range is not available, lions are forced to either catch smaller prey weighing as little as 15 kgs or much larger prey weighing as much 500 kgs. When forced to feed on small prey, lions make the kill and eat their catch by themselves. When forced to eat larger prey, they must hunt in groups and risk injury during a hunt due to the large size of their prey.

Ruaha national park in the southern Tanzania, beholds many prides of lions. The prides witnessed have lions in huge numbers. Up to 24 lions. I have had the possibility to spend some time with the different prides of lions during my 3 weeks stay at the Kwihala Camp in the prime gaming (central) area of the park. We know of 10 different prides co-existing in this beautiful landscape having the imaginary boundaries (territories). A pride of lions will live in a territory that they will defend from other lions. Lions identify their territory by roaring loudly or by physically scent marking trees or rock outcrops. While female lions will hunt and kill most of the animals for the pride to eat, male lions are around primarily to defend the territory from other lion prides or nomadic male lions.

Due to the fact that these prides of Ruaha contain lions in huge records, they usually hunt big game. The bushbuck pride & the Mwayembe pride are known to hunt giraffes and buffalos. Zebras and other large animals are just teatime snack for such big prides.

Below are some pictures taken while spending considerable time in company of these beautiful cats.

The prides include The Kipunji Pride (Mwagusi area – 7 lionesses), The Bushbuck pride (up to 24 lions including cubs), The Njaa pride (10 lions – also known as the Kumi Juu – Njaa stands for hunger in swahili), the Kumi pride (10 Lions. Kumi means 10 in Swahili), Msembe pride (up to 12 lions), Wakali Pride (12 lions @ W7 – 2 big lions Grumpy & Brother, one big female locally known as Jessi with 3 young cubs), Mwayembe pride (21 lions – 1 big old male whom I call Ceaser), Mdonya Juu pride (16 lions), Ifuguru pride (12 lions. 2 males from the fabulous four coalition still remain part of this group) and the Ikuka pride (4 females and 6 young males - near Mpululu).