Kennedy and his guests, Derek and Iris, have witnessed this interesting sighting earlier in July. This story is told by our guest Derek, who is also sharing his pictures:
My wife Iris and I were at Mwamba Bush Camp with Kennedy as our guide. We heard a lot of hyena calls the night before and during tea the following morning with Kennedy we heard more hyena calls on the other side of the Mwamba river bed. We decided we should go and investigate further. We came across somewhere between 12 and 15 hyenas squabbling over what we initially thought was the carcass of an impala or puku however when one of the hyenas tried to run off with the remains we realised to our horror that it was in fact a lion. We assumed it had to be one of the group of 7 we had seen at the Mwamba waterhole the previous afternoon. What we didn’t realise was that the other brother and sisters were still close by and they made repeated attempts to chase away the hyenas, with somewhat limited success.
Eventually one of the lions managed to retrieve the carcass but to our surprise then started to nibble away at these remains. Not something any of us expected, certainly not Kennedy, who commented that he had never seen a lion eating another lion. Eventually the lions lost interest and slowly moved away up the river bed leaving one of the hyenas to carry what was left of the male lion into the bush.
We discussed with Kennedy how the lion could have been taken down by the hyenas and the only possibility may be that it was injured during the night, possibly by a buffalo, or a fight between male lions, and consequently got separated from the rest of the group.
While this was a horrific site it just emphasises the cruel side of nature and survival of the fittest.
Certainly a sight we will never forget!!”
Note from Shenton Safaris: we suspect that the dead lion, and the one seen here eating the remains are those same two male lions that were fighting over the impala head, as told in a previous blog. We will never know what has exactly happen to that young male. The mysteries of the African bush.
About Derek Bradfield: “I’ve been dabbling in photography for some 50 years starting with roll film before moving to 35mm and Canon equipment. I’ve still got my old Canon T90 which I used on our first trip to Kenya some 20 years ago. Moved to digital some 8 years ago, the only drawback being that you tend to take more photos than you really need, especially with high speed drives. Most of my work revolves around either motorsport or wildlife.”
My wife Iris and I were at Mwamba Bush Camp with Kennedy as our guide. We heard a lot of hyena calls the night before and during tea the following morning with Kennedy we heard more hyena calls on the other side of the Mwamba river bed. We decided we should go and investigate further. We came across somewhere between 12 and 15 hyenas squabbling over what we initially thought was the carcass of an impala or puku however when one of the hyenas tried to run off with the remains we realised to our horror that it was in fact a lion. We assumed it had to be one of the group of 7 we had seen at the Mwamba waterhole the previous afternoon. What we didn’t realise was that the other brother and sisters were still close by and they made repeated attempts to chase away the hyenas, with somewhat limited success.
Eventually one of the lions managed to retrieve the carcass but to our surprise then started to nibble away at these remains. Not something any of us expected, certainly not Kennedy, who commented that he had never seen a lion eating another lion. Eventually the lions lost interest and slowly moved away up the river bed leaving one of the hyenas to carry what was left of the male lion into the bush.
We discussed with Kennedy how the lion could have been taken down by the hyenas and the only possibility may be that it was injured during the night, possibly by a buffalo, or a fight between male lions, and consequently got separated from the rest of the group.
While this was a horrific site it just emphasises the cruel side of nature and survival of the fittest.
Certainly a sight we will never forget!!”
Note from Shenton Safaris: we suspect that the dead lion, and the one seen here eating the remains are those same two male lions that were fighting over the impala head, as told in a previous blog. We will never know what has exactly happen to that young male. The mysteries of the African bush.
About Derek Bradfield: “I’ve been dabbling in photography for some 50 years starting with roll film before moving to 35mm and Canon equipment. I’ve still got my old Canon T90 which I used on our first trip to Kenya some 20 years ago. Moved to digital some 8 years ago, the only drawback being that you tend to take more photos than you really need, especially with high speed drives. Most of my work revolves around either motorsport or wildlife.”
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