The Nduna pride’s persistence pays off.
The pride were tired from their long travels of the last couple of days, but still they kept at it and were on the move again at dusk.
It was hardly dark and they took off into the mopanie scrub. There was no stalking involved. They had picked up on their target and without hesitation they were onto the buffalo bull. It was an old bull in good condition but just didn’t have it in him to run away. He stood his ground trying to chase off the lions. But there were too many of them and as proficient buffalo hunters they surrounded their quarry.
Then one at a time they jumped on him from behind. As he swung round to shake them off another would jump on him. He just didn’t have enough in him to shake them off and after about 3 minutes he collapsed under the combined weight of 10 lions. But that was only the beginning of his slow death. While the rest of pride hung onto his huge hulk of a body with tooth and claw, one lioness went for the stranglehold. But his thick skin proved too much. Next she worked on suffocating him by smothering his mouth and nose. After about 15 minutes she still wasn’t getting anywhere.
With the pain of all those teeth and claws raking into flesh his bellows carried for miles.
Then a second lioness joined the other at the head. She went for the stranglehold and the other lioness kept on smothering him. This team effort worked and after a total of about 20minutes the bull eventually succumbed.
Then the feast began as they tucked into nearly one ton of meat.
About an hour later guess who should arrive on the scene? Non other than Nduna himself and his mate.
By dawn the lions had carved serious inroads into the carcass with little much left other than skin and bones. But these will keep them going probably for another night as they keep stocking up those larders of bellies.
There are many different images, mainly of animals on this wall. But they don’t seem to be linked to each other in any way. They don’t seem to be telling a story. It’s also quite possible that these drawings were done at different times.
This giraffe has wonderful conformation but a big stomach, which makes me wonder if it wasn’t portrayed as such because of it being heavily pregnant.
19th April 2000
The evening started off well when we came across a cheetah still strangling an impala. This was after dark and unusual for a cheetah to be hunting in the dark like this. They have been known to hunt with a full moon, which did rise about half an hour later. She then moved off and returned with 3 cubs about 4 months old. They all had a good feast before 2 hyaenas arrived, chased them off and disappeared with the carcass. Luckily the hyaenas were focussed on the carcass and left the cubs alone. While the cubs were scattering to safety the mother did keep the hyaenas at bay and several times swatted them as they backed off with their backsides low on the ground in anticipation of the impending hiding.
We spent the whole night searching for any signs of Tjololo. By 5h00 still no sign. Very disappointing as we’re concerned about his health and his probably still being in Kruger we have no way of following up. Then we suddenly bumped into him strolling down the road in all his glory without a worry in the world and looking well. His wounds have lost their swelling and look very clean. We lost him as he disappeared chasing after some impala.
In the process of trying to locate Tjololo we slid into another swamp and I had my face slashed by some thorns of the Knob-thorn Acacia on the edge of it. Looks like Tjololo and I have now both been in the wars, so no more feeling sorry for him. Priorities have taken over.
Around midnight we had the good fortune of bumping into the Paradise Valley female and her 2 male cubs, Sholololwane and his brother. They all had hugely distended stomachs and couldn’t do much other than lie around until a hyaena had them scattering into trees. The cubs at 15-18 months are already receiving the cold shoulder from their mother telling them to go out on their own. But both already being bigger than her, leaves her with little choice but to carry on feeding them until that male urge drives them to wander off on their own.
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