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It's generally accepted that one should only take males that either don't hold a pride or if they do, the pride has no dependant young in it. Certainly, it's true that a new incoming male will kill any young below 18 months -2 years or so, as it brings the females back into season and allows him to pass his own genes on.

It's becoming more common now, and latest research shows that it's possible to take pride holding males out on a "rolling" basis - that is, to identify the prides in your area and know roughly how long the male(s) have held the pride and the age of the youngsters. Then at an appropriate time you can take the pride holding males out one after another. (It's most common for 2 males, usually brothers, to hold a pride jointly) - so if you have 2 clients coming in one after the other, you try to take the 2 males out of the same pride one after the other.

This allows for the newcomers to take the pride over and the adolescent males will usually leave and in turn become nomadic until they're old and big enough to take over their own pride.

Of course, in reality, this is sometimes harder than it sounds. For example, if you see an old male on it's own or in the company of one other, it's possible that they've already been forced out of the pride by natural process, but it's equally possible that they have just got fed up with female company and gone off on their own for a few hours...... I've done that myself on occasion!

Ageing Lions is also not as easy as it sounds. The fashionable thing at the moment is the black nose theory.... and (IMHO) it's usually misunderstood. Most people seem commonly to think that a black nose equals a Lion over 6 years old..... hell, I've even heard that quoted on the TV.......(others claim pink noses equal age) but it ain't necessarily so. Take a look at any Lion TV documentary and you'll see plenty of black nosed cubs and adolescents. Also factor in that most Lions in real life have dirty or bloody noses and when they fight, they get scratched noses which when healing, go pink. - Then there are the geographical differences that occur. If Lions in some areas grow big manes and in other areas small manes, then what's to say, that all Lions of a certain age have noses of the same colour?........ (IMO) nose colour should only ever be used as a guidline and nothing more. Equally important in ageing a lion is size of mane - but take area typicalities into consideration here, size of head, (particularly width), spots or lack of them, general demeanour etc etc can all be important factors.

Then there's also the factor of human life. I don't usually like taking pride holders and will try to look for nomadic males to take - But the Lion I mentioned here was certainly holding a pride and in all honesty, I'm not certain if it had any youngsters in it, but if we hadn't made them go elsewhere you can be sure that sooner or later they would killed someone.There were 30 odd staff plus myself and my wife plus a client in camp - all sleeping under canvas. That's a lot of souls to keep safe!..... therefore, I felt justified in taking this particular Lion out of this particular pride in this particular case. Interestingly, later that same night, we heard the females kicking up a real hullabaloo and calling for a new male.

As with most things in Africa, things aren't always clear cut and one should never say never and never say always.....

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Steve "Shakari" Robinson
Kuduland Safaris (Africa) Ltd
info@kuduland.com
www.kuduland.com

Edited by shakari (16/05/06 06:56 PM)