For the past two weeks, there have been intriguing sightings in the Southern part of the reserve, making it thrilling to take our Mhondoro guests on game drives. In the reserve, we have two different prides of lions; the Southern pride and the Western pride. On this particular day, my guests had already seen the Western pride on three different occasions during their stay. In an attempt to keep the game drives as exciting as possible, I decided to venture into the Southern plains of Welgevonden to track down the Southern pride.
A Thrilling Encounter at Blue Dam
The Southern part of the reserve offers wide open grass plains, allowing you to see far into the distance. While driving, I spotted a huge cloud of dust near Blue Dam, named after the beautiful color of the water that can be seen from afar. Upon arrival, we observed two sub-adult lions and a lioness digging around an Aardvark hole, evidently having spotted something inside—a male warthog!
A Hard Lesson for a Young Lion
After a few seconds, the warthog shot out of the hole with the lions in hot pursuit. Seeing the danger, the warthog turned around to defend itself. One inexperienced sub-adult lion rushed forward to attack, a mistake that led to the warthog using its tusks to counter-attack, causing a serious injury to the young lion’s right upper front quarter. While the other two lions successfully cornered and killed the warthog, the injured youngster was left to lick his wounds—a hard lesson learned.
The moral of the story is that one only learns by making mistakes. Hopefully, this young male lion will think twice before rushing at a warthog again!
