Marataba Coalition and Their Lionesses, Getting to Know the Lions of Moditlo

So let's begin by getting to know the dominant male lions on Moditlo private game reserve. They are a coalition of two known as the Marataba coalition. These two males originate from the Marataba section of Marakeli National Park and were introduced on Moditlo in mid-2023 to diversify the lion gene pool. This male is easily recognizable by the very prominent scar on the right side of his muzzle above his nose and also he still has his black tail tuft. What a cool surprise to wake up and see that he marked right on top of the trail cam. Not to be outdone, the other Marataba male did an even better job of scent marking on top of the trail cam. This male also walked past the trail cam during the day and as you can see he is easily recognizable by his missing black tail tuft. It's a bit of a overcast late winter's morning. I'm sitting here on a game park hoping one of the Marataba males decides to come out of the bush and walk past. I heard him vocalizing not far from here a few minutes ago. Yeah so he just roared again now. I really hope he comes out onto this game path and finishes off his morning patrol. Here he comes. Wow. Wow. The perfect spot for a morning coffee with some giraffe enjoying their morning drink. And also a great opportunity for me to introduce myself. My name is Dave and as a safari guide one of my greatest passions is big cats and tracking them and trying to find them and spending as much time as possible with them observing their behavior. And when I'm not guiding private safaris in the greater Kruger region I will now be based on Moditlo private game reserve and will have the opportunity in my spare time to document the lions on this reserve and hopefully capture some interesting footage of their behavior and pride dynamics. Got some really nice fresh tracks of one of the Marataba males here on a patrol. Let's see if we can catch up with him. What's really cool here is you can actually see I followed his tracks. He's gone off the road here and he's gone straight to this gwari bush and you can see where he sprayed on the gwari leaves. The lions tend to favor the gwari bushes because of the nice thick leaves to retain the scent longer. You can see the urine on top of these leaves here. If you spend time tracking you always get rewarded at some point. Interestingly we have hardly seen the coalition together during the past month. They've either been on patrol separately or each with different lionesses. Sightings of the male with the missing tail tuft have been plentiful as he has been spending most of his time with his two offspring and the The Madrid pride consists of two adult lionesses, a mother and a daughter with two young male cubs approximately seven months old belonging to the daughter. This is the mother of the two cubs. She's very interested in hunting this morning. She moved herself into a good position on the edge of the thicket here and spotted some impala. Unfortunately for the lioness and for the cubs the impala moved in the opposite direction on this occasion. These two very playful male cubs are currently the only offspring of the Marutaba coalition since they've been on the reserve. The male with the missing tail tuft was very tolerant of his brave offspring feeding with them on their wildebeest kill. Although the two cubs had to be very careful as the huge male manhandled the carcass and gave them the occasional slap to remind them who's the boss. The older lioness from the Madrid pride has been vocalizing a lot lately and we were lucky with this great sighting. Her vocalization reunited her with her daughter however it was most likely to attract the attention of the males as she is probably coming into oestrus again. It wasn't long after this that the male with the missing tail tuft and investigated while she urinated and performed the flehmen response. Other than the Madrid pride there is another small pride up north which is seen less frequently called the Morditlo pride and then there's two lone lionesses which keep to themselves. I'll be posting updates of these lines in the next video. Another stunning Morditlo sunset. See you soon for some more sightings and an update on the Lion Dynamics.