Our wildlife parks at Hunter and Mogo both home lions. These magnificent creatures are usually tawny or a sand colour, but can also be white due to a receive gene ‘leucism’.
Lions can run at about 55km/h but their prey average around 80km/h. To get around this they must get as close as possible to their dinner without being seen and then explode from hiding, relying on surprise and brute force. Female lions are the original ‘stalkers’.
Lions are strictly carnivorous, relying on a diet of Buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, roan, sable, springbok, gemsbok, kob, impala, Warthog, waterbuck, haribeest and other animals.
Female lions are the stable presence in the pride. They are responsible for cub rearing and most of the hunting, as well as contributing significantly to the defense of the pride.
Females are the active hunters possessing a balance of speed, power, stealth and endurance that the much larger males struggle to match. Males are primarily responsible for patrolling, marking and defending the pride range as well as mating, but it is the female members that keep the pride together and functioning, often surviving several pride takeovers by various coalitions of males.
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