{"id":169637,"date":"2015-07-06T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?guid=aaa3a6622ae8160ca3c0161006ec13c0"},"modified":"2019-12-23T00:56:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T11:56:35","slug":"close-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/close-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Close Call"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well folks, to say it’s been a hectic busy month would be an understatement. Just look at the time span between this post and my previous post? The outrage!<\/p>\n

Anyway – this is a quick recap of our last morning in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in December 2013.<\/p>\n

Since we would be leaving the park on this day, I left Twee Rivieren early for a quick drive up the Nossob river towards Kij Kij and back, while my wife and kids slept in a bit and packed the rest of the small stuff in the chalet.<\/p>\n

I found lions at Rooiputs waterhole – a small pride consisting of a lioness and 4 juveniles (males and a female). The lioness looked like she was nurturing a few wounds, no doubt picked up in a recent scrap.<\/p>\n

They looked fairly relaxed at the outset but it was about to change.<\/p>\n

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Just as they were about to drink again, I spotted a big male lion approaching from further up the Nossob riverbed.<\/p>\n

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I initially thought he might be this pride’s male returning from his nightly patrol…but as soon as these lions at the waterhole caught scent\/sound of the approaching male – they went into panic mode!<\/p>\n

The lioness sprang to her feet and rushed up and scooted south in the riverbed (in the direction I came from), running at brisk pace to get away before being noticed by the approaching male.<\/p>\n

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The cubs followed suit…and I could somewhat piece together what had probably happened that night. He was definitely not their pride male!<\/p>\n

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This male must have been on their tracks for a while, he might even have been responsible for the gash on the lioness hind leg…why?<\/p>\n

Who knows – perhaps because it’s his region and they are not his cubs? The lion family disappeared from view just as the male caught their scent – he knew something was up…<\/p>\n

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He moved around the area for a while before finally having the drink he came for, and moving into the dunes…<\/p>\n

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This was one of those sightings that didn’t deliver any outstanding photographs, but it was a very memorable moment of natural history and lion behaviour that I was able to witness.<\/p>\n

The dynamics between different prids of lions is always full of tension and drama, and this morning I think the lioness and her family came off the better for it. It also leaves some questions.<\/p>\n

Why were they alone and without a pride male?<\/p>\n

Why were they afraid of this specific male?<\/p>\n

Why was the large male alone, was he a nomad that had been dethroned from his pride?<\/p>\n

Nature is fascinating. The Kalahari is fascinating.<\/p>\n

You should make a plan to visit it!<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well folks, to say it’s been a hectic busy month would be an understatement. Just look at the time span between this post and my previous post? The outrage! Anyway – this is a quick recap of our last morning in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in December 2013. Since we would be leaving the park […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":2196117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-h1JHydd-I60\/VZMIr-q8aHI\/AAAAAAAArkM\/4lPHFh-i6WE\/s640\/_D3S6904.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[625,2623],"class_list":["post-169637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-kgalagadi-transfrontier-park","tag-morkel-erasmus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2196117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}