Varied diet of Katavi lions

by Jackson Shirima, Guide - Chada Katavi
With 4471 square km the Katavi National Park boasts to harbor the highest density of mammals per km. They are mostly herbivores, thus providing predators with lots of juicy meals. The preferred prey species for the Katavi lions is Buffalo, but from time to time they vary their diet, as it happened when we were watching a school of hippos, with one very restless bull. He kept on yawning (dominant display of hippos) and decided to have a last mouth full of grass on the river bank. Busy as he was, he didn’t notice the 13 lions (Chada pride) who were lying in the shadow of a umbrella thorn acacia on that same river bank.

When the hippo bull was only a few paces away from the river, the lions closed in on him. But he managed to escape into the water with only a few scratches. We waited for another 30 minutes, but nothing happened, so we went off to have our picnic breakfast. On our way back to camp we passed those 13 lions again, but this time they were feeding on hippo just at that spot where we left them.

We didn’t see the actual kill, we knew that this was the very same hippo who had escaped death a few moments ago. This is the second time I have known that the Chada pride pulled down a hippo. An adult hippo bull can weigh up to 3000 kg, and it is a risky business attacking one for lions. They will not do so unless they are forced by circumstances.