Lions at a kill, Mountain Zebra National Park

By Roxanne Reid
In April 2013, 130 years after they had last roamed free in the area, lions were introduced to the Mountain Zebra National Park near Cradock in the Eastern Cape Karoo. On a recent visit we were lucky enough to see these lions at a kill on the Kranskop Loop.

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On our morning drive we’d stopped at the view point at the top of the pass near the 1957-metre Bakenkop peak. Here a sign urged us to check for lions before getting out of our car to appreciate the view. We chuckled because although we’d looked for the lions on a previous visit, they were nowhere to be found. But, well-schooled in the need to be sensible and follow the rules, we scanned the area first just in case.

​After drinking in the view out over the hills and valleys, we hopped back into the car continue our drive. Only about a kilometre further on, before the Kranskop Loop branched off to the Rooiplaat Loop, we found the two big males with a buffalo kill. 

​These beautiful brothers with their thick blonde manes and conspicuous lack of battle scars rule the area, preying mostly on buffalo, eland, hartebeest and kudu. They have no competition; they’re the only male lions in the park and other predators like cheetah and brown hyena are no threat to them.

​Buffalo kill
The carcass was right next to the road. One of the lions was eating noisily, bone and sinews cracking. His brother lay about 10 metres away gazing quietly into the distance. Most of the buffalo’s rump had already disappeared into the two hungry lion tummies. We watched for more than an hour until too many cars – in the Mountain Zebra park context that’s about five – sent the lion at the kill stalking off to lie with his brother. 

​They were still there in the afternoon, lying on their backs, fat tummies in the air, one’s paw on the other’s shoulder. Shortly before it was time to get back to camp for gate closing one of them came to gnaw a bit on the kill, the stomach of which was still intact but hideously bloated. 

​By 7 am next morning when we returned, the stomach contents were spread around and I wondered if one of the lions had pierced it and given himself a fright as it exploded. The lions were nowhere to be seen though it wasn’t clear whether they were just over the ridge. Two jackals were sniffing around but didn’t approach the carcass to feed. Five crows gathered nearby, but in the hour and a half we sat there neither they nor the jackals ate from the kill. 

There are no spotted hyenas or vultures in the park so once the lions abandoned the buffalo meal to kill again, who ate the rest? According to park manager Megan Taplin, the scavenging role here is fulfilled by blackbacked jackal, brown hyena, crows and even animals such as bushpig. She said that on a previous buffalo kill, after the lions had finished and moved off, jackals took good advantage of the carcass and she counted 12 of them gnawing away at once. ‘An interesting sighting was of a jackal buzzard feeding on a mountain zebra carcass – I’d never seen that before,’ she said.

But our experience at the buffalo kill showed that the lions were providing so well for the jackals that they could afford to be casual, no unseemly rush to eat when they were already well-fed. Not like their cousins at Kruger or Kgalagadi who will risk their lives to try to steal a morsel while the lions are still guarding their kill.

​‘Spotted hyena would historically have occurred in the area and may be considered for introduction in the long-term but not in the near future,’ said Megan. The park would first want to look carefully at predator numbers because spotties aren’t just scavengers but major predators too, killing up to 80% of their own prey. ‘Vultures would definitely have occurred in the area,’ she added, ‘but currently the closest colony to the park is near Tarkastad, about 100km away. We hope that one day they’ll migrate this way.’

​Mountain zebra kill
In the afternoon we went back to the Kranskop Loop to see what was happening at the kill but found no activity other than a black cloud of flies. From the top of the hill we had a good view down to the Rooiplaat Loop a kilometre or two away. We noticed four cars cruising up and down so we decided the join them, hoping they’d spotted some of the park’s cheetahs.

There were no cheetahs, just the same voracious lion brothers, this time at a mountain zebra kill. They were quite far from the road and hidden by a row of small bushes and long grass, so visibility wasn’t nearly as good as it had been on the buffalo kill unless they put their heads up. Those who’d missed seeing the lions at the buffalo kill were elated nonetheless. ​

Lion population doubles
Two lionesses were introduced to the park in October 2015. The hope was for the four of them – the five-year-old males and the two-year-old sisters – to form a pride structure.

One of the females was fitted with a satellite tracking collar, so rangers and researchers can keep tabs on them, see where they go, how close they are to the males, and which species they take down as prey. ‘The lionesses are settling very well and seem to be concentrating in the central area of the park,’ Megan told me. ‘They’re preying mainly on black wildebeest and red hartebeest. They joined up with the brothers on New Year’s Eve and have been seen together in the Rooiplaat area fairly often since then.’

[Update: the first litter of free roaming lion cubs was born in April 2016.]

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