Epic lion hunt

Dan came to visit again yesterday, which normally means I get no work done in the afternoon. And I didn't..... but while we were out with him, we saw an amazing National Geographic type series of events.

We were watching a group of gazelle and had noticed a large group of giraffe hanging out in the distance. Our attention was then attracted again when this group of giraffe started running out across the plain and we soon saw why... a single female lion running toward them. We looked in the direction the giraffe were running and saw a mother giraffe with a tiny baby and realized the lion had spotted it too and was going after it. The mom and baby took off running and we quickly turned on the car to follow. As we cauight up to the group, they had stopped running and the lioness was having a standoff with the mother giraffe, who had the baby tucked between her legs.

We then realized why the giraffe had stopped running... (Warning: graphic content)... the baby had snapped one of its back legs and the limb was hanging there at a 90 degree angle and flopping around when the baby moved. We did not see the baby break it's leg, so we don't know if it tripped in a hole, or if perhaps the mother accidentally stepped on while running also.

We then watched for about 15 minutes as the mother giraffe literally grunted and snarled at the lioness, and the lioness made several unsuccessful charges at the baby. An adult giraffe can break a lion's face with one kick, so the lion was naturally being cautious. I don't have many photos, because I was mostly filming a video of the event. Blair's video is better. But here is a photo. The lioness is to the right and the baby is between its mothers front legs, behind the tree.

Eventually the mother somehow managed to nudge the baby into running on 3 legs and they ran away from the lion. Probably exhausted, the lioness did not follow. She instead surveyed the rest of the giraffe that were around and decided they were too big to go after. She then hunched down behind a clump of tall grass just as some warthog were walking by. We watched her jump out circle around once and quickly grab a young warthog in one bite. It squealed as its mom ran away and the lion walked off with a snack. A baby giraffe would have made a much larger meal though...

Since the baby giraffe had broken its leg, we knew it wasn't going to survive long. We tried to find it again after the lion got the warthog, but couldn't locate it.
We told George, the veterinarian about the giraffe and he went looking for it today and found it still alive. The baby had survived the night, but was in bad shape, so George made the decision to put it down. The mom defended it to the very end.

This was an amazing thing to see and (as cliche as it sounds) reminds you of how short life can be and how harsh nature really is.