The Southern Lion Pride has been a regular sighting on the Lion Sands Reserve over the last couple of months. On most occasions when the Pride has been sighted, we have only seen the two males and three of the five females. We believed the reason for this is because two other females have been hiding cubs in the South-eastern corner of the Reserve.

Finally, our wait was over…

On the evening game drive on the Thursday, 25 February, we located the Southern Lion Pride on the Marula Road in the Lion Sands Private Game Reserve. The Pride had brought down what looked like a young female Impala; all the Pride members were accounted for, fighting over the small Impala carcass.

All eyes and spotlights were on the commotion at the kill, when suddenly we heard a rustle in the nearby vegetation… What could this possibly have been..? A Hyena or maybe a Jackal..? Suddenly, to the delight of everyone viewing the pride, three cubs appeared from the brush and disappeared as quickly as they appeared. What an incredible sighting. Unfortunately we couldn’t view them for long, as they were still very young and we did not wish to put them under any unnecessary stress by keeping the spotlight on them.

We only viewed three cubs, but we expect that there were more nestled in the surrounding vegetation as both lactating females were present on the kill. We hope to get more exciting sightings of the growing cubs.

All images courtesy of Lion Sands field ranger Jacqui Glover