I can’t remember when a portion of the Styx Pride was last seen but not this year…
3 members of this pride are currently in the center of Londolozi trailing a large herd of buffalo. Their movements are slowly and hesitant: they are in the middle of a difficult away game…this is far out of their territory! It appears that they are being led by a young lioness; the remaining two lions keep looking over their backs as if expecting to be chased at any moment.
The one lion is a young male who has obviously been attacked and is currently nursing some nasty looking, yet seemingly superficial wounds. The eldest female, with a very distinctive cut/damaged right ear appears to be lactating. Her movements are heavy and all three are showing signs of troubled times to the east of our border. Although we can only guess, at this stage, what has happened, it is very exciting to see some new faces in town!
We await to see if they are merely passing through or whether this is the beginning of a more concerted effort to move their borders westwards. Feel free to comment if you have had any experiences with the Styx Pride…
Written and photographed by Adam Bannister
Rich Laburn is filmmaker, photographer and writer who is based at Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa. Spending his time capturing scenes of the wild and communicating the beauty of the African bushveld, he runs the Londolozi Blog as a way to entertain and engage people wishing to visit these wild lands.
