The best thing about any game drive in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve is that you never know what to expect out there! We try to encourage all guests staying at Ivory Tree Game Lodge to go on all the safaris. You never know what you’ll miss out on.
One morning just as we left the lodge I heard one of the Ivory Tree rangers calling in two female lions just about a kilometer away from us! It was the Central Pride females Noku and Female 74. The central pride is dominated by two big males, Kitumetsi and Labola-Bontle, and the two females Noku and Female 74. Since we haven’t seen lions yet everyone on the vehicle was super excited about the sighting! The best thing of the sighting is the fact that private vehicles haven’t entered the park yet and it was only Ivory Tree rangers at the sighting.
As we approached the sighting we saw one lioness, Female 74, crossing the road and disappearing in the long yellow thatching grass. The other female called Noku was still on the western side off the road where the grass was nice and short! We watched the female lion basking in the morning sun when something suddenly dragged her attention!
About a hundred meters away from her was a small family of warthogs foraging around without even noticing her. The lioness immediately got up and went in full stalking mode! As we were enjoying our game drive we would have never guess what was in store for us!
While watching Noku stalking the warthogs we heard something in the long grass next to us. A Female zebra suddenly game charging out and ran over the road right behind our vehicle with Female 74 chasing her into the open plain! She guided the zebra straight towards Noku, gaining on the zebra with each split second and giving the zebra a monstrous tackle. Noku immediately joined in and helped keep the zebra down so Female 74 could finish the kill!
Everything happened so quickly! Luckily everyone had their cameras ready. One of the guests even took a video. After watching the video we realized that it was a pregnant zebra. It’s something I will never forget and by looking at the expression on my guests faces I’m sure it’s something they will treasure forever!
Ranger: Neil Coetzer
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