27 Mar, 2008

We believe that Gochathebe, the island in the Okavango Delta in Botswana where we are currently based, is an overlapping territory for different lion prides.

The roaring started at about 2:30am. Every 15 to 20 minutes they called.

We could hear them moving south along our island. This was not usual behaviour for male lions – this was some type of territorial display. From the sounds, we thought there must be three of them.

But over-estimating numbers of lions from their calls is a common mistake as they often roar over each other to confuse their competitors as to their numbers. We later discovered there were actually only two.

After hearing the roaring, we headed out of camp earlier than usual as we knew that as the sun came up their roaring would slow down, if not stop entirely. We wanted to get close to them while we had an obvious lead.

We found the two males quickly because of their calling and moved with them slowly as we waited for the light.

They were both scent-marking as they travelled in a straight line for Third Bridge. We believe the reason for this behaviour stemmed from the frequent vocalisation from the Xakanaxa pride of late, as they have a new batch of cubs.

The Xakanaxa lions have been calling a lot more than usual in the last couple of days and these two would have heard it.

We surmised that these two males needed to make sure their territorial boundary was intact, and to let the others know they were still here.

As the light came, the roaring did stop and the males continued to march, marking as they went. They crossed Third Bridge – using the bridge, funnily enough – and headed on to Mboma Island. We believe that our island, Gochathebe, is a cross-over area where the two territory boundaries meet or overlap, as lion territories do.

– by Brad Bestelink, Earth-Touch crew © Earth-Touch

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