Recently our lions in stage one have been making amazing progress in their hunting abilities;

At Antelope Park eight month old Swahili and Sahara chased a rabbit, but it was just too quick for the young females. At exactly the same time 18 month old Luangwa and Msasa had more luck when they encountered a gang of banded mongoose. The mongoose dived for cover chased by Msasa. One made the mistake of breaking out of another whole and was quickly taken by Luangwa. Luangwa on another occasion got hold of a young wildebeest that got left behind when the herd panicked. Unusually, a male wildebeest came back to the aid of the calf and horned our young lion of his prize. Lozi, an 18 month old male made his first kill when he rushed a family of warthog and grabbed a piglet. Mana was not allowed to share his kill. At night 26 months old Landela and Ltalo managed to bag themselves a secretary bird, plucked from the sky as it tried to make its escape.

Down at Victoria Falls 18 month old Lungile and Lina encountered a herd of buffalo in a clearing. Lungile immediately reacted by jumping on to a sub-adult of about 2 years in age, and gripping it by the throat. The rest of the herd was so surprised by this sudden attack they immediately took off, and unusually, did not return to save the stricken animal. Lina came in to assist and it took the young lions some 35 minutes to suffocate the animal.

At stage two our release pride is chomping its way through the wildebeest herds at a steady pace but took time out to take on an extremely angry honey badger followed by killing a slower moving tortoise. Only Phyre has worked out how to deal with the heavily armoured creatures but Kenge seems very interested to learn.