Welcome to the week of the African Lion. The African Lion used to be found throughout the entire continent of Africa and parts of Greece but now primarily reside in Southern and Eastern Africa due to habitat loss so conservation for them is imperative. Lions like grassy plains and savannahs, woodlands and scrubs. Lions are huge cats weighing 330-500 pounds and a lion’s roar can be heard up to 5 miles away.
Lions are social creatures and live in groups called “Prides”. A pride has about 15 lions, With about 2-3 males in them. Females do almost all of the hunting in a pride. Lions are carnivorous predators and they will eat anything they can take down. Rabbits, birds and reptiles are on the menu as well as zebra, giraffe, buffalo, impala, sometimes even rhinos and elephants. They are still cats and the same way your litttle tabby stalks a ball of yarn is no different than the crouch and pounce that the big cats use.
Lions mate throughout the year and have a gestation period of around 110 days. A lioness can give birth to 3 or 4 cubs in a litter. While the females do most of the hunting. The males are the protectors of the pride. Cubs are vulnerable to predators and typically don’t participate in the hunt until they’re almost a year old.
In my time at Timbavati Wildlife Park, I have used the lions as alarm clocks. When you get there and the sun is coming up, they roar pretty good. They also roar around dusk as well that tells me it’s almost time to go home for the evening. A lion can sleep up to 20 hours a day, so that might just be the time of day when a good stretch is needed!
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