iStockphoto / Thomas Retterath
The Serondella Safari Lodge takes guests on guided tours to the Thornybush Game Reserve, part of Kruger National Park, in South Africa, and recent footage of a lion cub facing off against hyenas was captured by one of the lodge’s guides, Benji Solms.
Benji shared footage of the surreal encounter with Latest Sightings and it’s a scene that’s practically out of the movie Lion King. The young lion cub is full of vim and vigor, believing he can take on a pack of 5+ hyenas while the rest of the lions ate a carcass in the tree.
So the young lion cub hopped down to face off against the hyenas and he immediately regretted this decision, just as reality set in when Simba visited the elephant graveyard without Mufasa’s protection and the hyenas were ready to pounce.
As the lion immediately realized he was in grave danger, the mother lioness hopped out of the tree with the animal carcass and dropped it for the hyenas. The mama lioness put herself between her cub and the hyenas and the hyenas took the free meal and ran off into the bush.
This could have very easily and quickly turned deadly for the lion cub with the pack of hyenas out for a meal. But that lioness wasn’t about to let her cub lose his life over a carcass.
While food is hard to come by in the bush, the lioness knows she can go hunt for another carcass and the sacrifice was necessary.
Meanwhile, it was a valuable lesson learned by the lion cub that was facing certain death from the hyenas until mama intervened, just like Mufasa saving Nala and Simba.