INTO THE BUSH AFRICA SAFARIS: End of Year 2012 Game Sightings(,Notch's last Christmas/New Year Bash with The Boys)-Part 3

NOTCH’S LAST CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR BASH WITH HIS SONS

While we celebrate our Christmas by travelling to some places of interests or by partying in a special way, wild animals would never do that, they have no calendar to follow, but here on the Christmas eve >25^thof December 2012, our most photographed coalition of male lions in Maasai Mara Game Reserve had a Hippopotamus kill, one of the biggest mammal to be killed by lions.

Most of the safari camps and lodges were full of both local and international tourists who they came to celebrate the 25th and the 1^st as special days of our calendar. And to top up the experience on the wildlife was watching the Notch and his four sons enjoying their kill, and for some days it was Notches’ starter, main course and even dessert.

I drove with my clients to watch the king on one of the afternoon and morning hours and there was nothing so special than watching him tearing off the fleshy hippo, and then being joined by his sons. He was still looking strong and healthy, thanks to the invaluable help from his 4 sons.

To me this was the last Christmas/New year bash he was having as a strongest coalition on the busy plains of our beloved Maasai Mara, he did not live to see the end of the year 2013 but he went missing in the middle of August 2013.At this time of the year the great migration of wildebeest and zebras were scattered in the Mara and there was enough food for them, and again he did not live to see the migration heading back to Tanzania. He might have been got and killed by some other coalitions of lions on his own. It was at this time of the year that they were splitting a lot…..

Killing of a fully grown hippo by lions is a skilled acquired through experience. Hippos are big animals with a weight of almost 2600 to 3000kilos, and also well armed with their strong, big and sharp teeth called tusks .If a lion is got by a hippo’s bite then that would be the end of its life. This Notch coalition has made the highest number of hippo kills in the Mara than any other pride. I have never seen them hunting down hippos, and if there is somebody who has seen this then may be less than 2!

Hippos have very sensitive heat to sun heat and they only come out at night to graze. Lions too are active at night, and when this coalition of 5 lions find a hippo then they would hunt it down with a lot of caution, starting from the rear side tearing of the legs tendon, and once the hippo has fallen down they would kill by tearing off flesh on the sides of the body and eventually the hippo will die out of pain, strangulating a fully grown hippo is impossible and that is why it is done only with lions that have acquired such skills.

This year January, 2014, his sons have killed highest number in a month!