Leaving Home
By Lory Herbison Frame • Photos by the author
These young lionesses had
to find a place of their own.
The three sister lions—Lana, Adana, Fana—and their female cousins heard the noises of
lions killing a buffalo. They came running to share the meal. But Lana’s mother rose
from her place on the kill. The older lioness snarled and swung a mighty paw at Lana’s
head.
The eight young females ran away, then turned at the edge of the woodland and looked
back hungrily. They were two years old and could hunt for themselves, even if they
weren’t very good at it yet.
Watching them from inside my truck, I felt sorry for these lionesses. Normally, females
stay in the pride all their lives, and the young males are chased away by the old males.
These young males roam in groups of two or three until they can settle in with a pride of
females.
But because this pride was in a territory with good hunting, too many cubs had survived.
Now that these cubs had grown up, even this rich territory could not feed them all. So
Lana and her sisters and cousins had to leave home. Like their brothers, they would be
unwelcome in any other lions’ territories.
I took photographs of the eight homeless wanderers and drew their whisker patterns on
file cards. “I’ll know these females again if they turn up in some strange new place,” I
thought.
I was in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania
to study wild dogs, not lions. But the scientist
who had been observing lions was finishing his
study, and it would be many months before
another researcher came. I volunteered to help
Where there is prey, there
bridge the gap by keeping track of the lions in my
is usually a pride of lions that
does not welcome nomads.
area.
Eight Outlaws
Months later, I saw the young females again as I was driving across the plains. They were
at the edge of their mothers’ territory, as if they knew they were not welcome but were
afraid to leave.
The sun set and a full moon rose. The eight lions began to walk across the grassland.
From behind them came the distant roars of their mothers. Lana and the others paused,
listening. They continued south, up a rocky ridge.
Suddenly I heard snarls, growls, and screams. Lana and the other wanderers scattered in
panic. Chasing them were other lions—lots of them, all mature females. All I could do
was brake the truck to a halt and watch the lions’ pale forms hurtle past me in the
moonlight.
Lana’s group had been chased off the hunting range of another pride of lions. I hoped that
the wanderers escaped without a beating.
For many months the young females led a nervous “outlaw” existence. They survived by
making a kill on their mothers’ or another pride’s territory, eating quickly, and then
running.
Defending a Territory
About a year later, I found them ten miles from their birthplace. Only six lionesses
remained. Lana and the five others looked ragged-eared and terribly thin. Fana had scars
on her rump, as though a lion had sunk all its claws into her during a chase. Adana had
lost the end of her tail.
As I drove behind the lions, I heard the
giggling and cackling sounds of spotted
hyenas ahead. The lions climbed to the top
of a crest in the grassland and saw below
them a scene of great confusion and
violence. Hyenas had killed a zebra and
The homeless lions steal
a zebra kill from spotted hyenas.
were fighting over the meat. Lana and her
sisters took over the kill. They ate hungrily.
I heard other lions roaring nearby, close to a dry riverbed. The young females glanced up
and ate fast. “They are trespassing again in another pride’s territory,” I thought. “They’d
better finish their meal and go.” But Lana stood and looked toward the riverbed. To my
amazement, she and the others walked toward the sound.
In the moonlight I could barely see the six young lionesses as they rushed toward a small
thicket. Out of the thicket ran two strange lionesses. And they were running in the other
direction.
At dawn I visited the riverbed. Tufts of tawny fur littered the ground. Lana and her
cousins seemed to be unharmed. “Well, it was six against two,” I thought.
Why were there just two females in the thicket? Prides are usually larger. Maybe these
two were the last survivors of some disaster that had struck their pride. Maybe they were
just two wanderers who had drifted into this vacant territory and were trying to hold it. I
would never know the answer.
Home
Several times during the next few weeks I
came back to the area to see if Lana and the
others were still there, and they always
were. The lionesses were not homeless
anymore. They were a pride, and they had
their own territory, a safe place to live.
Some beautiful males with big manes started
to visit.
About five months later, all six lionesses led
their cubs out of their birth den, which was
under a heap of boulders. They lay
contentedly in the grass, letting their sixteen babies suckle from any and all of them.