To Witness a Hunt
Every game drive has it's excitements, as people get the chance to see something they have never seen before, an experience of a lifetime, exploring the unknown. But there is nothing quite like witnessing a hunt. During a cloudy morning we set out on drive hoping it wouldn't rain too hard, and that we might be lucky. We drove along one of the roads in the South West when suddenly Phanuel (our Tracker seated on the front of the vehicle) heard some Impalas alarm calling not too far to the East of us. "Stop" he exclaimed, "You hear that? Impala are not happy about something." I explained to everyone that something must be happening close to the Impala, and we quickly made our way to the area where the calls were coming from.
We found the Impalas just ahead so we took a turn towards them and drove a good couple of meters when suddenly one of my guests spotted a "Cat!". Out of the bush three Lions came walking to the road, two females and a big male. This must be what the Impalas were alarmed at. It looked like they were on a mission, walking with reason, as if they were trying to hunt. They might have tried for the Impalas, but obviously they weren't going to be successful with them as their position had already been given away with the antelopes spotting them early on and alarming, and the Impalas would have a head start in getting away.
So they continued on in a different direction, still walking at a brisk pace passing two dams as they went. We continued in pursuit, and enjoyed the encounter and the excitement of what might happen next. It's always much better to keep up with active Lions, rather than finding one or two lying in the bush, sleeping for up to 20 hours. As we came around a bend it started raining; properly. We quickly had to take a quick pause from the Lions and put on our ponchos, to provide us with some sort of protection against the rain. As soon as we had our ponchos on we continued with the Lions. As it turns out, one of the Lioness had spotted a dazzle of Zebras up ahead on the road about 50 meters away, completely oblivious to the big cats.
The Lioness locked in and assumed a stalking position. The other female and big male Lion immediately knew what to do and quickly found an alternate route to circle the Zebra in a typical ambush technique that Lions use to catch their prey.
We followed the leading lady as she started jogging whilst in stalking position, with the zebras still completely unaware. It was pouring down with rain, and the zebras had a foal amongst them. The lioness came within 15 meters of the zebra and then suddenly started bolting towards them at 60kms/h. The zebras were dumb struck and couldn't decide which direction to run quick enough.
In all the commotion we tried keeping up, and had to re-position. We heard the zebra squealing as they ran at full speed to try and get away.
Then we saw the male and other female join in the hunt. As we came around a bend in the road we saw it. The lions had caught the zebra foal, and were busy sharing the spoils.
We stayed for a few more moments, watching these successful predators devouring their well caught meal. We couldn't help but feel pity for the young zebra; how brutal nature can be.
How lucky we were.. to witness a hunt!
