10/08/2017
World Lion Day!
We have had a very busy several months of carnivore monitoring, school visits, community meetings, kraal building, and taking tourists out on research drives under Uganda Wildlife Authority’s lion experience program. We wanted to take a moment on World Lion Day to provide an update on some of the lions…
The 3 males of Sankara, Rawlings, and Brother are still in charge of the northern part of Queen Elizabeth National Park. Chuma and his brother do their best to avoid the coalition of 3 by fleeing to the outer edges of the park when Sankara & Brothers are in the Kasenyi area. However, Sankara & Brothers have discovered their hiding places, and there have been encounters between the two groups of males. One of these encounters resulted in the severe injury of Chuma’s brother. We did a medical intervention in order to treat his wounds, and he is doing OK as of now. However, it’s a difficult life for Chuma and Brother to avoid both the ruling male coalition as well as conflict with humans outside the core park area.
Elderly Bridget and Lena and their 5 sub adult offspring are also doing OK, although there were some challenging times during the recent dry spell. It’s also becoming increasingly difficult for the senior lionesses to hunt enough to feed everyone. Chuma has been observed mating with Bridget.
Finally, Kogere and her sister have had cubs! We think there are 6 in total, with the father(s) being Sankara & Bros. The cubs are kept well hidden in the thickets, so we have only caught glimpses of them so far.
World Lion Day
