joined by two Italians and two Brits, and Christoph decided it was time to find the lions.Sanbona has two types of lion -- the tawny, which is the most common, and the white lion. White lions have been exploited in the past few decades – people trap them for rap videos, private collections, etc. Sanbona is trying to reintroduce the white lions into the bush, so they rescued two that were part of someone’s private collection. The two they rescued have had two litters, and they are trying to raise the cubs with as little human interaction as possible so they learn to hunt for their own food and fend for themselves.
During this process the white lions are being held in an enclosure in the middle of the bush. The problem is, the tawny lions know they are there and want to fight/kill them. So we when we went to see the white lions, the tawnies were there too. The enclosure is double fenced, so the white lions are safe.
There are males in both groups, and their main goal is to protect their pride. We watched for about 45 minutes as the males (and the females) stalked each other. I knew lions were large, but I never realized how large their front paws are. The male’s paws were the size of my head, and these cats were defiantly louder than Tristan.
We were very close to the lions and Christoph felt they were becoming too agitated and too aware of our presence, so we made a slow but safe get-away.
There must
have been something in the air, because all the animals seemed to be fighting. We had another great sighting of the giraffe and watched two males fight over a female. Giraffes fight by beating each other with their necks – they rare back and then bang the heck out of each other. Our presence distracted one of the males because he became so intent on watching us that he didn’t seem to notice the repeated beatings he was getting from the other male.We also had a distance sighting of rhino, springbok and oryx.
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