African Wildlife & Environment Issue 85

WILDLIFE CHRONICLES

‘Loliondo’ pride of 37 recorded by George Schaller in the Serengeti in the late 1960s.At the time that pride consisted of two adult males, 11 adult females, two sub-adult females and 22 small cubs. The Confluence Pride was not always together, but when it was intact, they were a real spectacle! Forty-one lions in a single pride! You would be excused for initially thinking that it was a herd of impala as you approached them! They were a joy to watch, with many of the youngsters of different ages all playing together or harassing the adults. Being such a large pride, they were very difficult to photograph as a single group. The pride would also often split

and they would have to wait until another kill was made. It was rather disturbing process to witness, and certainly not for the faint-hearted! The younger lions’ condition gradually deteriorated – every time I arrived, they looked worse – more and more emaciated and some even losing their hair. And sometimes one or more of the cubs had disappeared – either having succumbed to malnutrition or perhaps having been killed by an intolerant adult. When the fieldwork stage of my study was coming to an end, I was no longer able to witness the process regularly. But the interest in this pride

was maintained, initially by Bruce Aiken, a photographer/ writer who later published a book on them ( Nightstalk, The Story of a Kruger Pride ). By the time Bruce started the pride had been reduced to just 30. All 12 of the adults were still there but 11 of the cubs had died. ‘Rubbish’ too was still there but they had renamed him ‘Quasimodo’. Subsequently, David Hughes and his wife Carole, cinematographers for National Geographic , then spent time with the pride and produced a wonderful film ( Lions of the African Night). These two productions gave an excellent popular record

of this remarkable pride. But thereafter nobody had the time or the opportunity to follow up on them. If only from a curiosity perspective, it would have been interesting to have followed the ongoing story of this pride. Eventually, the collars’ batteries failed and soon afterwards, the Sweni Wilderness Trail was developed in the area. People were still seeing two collared females, and as this was not desirable in a wilderness area, I went to remove the defunct collars. Using tape recordings, we called the pride to a bait and the collared females were easily darted and the collars removed.That was the last contact I had with them. There were times when I felt that there could have been some sort of intervention to alleviate the suffering of these cubs, but the choices would have been either to capture and remove them to a holding facility, or to supply them with carcasses for supplementary feeding. Clearly, neither of these options would have been acceptable. One of the

up into smaller groups to hunt, but when they were together, they were usually in scattered groups lying in the shade of different trees. But life in such a large pride does did not stay idyllic for long. The term ‘strength in numbers’ does not necessarily apply to lion prides.As the youngsters achieved weaning age at about six to seven months, they could no longer rely on their mothers’ milk to sustain them, and they then needed to get a share of the kills made by the pride. Unlike Wild Dogs, who allow their pups priority at a kill, with lions it is ‘every man for himself’, and cubs must compete with all the other pride members including the adults.With 12 adults, even a zebra was barely enough for all, and the more dominant lions would not grant the cubs access to a feeding spot at a carcass. Mostly they could only gnaw on the bones to get at the last vestiges of meat. For them, the situation was exacerbated by the fact that once the adults had fed, the incentive to hunt was diminished,

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