The Lion Hunt

There is a lioness in Madikwe Game Reserve by the name of Lebala-bonthle, a Tswana name meaning ‘Beautiful’.Lebala-bonthle has three youngsters that are all males. They are about 18 months of age and are still very much dependant on their mother to hunt for them. There are no other members to this particular pride, so for a lioness hunting on her own it is not an easy task at all. A lion on its own is said to only have about a 20% success rate when hunting.

Luckily the wildebeest hadn’t cottoned onto what was happening and proceeded to drink.
With the wildebeest now in close range of the lions, Lebala-bonthle jumped up and ran in for the kill with one of her young running right behind her also eager for the hunt.
The wildebeest in an instant made a quick turn and ran with the lioness just a few feet away. The wildebeest was fortunate to have a long enough head start and it managed to escape, leaving the lions behind with mouths full of dust to eat.
So yet another day went by without food for the lions.

The following day Lebala-bonthle was still at the same dam, but this time on her own. Lying in the shade of a small acacia tree she was busy eyeing out a small group of warthog that were indulging in a mud bath.

We decided to go have a quick coffee and then return to see if Lebala-bonthle was still interested in the warthogs.

As we arrived back at the dam there were two white rhinos grazing close by. While watching the rhinos we heard a loud squealing noise and in an instant we left the rhinos to go investigate.

Lebala-bonthle had caught a warthog and a big one too! The only problem was that she had grabbed the warthog at the back of the neck and she wasn’t able to suffocate it and if she let go to change her hold she could then loose it. For a good 10 minutes the two of them wrestled to the ground with the warthog putting up a good fight. The question was would she be able to hold on long enough to totally exhaust her prey?
Suddenly out of nowhere Lebala-bonthles’ youngsters came running to see what all the commotion was all about. Would their mother get a fright and let go of the warthog when they suddenly arrived on the scene or would she hold on to it?
Lebala-bonthle held onto her prey and in a second all three young males piled onto the warthog and started eating the warthog alive while their mother exhausted, lay down to rest.
Finally it was all over and the lions had their meal of the day.

Lioness Lebala-bonthle killing a Widebeest in an earlier kill