VIDEO: Lions Hunt Buffalo Calf Left Behind by Herd
Surviving in the wild is a constant battle.
Kill or be killed! Eat or be eaten!
That’s what the wildlife is all about.
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34-year-old Field Guide, Cliff Butlin, managed to provide his guests with a stupefying front-row-seat sighting at Mjejane Game Reserve.
According to latestsightings.com, Cliff recalls: “The lions had already attacked the calf before I arrived. The buffalo cow and other members of the herd had pushed the lions away, so when I arrived at the sighting the lions were watching the buffalo from a safe distance plotting their attack again.
After an hour of waiting, the buffalo started moving off with the lions not too far behind them. I went down a road and waited for the buffalo to arrive when another OSV radioed in to say that the lions were starting to give chase.
This was when all hell broke loose and the calf was left behind. The lions had initially run past the calf as they did not see it on the other side of the bush, but when the calf called for its mother, the lions turned and locked eyes on the helpless victim and I knew they were going take it down.
The mother of the calf did not come back as she was possibly injured as well during the first attack and the other buffalo could smell the lion’s scent on the calf.
According to Out to Africa, mature male lions are unique among the cat species for the thick mane of brown or black hair that encircles the head and neck. The tails of lions end in a horny spine covered with a tuft of hair.
Females do 85 to 90 percent of the pride’s hunting, while the males patrol the territory and protect the pride, for which they take the “lion’s share” of the females’ prey. When resting, lions seem to enjoy good fellowship with lots of touching, head rubbing, licking and purring. But when it comes to food, each lion looks out for itself.
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Lions are the laziest of the big cats. They usually spend 16 to 20 hours a day sleeping and resting, devoting the remaining hours to hunting, courting or protecting their territory. They keep in contact with one another by roaring loud enough to be heard up to five miles away.
The pride usually remains intact until the males are challenged and successfully driven away or killed by other males, who then take over. Not all lions live in prides. At maturity, young males leave the units of their birth and spend several years as nomads before they become strong enough to take over a pride of their own.
Some never stop wandering and continue to follow migrating herds; but the nomadic life is much more difficult, with little time for resting or reproducing.
Within the pride, the territorial males are the fathers of all the cubs. When a lioness is in heat, a male will join her, staying with her constantly. The pair usually mates for less than a minute, but it does so about every 15 to 30 minutes over a period of four to five days.
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