MY DECISIONS. HARD DECISIONS.
I have a few really hard decisions to make in my line of work. When I first arrived at GG, there were many pregnant lionesses as Pat Shannon had been actively breeding lions purportedly to 'save the African Lion Gene Pool'.
Many of the lionesses miscarried and some ignored their cubs after birth. I think perhaps due to the insecurity, vulnerability or unsettled atmosphere existing here at that time.
In January 2012 (3 months after I arrived at GG), I made the decision to separate all males and females so that we stopped breeding altogether. I realised that unless breeding was allowed in a judicial manner and only on extremely rare and important occasions, it would not only be unethical but entirely unnecessary as we are not a tourist facility and Traci and I do not allow cub petting and I won't sell our older lions to make space for younger ones as Pat used to do. So in order not to over populate our reserve, I separated all couples.
In January 2013 I decided to allow 4 of my newly matured males who were going hormonally crazy to each move in with a female. These 4 males, Fire, Ice, Stripey and Smokey were changing.
Their very characters were being altered by frustration and animal desire. I decided that it was important to allow them to experience as close to a natural life as possible and that my duty to them was to keep them as content as possible. To endure life in captivity as well as to be denied a female was causing too much distress. So I braced myself for these four couples to potentially each have cubs and I prayed that their mom's would care for them. Well, three of the four couples had cubs and all 3 mothers did care for their young.
Cember and Smokey had 2 girls.
Zabrina and Ice had 2 boys and 1 girl.
Angel of Fire and Stripey had 6 cubs.
Fire and Komako never conceived.
Cember is still caring for her 2 daughters.
Angel of Fire only ever allowed 4 of her 6 cubs to suckle. Which ever were the first 4 to latch on, got to feed. When a 5th one approached she'd stand up,shake them all off and move a few meters away. After awhile one cub became progressively weaker and therefore was, more often than not, the last to latch on, so on day 7 he died. I watched them every day and it became apparent that another male cub was slowly becoming the next weakest. On day 10, Angel of Fire swatted him away and I made the decision to pick him up. So I became the proud foster mother of Taai While Angel of Fire happily reared her remaining 4 cubs. A few months later one of these girls crawled under the fence into Komako's camp and was badly wounded, we had to put her down. The other 3; Shaka, Nandi and Zandile still live with their parents.
Zabrina and Ice had 3 cubs, Luke, Leah and Lennon. They cared for them beautifully for a year. But then Ice began charging and slapping his cubs. He eventually engaged in a full on attack, killing Lennon and badly hurting Luke and Leah. I called the vet in, we darted the wounded two, cleaned, repaired and stitched them up. We moved them into the camp alongside of their parents.
I decided to move Ice, Smokey and Stripey back together again as they'd had their mating experience. Fire and Komako loved each other and were extremely demonstrative in their physical affection for one another, but never had cubs, so leaving them together was safe. I also felt that the other 3 mom's had company (their kids) whilst Komako would be left alone if she didn't have Fire.
Sadly though, Fire died (see his story in facebook posts from Dec 2014) leaving Komako grieving. She lay on the exact spot where we'd darted Fire on the day we'd loaded him into the crate to take him to the vet in Pretoria. The last spot he'd lain on in their camp. She lay their 90% of every day for the next 3 months.
Her camp is next to the gates and every time I entered through them, Komako would begin running up to the gates. I'd get out of my car and go to the sash gate where there aren't electrics and wait for her to come up and to kiss me through the wires. She hadn't used to do this, but ever since Fire's disappearance from her life, I reckoned she was lonely so took a kiss where she could get one. But after a few weeks, she stopped coming and I realised she hadn't been seeking me, it was Fire she was expecting every time I arrived home in the vehicle which had taken him from her. Eventually she gave up and lay permanently in her spot.
She was grieving. She was lacklustre.
I made a decision. I decided that I would move Ice in with Komako. They had been keenly observing each other through the fence for some time and I could think of no other way to change Komako's circumstances as she'd never been with any of our other lionesses and so couldn't now join another female group.
We waited for her to go into Oestrous to ease the transition. Although showing, by means of sidewards glances, interest in one another, they remained remarkably shy orbiting a few meters apart at all times.
What I had not realised was that Zabrina was pregnant. She and Ice must have conceived at the time that he'd attacked Luke, Leah and Lennon. Whilst I'd been concentrating on Komako and moving Ice in with her, Zabrina had been pregnant. I don't know why she'd come into oestrous again when her cubs were only 12 months old, perhaps it was linked to why Ice had decided to attack his own children, or visa versa.
Zabrina's is in a 3Ha camp with long grass. We often only partially see her and some times only at quite a distance. She gave birth early in Feb to two tawny cubs and two white cubs. Thulani spotted them, but because it is my policy to not disturb mothers with cubs, neither I nor my team saw them for the next 3 weeks as Zabrina had chosen a private spot tucked under some trees deep in the middle of her large camp. She was tending to them and we only saw her when she came up to the water trough for a drink.
On Wednesday 4th March, on our way to school, Rhoan and I spotted Zabrina in the mowed strip of grass which runs along the fence line with her 4 cubs in tow. We had 10 minutes to spare so watched them through my binoculars until Zabrina eventually walked off in the direction of their 'den' and 3 of the cubs scampered after her. Rhoan was concerned for the 4th cub, but Zabrina stopped and called out until the cub found his sense of direction and trotted after her.
I returned from town at around 10am and as per usual I idled next to Komako's fence-line as I waited for the gates to close and I lent out of my window to call greetings to her. I was most surprised to see a lioness, but not Komako, lying where Komako should be. It took a few seconds to process...it was Zabrina, inside of Komako and Ice's camp!
I phoned Thulani to quickly come down in his bakkie as we needed to get Zabrina out before she and Komako fought.
Ice was lying between Zabrina and Komako with approximate gaps of 20m between each lion. No aggression yet, or maybe there had already been a skirmish and I'd missed it, but for the moment a hiatus existed.
My concern was, where were the cubs. Had Rhoan and I not seen them following her and hanging out at the fence boundary earlier, I would have assumed they were still too small and been left in their den under the trees. But having seen them that morning, I was really worried that they'd followed their mom into Komako's camp.
Thulani arrived, I climbed into his bakkie and we drove carefully through the veld, eyes trained for the cubs. We found the hole in the fence which was a double fence with electric wiring. Zabrina had bitten through each individual wire on the bonox fencing and braved the shock of 6 electric wires so as to get to Ice, her partner, whom Komako was stealing.
But no sign of the 4 cubs.
Thulani and I climbed from the vehicle and began quietly walking through the veld towards their den, scanning and probing the long dense tufts of veld as we walked. We needed to ascertain their whereabouts purely to know if they were safe. The other 3 men on our team were heading down to help us herd Zabrina out of Komako's camp, but this would leave the cubs vulnerable if they were in fact in there already. Komako suddenly jumped up and ran towards something in her camp, we saw a tawny cub flying through the air as she swatted it, as it landed she picked it up it in her mouth and began shaking it. At the same time the other 3 cubs could now be seen as they dashed away from Komako and scurried straight out, under the fence where the undulation of the ground formed a slight gap, not into their own camp, but out into the open veld surrounding the lion enclosures.
Thulani ran towards Komako, clapping and shouting at her to go away which she did, leaving the wounded cub in long grass where from our side of the fence we couldn't see her.
The three escapees lay down silently and hid as cubs do.
Thulani and I conferred, quickly running through our options. We discussed moving Zabrina back while I went outside to prevent the cubs from re-entering Komako's camp but at the same time leaving the way clear for them to enter their own camp. But we were concerned that Zabrina would simply head back to Ice. We were discussing moving Ice back in with Zabrina when Ice himself walked over to his wounded cub and began hitting her before picking her up in his mouth and swinging her about. We discussed how he'd hurt Luke and Leah and killed Lennon. Just then the 3 escapees began leopard crawling, as lions do, retracing their exit path heading back into Komako's camp.
Both Ice and Komako leaped towards them and Zabrina charged in to defend. The two females engaged in a furious fight while Ice seemed to try to get between them and push them down. I don't know if you've been close to lions fighting, suffice it to say, it is a high adrenaline moment with a great deal of scary sounds and gnashing of teeth.
In the midst of all of this, the two girl cubs dashed back into hiding, whilst the boy cub continued to bravely attempt to scurry back under the fence into the camp with the 3 furiously fighting adults.
Thulani and I simultaneously rushed towards him clapping and waving arms to scare him away. He responded. He and his sisters ran off, out of sight, into a ditch among a grazing herd of zebra and a scattering of ostriches.
Zabrina and Komako were both wounded. Ice was pacing between them. We made the decision that the men should move Ice and Zabrina back into their original enclosure while Thulani and I kept the cubs away from Komako's fence.
But the cubs crept further and further away into the open veld outside of the reserve. We agreed to pick the cubs up.
We put the cubs into the back of my bakkie and I drove back to the lodge with them whilst Thulani and his crew stayed to separate the adult lions and mend the fence.
They were dehydrated and constipated, perhaps Zabrina hadn't been attending to them quite as well as I'd imagined. I had to administer Ringers Lactate subcutaneously several times and even put Lilly on a drip for a while.
Zabrina and Komako both recovered from their fight. I have asked Traci for money to fence off half of the large enclosure so that Ice can move away from Zabrina. I will move Smokey and Stripey in with Ice so the 3 brothers can be together again. We miss Fire, as will the brothers.
Many of the lionesses miscarried and some ignored their cubs after birth. I think perhaps due to the insecurity, vulnerability or unsettled atmosphere existing here at that time.
In January 2012 (3 months after I arrived at GG), I made the decision to separate all males and females so that we stopped breeding altogether. I realised that unless breeding was allowed in a judicial manner and only on extremely rare and important occasions, it would not only be unethical but entirely unnecessary as we are not a tourist facility and Traci and I do not allow cub petting and I won't sell our older lions to make space for younger ones as Pat used to do. So in order not to over populate our reserve, I separated all couples.
In January 2013 I decided to allow 4 of my newly matured males who were going hormonally crazy to each move in with a female. These 4 males, Fire, Ice, Stripey and Smokey were changing.
 |
| Ice. Smokey. Fire. Stripey. |
Cember and Smokey had 2 girls.
Zabrina and Ice had 2 boys and 1 girl.
Angel of Fire and Stripey had 6 cubs.
Fire and Komako never conceived.
Cember is still caring for her 2 daughters.
 |
| Cember & daughters |
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| Taai |
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| Ice lying in front of Stripey, Angel of Fire & cubs Shaka, Nandi and Zandile |
Zabrina and Ice had 3 cubs, Luke, Leah and Lennon. They cared for them beautifully for a year. But then Ice began charging and slapping his cubs. He eventually engaged in a full on attack, killing Lennon and badly hurting Luke and Leah. I called the vet in, we darted the wounded two, cleaned, repaired and stitched them up. We moved them into the camp alongside of their parents.
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| The mending of Luke and Leah |
Sadly though, Fire died (see his story in facebook posts from Dec 2014) leaving Komako grieving. She lay on the exact spot where we'd darted Fire on the day we'd loaded him into the crate to take him to the vet in Pretoria. The last spot he'd lain on in their camp. She lay their 90% of every day for the next 3 months.
 |
| Fire darted, Ice sending him off with a loving display. |
She was grieving. She was lacklustre.
I made a decision. I decided that I would move Ice in with Komako. They had been keenly observing each other through the fence for some time and I could think of no other way to change Komako's circumstances as she'd never been with any of our other lionesses and so couldn't now join another female group.
We waited for her to go into Oestrous to ease the transition. Although showing, by means of sidewards glances, interest in one another, they remained remarkably shy orbiting a few meters apart at all times.
What I had not realised was that Zabrina was pregnant. She and Ice must have conceived at the time that he'd attacked Luke, Leah and Lennon. Whilst I'd been concentrating on Komako and moving Ice in with her, Zabrina had been pregnant. I don't know why she'd come into oestrous again when her cubs were only 12 months old, perhaps it was linked to why Ice had decided to attack his own children, or visa versa.
Zabrina's is in a 3Ha camp with long grass. We often only partially see her and some times only at quite a distance. She gave birth early in Feb to two tawny cubs and two white cubs. Thulani spotted them, but because it is my policy to not disturb mothers with cubs, neither I nor my team saw them for the next 3 weeks as Zabrina had chosen a private spot tucked under some trees deep in the middle of her large camp. She was tending to them and we only saw her when she came up to the water trough for a drink.
On Wednesday 4th March, on our way to school, Rhoan and I spotted Zabrina in the mowed strip of grass which runs along the fence line with her 4 cubs in tow. We had 10 minutes to spare so watched them through my binoculars until Zabrina eventually walked off in the direction of their 'den' and 3 of the cubs scampered after her. Rhoan was concerned for the 4th cub, but Zabrina stopped and called out until the cub found his sense of direction and trotted after her.
I returned from town at around 10am and as per usual I idled next to Komako's fence-line as I waited for the gates to close and I lent out of my window to call greetings to her. I was most surprised to see a lioness, but not Komako, lying where Komako should be. It took a few seconds to process...it was Zabrina, inside of Komako and Ice's camp!
I phoned Thulani to quickly come down in his bakkie as we needed to get Zabrina out before she and Komako fought.
Ice was lying between Zabrina and Komako with approximate gaps of 20m between each lion. No aggression yet, or maybe there had already been a skirmish and I'd missed it, but for the moment a hiatus existed.
My concern was, where were the cubs. Had Rhoan and I not seen them following her and hanging out at the fence boundary earlier, I would have assumed they were still too small and been left in their den under the trees. But having seen them that morning, I was really worried that they'd followed their mom into Komako's camp.
Thulani arrived, I climbed into his bakkie and we drove carefully through the veld, eyes trained for the cubs. We found the hole in the fence which was a double fence with electric wiring. Zabrina had bitten through each individual wire on the bonox fencing and braved the shock of 6 electric wires so as to get to Ice, her partner, whom Komako was stealing.
But no sign of the 4 cubs.
Thulani and I climbed from the vehicle and began quietly walking through the veld towards their den, scanning and probing the long dense tufts of veld as we walked. We needed to ascertain their whereabouts purely to know if they were safe. The other 3 men on our team were heading down to help us herd Zabrina out of Komako's camp, but this would leave the cubs vulnerable if they were in fact in there already. Komako suddenly jumped up and ran towards something in her camp, we saw a tawny cub flying through the air as she swatted it, as it landed she picked it up it in her mouth and began shaking it. At the same time the other 3 cubs could now be seen as they dashed away from Komako and scurried straight out, under the fence where the undulation of the ground formed a slight gap, not into their own camp, but out into the open veld surrounding the lion enclosures.
Thulani ran towards Komako, clapping and shouting at her to go away which she did, leaving the wounded cub in long grass where from our side of the fence we couldn't see her.
The three escapees lay down silently and hid as cubs do.
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| Cubs hiding in the veld |
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| Ice and Zabrina |
Both Ice and Komako leaped towards them and Zabrina charged in to defend. The two females engaged in a furious fight while Ice seemed to try to get between them and push them down. I don't know if you've been close to lions fighting, suffice it to say, it is a high adrenaline moment with a great deal of scary sounds and gnashing of teeth.
In the midst of all of this, the two girl cubs dashed back into hiding, whilst the boy cub continued to bravely attempt to scurry back under the fence into the camp with the 3 furiously fighting adults.
Thulani and I simultaneously rushed towards him clapping and waving arms to scare him away. He responded. He and his sisters ran off, out of sight, into a ditch among a grazing herd of zebra and a scattering of ostriches.
Zabrina and Komako were both wounded. Ice was pacing between them. We made the decision that the men should move Ice and Zabrina back into their original enclosure while Thulani and I kept the cubs away from Komako's fence.
But the cubs crept further and further away into the open veld outside of the reserve. We agreed to pick the cubs up.
 |
| Thulani carries the dead cub out of Komako's camp |
We put the cubs into the back of my bakkie and I drove back to the lodge with them whilst Thulani and his crew stayed to separate the adult lions and mend the fence.
The 3 cubs were covered in poo. Hiding in the far corner of the bakkie. I crawled in to fetch them, passing each one out to Shanéad and Taiga who came running out the house to help me.
The girls and I ran through the various ways of washing them, we settled on climbing into the swimming pool with them as being the least stressful. That way, we could hug them securely whilst washing them. Holding them over a bath would be alarming and they'd fight and scratch for dear life.
Taiga, Shanéad and I put on long sleeve shirts and jerseys as protection for our human skin and each snuggled a cub close to our chests, whispering and soothing them as we climbed into the pool where we gently swooshed them and caressed them clean.
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| getting ready to wash the cubs |
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| The Love Pride Lebanon, Lilly and Lyla |
It took 5 days to get them to drink from a bottle. This is why places which want tourists and volunteers to bottle feed cubs have to take them from their mums when they are much younger. It is really hard to get them to adjust to a rubber teat and the taste of formula after they've had the far superior feeding from the mother. Taiga has been invaluable in caring for these babies and she named them. After endless hours of perseverance, she managed to coax them to take the bottle.
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| Shanéad with Lebanon |
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| Taiga with Lilly and Lyla |
Zabrina's pregnancy should not have happened and I have learnt a big lesson. Lionesses can go into oestrous even when they still have 12 month old cubs.
I am against the breeding of white lions for the sake of having white lions. I disapprove of inbreeding and unfortunately almost all white lions come from just this. I see it as a human driven industry wherein people have created this perception of white lions being more special or sacred.
So to find genetically pure white cubs born from tawny parents and tawny grandparents is rare and rather wonderful.
So, welcome to the family Love Pride, we will take care of you, protect you and give you all the care you need. We are honoured to know you.
lovelionsalive@gmail.com
I am against the breeding of white lions for the sake of having white lions. I disapprove of inbreeding and unfortunately almost all white lions come from just this. I see it as a human driven industry wherein people have created this perception of white lions being more special or sacred.
So to find genetically pure white cubs born from tawny parents and tawny grandparents is rare and rather wonderful.
So, welcome to the family Love Pride, we will take care of you, protect you and give you all the care you need. We are honoured to know you.
lovelionsalive@gmail.com
while I was reading through ur blog I fell in love with angel of fire,and his love for komako..it broke my heart wen I read he died,i felt komako's grief :(
ReplyDeleteThis is an incredible blog. I am so glad I found it. Hoping for more news from you guys! Hopefully we may get to visit in the next few months,
ReplyDelete