This sighting, sent in by Marc Mol, was a truly tragic moment caught on camera, as a young lion faced death from multiple angles. As both hippos and crocodiles eyed it up, its only chance for survival were desperate attempts to reunite with its pride.
The natural world is beautiful, and full of incredible sights, but it can also be cruel and sometimes sad to watch, as predators target the young and the weak for the sake of a quick and easy meal.
Separated By A Gulf
The lion cubs had managed to get themselves into a real bind, but how exactly they’d managed to find themselves at the bottom of the small cliff is unknown. Presumably they’d fallen, as there didn’t seem to be an obvious way for them to return to the top.
There didn’t appear to be any immediate danger, but the majority of the adult lions had no way to join the two cubs at the edge of the water, and with only a small number of larger lions for defense, the poor cubs were vulnerable.
Although they would be formidable animals once they reached adulthood, these cubs were small and inexperienced, and relied on the protection of adults to make it through the early years of their development.
The Threat Emerges
Murky waters like these are typically a source of serious threats, even for ferocious fully grown apex predators. One of these threats made itself known shortly into the footage, as a huge hippo attacked.
Dwarfing the lions, this hippo clearly considered the water to be part of its territory, and as hippos fiercely defend their territory, this one was more than prepared to fight.
The small group of lions trapped on the lower level hurried along rather than face the hippo. This close to the water the lions would have been at a disadvantage, and all the ferocity they could muster wouldn’t protect them from the hippo’s powerful jaws.
A Bid For Freedom
The hippo was not successful in catching one of the intruding lions, but it did manage to scatter them along the shore. One of them saw an opportunity to climb out of its narrow prison, and began trying to escape.
Lions are not the best climbers out of the big cats, but they can usually make their way up into the tree branches if the situation calls for it. This was a far more ambitious climb for this lion, which was trying to scale a sheer cliff.
Using its sharp claws it was able to make it halfway up the face of the cliff, but a more serious problem was emerging. The hippos were snapping at its heels as it fell and made its way through the water, but there were other threats lurking beneath the waves.
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From Bad To Worse
Exactly what happened to the rest of the group that got trapped at the bottom of the cliff was unknown, but the hippos eventually managed to isolate one young lion, and harry it across the shore.
They chased the poor cub back and forth, but the little lion’s torment only got worse when crocodiles joined the fray. Standing atop the cliff, the adult lions could only watch helplessly as the crocs closed in.
Lions might be the apex predators on land, but in the water the crocodile has all of the advantages. The sighting turned incredibly sad as the lion cub, trying to escape, found itself unable to free itself from the jaws of the crocodile that dragged it below the surface of the water.