This particularly gruesome sighting was caught by Admire Ndamane, a 23-year-old field guide from Sefapane Lodge and Safaris in Phalaborwa. Admire and his group witnessed this brutal side of nature while on a drive.
Watch Now:
They were on the H9 road, east of Shilawuri and heading towards Letaba when they came across another vehicle that had paused to observe the Nhlanganini lion pride, and joined them.
Admire told Latest Sightings they “were convinced that the buffalo was already dead as it made no sound or movement”, but no one expected the lions to do what they did next.
Brutality In Nature
Two males were standing next to the buffalo, one partially hidden in the bush, when one of them suddenly bent down and gripped something in its powerful jaws.
With a powerful wrench of its head, the lion pulled an unborn baby quickly and effortlessly out of the body of the buffalo, and trotted away with the gruesome meal dangling from its jaws.
Admire said that the buffalo “made some grueling sound as if whining out in extreme pain, and then she was quiet, this time, she really was dead.”
Two For The Price Of One
While hunting, predators typically attack individuals who can’t keep up with the herd. Usually that’s because they’re too young or old, or because they can’t maintain the pace of their healthy fellows due to injury.
In this case, the buffalo was likely vulnerable because of her pregnancy, and the lions took lethal advantage of this. Their reward is two buffalo to consume, for the energy expenditure of only hunting one.
Happy with its prize, the lion hurried away with the calf in its mouth, and Admire said they “did not see him again for the rest of the afternoon”. Perhaps the feline wanted to enjoy its meal away from prying eyes.
Get our Best Sightings as they Come in
The Requirements For Survival
A sighting like this appears to be genuinely quite tragic. Not only is it horrible to witness, but the noises of the dying mother as the lion rips her unborn calf from her are can make it more distressing.
From a human perspective, the feeding habits of these lions might appear cruel, but moments like these are essential for existing in the wild, where survival comes down to a dispassionate equation between energy expended and energy consumed.
For the Nhlanganini pride, this is either a lucky break, or a calculated benefit which, as Admire describes it, “makes you realize that nature can be extremely brutal and graphic sometimes.”
Three Days Later
Although that lion hurried off with the calf, the rest of the pride took their time consuming the mother. Admire returned to the site several times after this sighting, noting that that night “one of the males returned to the buffalo carcass and slept next to it.”
This was presumably to protect it from scavengers that might be in the area, but the lions seemed in no hurry to either move the dead buffalo or eat it.
On the second day Admire visited the site the lions, and buffalo, remained, but on the third day he said he “arrived to find that there was almost nothing left of the carcass and of course, no lions around either”.