#sparta pride

[tsalala]

In many respects she was “the Iron Lady” of Londolozi. She was fathered by the infamous Sparta Males [aka West Street Males] and having been born towards the end of 2000 she was the sister and littermate of the now disbanded Mapogo coalition. Poignantly she outlived all of her sisters and all but two of her 6 brothers [i.e. Makhulu, Pretty Boy]. She guided her daughters through their first attempts at raising youngsters and in a place so wild and savage to the aspirations of lion, the fact that she can boast to have left a legacy is telling and alone makes her remarkable.

A supreme huntress, the lioness led the Sparta pride on this afternoon. She stalked straight through the middle of the clearing, using every scrap of cover. The waterbuck in the distance occasionally thought it saw something, but as soon as it raised its head, the lioness would freeze, sometimes with two paws off the ground, sometimes for 10 mins at a time. After a 50 minute stalk, the pride took down a waterbuck calf.

She endured the rangers and trackers of Londolozi and our sometimes muddled attempts to find her. For 13 years she suffered the attentions of thousands of cameras, pointed fingers and somewhat blasphemous exclamations of delight. She allowed us to follow her in the hunt, take a first look at her cubs and chatter away endlessly whilst she slept on those sunlit summer afternoons.

Words by Tom Imrie, “Remembering the Sparta Pride” (2013) Photograph courtesy to Londolozi Private Game Reserve

— [NOTE: As of 2021, the Sparta Pride is now extinct. Their legacy lives on by other names held by their descendants in the Tsalala, Mangheni, Kambula, Ntsevu, and other prides.]

[tsalala]

Tsalala Young Male (“Solo”) with one of the three Sparta Breakaway cubs.

The Sparta Breakaways (“2 and 3”) were formed upon the death of the Sparta Pride’s longest-lasting resident male from the Rollercoaster Coalition. Solo, an unrelated lion seemingly adopted by the Rollercoaster male, was left to defend the pride just when Mr. T and Kinky Tail of the Mlowathi Mapogo Coalition were set on conquering them: their own natal pride. Two Sparta lionesses had intercepted the Mlowathis, their own relatives, and this let the rest of the Sparta Pride escape. Eventually the two lionesses birthed three cubs with whom they remained to avoid attracting the Mlowathis to the rest of their family.

After a time, the breakaways had reunited with the main pride. Surprisingly, Solo tolerated the Mlowathi offspring whereas most other pride males would have killed rival males’ cubs.