I am reminded however of Mark Twain’s comment “Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated” The same applies to Ma di Tau who was actually mating when I saw her a few days ago. She is robust and clearly still in the seductive prime of her life having raised another very large female cub, and adopted the young male cub of one of the females in the pride she hunted with. The second lioness was killed near our camp a month ago by marauding females (probably the old Skimmer Pride.)
By contrast we can now confirm that Silver Eye is hunting the great plains in the skies, and has not been seen in this earthly realm for some months. She went through a tough life and was one of the most unbelievably effective huntresses I’ve ever followed, despite her one milky eye. Maybe she saw buffalo as only half sized but she tackled them with no apparent fear of retaliation. I filmed her running into deep water at full speed to get to a buffalo and saw her take a full buffalo strike to the side that tossed her out of the water, only to then jump straight back into battle. Silver Eye was admired and followed by many lion enthusiasts and visitors to Duba. Today, a sub group of the Tsaro Pride is developing (five hunting lions and a male) and they are being called Silver Eye’s pride. Last week they were feeding on a buffalo cow, an indication that they have inherited her willingness to take on the buffalo, and win.
The dynamics of the Duba lion situation is worthy of a soap opera, (which we may do one day) but an addition to the formula at Duba is a flush of leopards that are extremely calm, something that hasn’t been seen At Duba in years, but now probably because of what seems like a massive increase in the letchwe population.
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