Two female lions sat in the shallows of Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda on a dark day in February and gazed across the water from the Kazinga Channel. The beach on the other side was almost a mile ahead. Crocodiles and 16- base crocodiles inhabit the route, which can be 20 ft deep in places. The two men were fortunate to still be alive after losing a fight for country just 12 days earlier. The danger was still present on this side of the channel, and visitors could probably learn the female cats ‘ roars in the distance.
As with many cat species, lions do n’t like to swim. And one of the cats, known as Jacob by scientists, has only three feet. He lost a leg in a poacher’s pit in 2020. But neither Jacob nor his nephew, Tibu, were deterred. The two big cats embarked on the longest float that cats have ever undertaken, according to researchers. On their first three crossings, the cats had trouble. The two female lions split into a Y creation during the second attempt, which was the helicopter tracking them picking up a huge thermal signature that might have been a crocodile or hippo in pursuit. They then rushed back to shore and rushed again. The two set out a second day less than an hour after their first try. They continued on until they crossed the stream and the path appeared obvious. ” It was very dramatic”, said Alexander Braczkowski, a conservation scientist who has been studying the cats since 2017.
Cats have been observed swimming in Okavango Delta in Botswana, but often higher than 150 foot. In 2012, a cat swam around 330 feet across the Zambezi River, from Zimbabwe to Zambia. In Nov 2023, a young man cat swam across the Rufiji River in Tanzania, crossing as much as 985 feet of water.
However, Braczkowski estimated that the two cats swam for an estimated 2,000 yards. Why did lions cross like a hazardous area? ” Sex”, said Craig Packer, who ran the Serengeti Lion Project for 35 years. ” If there’s nothing to partner with, what are you doing”? According to Braczkowski, the park’s bear people has fallen to around 40 nowadays from 71 lions in 2018, with at least 17 lions, generally females, poisoned by local residents aiming to defend their livestock. Males are more popular than females by 2 to 1. These males and these swimming events are a sign of this issue, the saying goes.
