Do you think you can stand some more
lions? We saw a lot of them and each group is very interesting. We
came upon about ten or twelve lions early one morning that had killed a buffalo
some hours before. They were going at it tooth and nail and paid no
attention to us at all.
The cub is all wet from being inside the
carcass.
There must be something good in there
because mom pushes him aside and goes in herself.
She finds a tasty morsel. The
strength she displayed with her whole body to pull this piece out was very
impressive. Hope it's not too gory for you--it's not when you're
there--just very interesting.
She finally has had enough. All I
could think of was: I can't believe I ate the whole thing!
All the lionesses were so full they could
hardly breathe. Their stomachs were stretched taut.
The cubs spent a lot of time in between
eating sessions just playing around on the fallen tree nearby, annoying the
adults, nursing, chasing each other, and playing King of the
Karkass.
The two males, having naturally eaten
their fill first, were totally sacked out nearby. You can see dirt on him
where the cubs climbed around on his full tummy.
We went back to this kill twice more and
they were still guarding if from the hyenas and vultures. They moved it up
under the branches of the dead tree also--even half eaten, that's a lot of
weight to drag anywhere! The next morning the cubs were eating together
and were so noisily aggressive to each other, snarling and growling and
snapping, that even the guides were surprised at how grown up they
sounded. Finally one of the lionesses, who was trying to sleep, went into
the fray and told them all to knock it off and they
did!