MATING RIGHTS

The new male lions have had a huge impact on the lion distributions and sightings. They have been moving around their new territory seemingly fearless, roaring to announce their presence.

They had been in the South of the Phinda Private Game Reserve for only a day when the Large Fagolweni Female showed up and started mating with the more dominant of the two brothers. The other male stayed close to the mating pair for two days but then left to explore the area. The old South Pride males have been roaring as well, but seem to be avoiding contact with the new males, which are about a year older and quite a bit larger.

The females in the area are much harder to locate as many of them have small cubs, which they are trying to hide from the new males. The new males would kill any cubs they found so that they could mate with the females and pass on their own genes.

The next couple of months are going to be very interesting and we hope the two sets of males will establish territories which they will then defend.

Posted: Phinda by Felicity Swanepoel, Date: 16 February 2011