Watch the video of the incident here:
Contributors Danica Roux (video) and Kyle Smith (photos) submitted their footage and accounts of the incident to Latest Sightings. They witnessed it at Mestel Dam, Kruger National Park.
Travelling separately
The last-minute decisions of Roux and Smith, who were travelling separately, resulted in them being witness to a brutal act of Nature.
Kyle Smith thought he’d struck the jackpot when he found a leopard resting near the water. Little did he realise that things were about to get much more exciting.
First, a herd of buffalo arrived and promptly chased off the leopard. Notoriously bad-tempered, buffalo don’t mess around when they find a predator in their midst.
When Danica arrived later, the buffalo were still milling around the water. Danica continues,
“We were just about to leave when we heard a bit of commotion off to the side of the herd. I saw a lioness being chased off and of course, I was quite thrilled at our luck, the first game drive of our stay and here we have a lion.”
Confusion turned to shock
For Kyle, when the buffalo suddenly started to stampede, he was confused by behaviour in the middle of the herd. Some of the buffalo appeared to be tripping over something.
Moments later, he realised the buffalo had discovered and were attacking a lioness. What followed was a sustained period of brutality.
No escape
From out of the swirling dust, the buffalo threw the hapless lion into the air. While some herd members looked on nonchalantly, others repeatedly trampled, gored and tossed the unfortunate feline.
As the 150-kilogram cat was thrown about, it was unclear whether it was still alive. Regardless, with this sort of punishment, even short-term survival seemed unlikely.
Like a macabre version of crowd-surfing, the limp cat’s body bounced on the backs of the murderous mass. Soon enough, the spectators realised that the lion was probably dead.
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Unceremonious
In time, her body once again landed on the ground. Now, there could be no doubt. The queen was dead.
In time, most of the herd moved on. However, as the last remnants of the group passed, they could not resist the temptation to visit further indignity on her battered corpse.
Last respects
Even when the second lion re-emerged and approached her fallen sister, she was challenged and chased.
Eventually though, she made it to the battered body. Said Kyle, “Watching the surviving lioness approach the body was quite a sad moment… there’s this realisation that there was some sort of bond between these two animals, enough to make the surviving lioness lay down, almost as if waiting for the other lioness to get up.”
Sadly, that was not to be. With the camp gate closing imminently, Kyle and Danica left the lion to mourn her loss.
Danica ends her account with this philosophical aside, “Nature is an incredible thing. When you think it can’t get [more cruel], it does.
“When you think it can’t get any more magnificent, you’ll be surprised. It’s not every day that the prey becomes the killer, but sometimes it does happen.”