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Birth of a Pride: Lion Conservation (Full Episode) | SPECIAL | Nat Geo Animals
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♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Africa, Botswana.
Over a century of hunting...
(gunshot)
has left some areas silent.
A lone lioness and her grown daughter
are the last remnants
of a pride that once roamed here.
(gunshot)
By the mid 2000s,
this paradise could have been lost in the mists of time,
a footnote in the tales of places
where the big cats once ruled.
♪ ♪
But then, two things happen.
Hunting in this remote area is stopped,
and impossibly, two male lions arrive from nowhere.
These mysterious lions have been waiting years
for the gunshots to stop.
At last they respond to the silence beyond the river
and start a series of forays into the females' land.
♪ ♪
Today is their day,
and this is the moment of hope for the lions in this paradise.
♪ ♪
Our sophisticated thermal cameras capture their story
and their journey in search of the last females
of the pride beyond the swamp.
This is the best way to see into the world of these cats,
persecuted by humans, until they learn a better side of us.
And we go into the darkness with them.
A heat signature stays behind like a shadow,
just like their scent,
as they search for signs of the two lonely females.
We call the two females Bolelo and Labone,
Hot and Light.
♪ ♪
Bolelo's eyes, as you will see in the daylight,
are hot, dark red.
Her father was shot before she was even born.
She takes her cues from her mother.
And for the first time in years,
the night reverberates with lion song.
(roaring)
This beautiful harmony will signal the end of an era,
a new story of hope, and the birth of a pride.
♪ ♪
Over the next few months,
the courtship, mating, and early life of stability
keeps the males around and attentive to the females.
(zebra braying)
♪ ♪
With the silencing of the guns,
other survivors start arriving at the waters
of the Selinda Spillway in Northern Botswana.
♪ ♪
Months later, the males find themselves
the center of attention of six tiny replicas of themselves.
Both Bolelo and her mother, Labone, have given birth.
(growls)
Most females have to work hard
to convince males that the cubs are theirs.
Not here.
There are no competing males.
For the first time in decades,
buffalo have ventured into the area as well.
They attract attention.
(buffalo lowing)
It's new, daunting prey for the two females.
And as we follow into their world of darkness,
it's into a realm of heat signals
and hidden behavior.
The two females are inseparable.
♪ ♪
They're lethal on the hunt.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
(lowing)
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
(lowing)
(growling)
♪ ♪
As bold as this mother-daughter combination is,
it usually takes a full pride to bring down a buffalo.
(grunting)
(lowing)
Bolelo's warm eyes hint at her hunger to follow.
(grunting)
But they have a small problem.
♪ ♪
One little male cub barely notices,
as if he's already made up his mind what to do today.
The lionesses have an additional imperative, though.
They know they drew first blood last night,
and the buffalo is weakening.
But with each passing hour,
the blood trail becomes someone else's to follow.
So close and yet so far.
Caught between multiple difficult choices,
the two females take the leap.
The choice they must make is whether to leave the cubs,
hunt and then return, or take them across first.
♪ ♪
The decision is not unanimous.
The cubs' instinct is to follow their mothers.
(mewing)
But all it takes is one voice of dissension
to unravel a perfectly good plan.
(mewing)
♪ ♪
(hippo grunting)
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
It sometimes takes courage to stand off to one side
when your peers want to move forward all together.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
The mothers are losing control.
With each attempt, fewer cubs are convinced
they can make it past the hippos.
♪ ♪
(mewing)
♪ ♪
He is gaining majority support.
(mews)
♪ ♪
But until they can persuade the last male cub,
this party is going nowhere.
NARRATOR: It's been two hours.
Four cubs are finally convinced.
♪ ♪
But the objector has a cohort: his sister.
(hippos grunting)
The females decide to go all the way.
As they cross the halfway mark,
skirting the hippos,
everything seems to be going according to plan.
(grunts)
(roaring)
Out here, chaos can quickly turn to death.
(hisses)
(snorts)
Every time a cat is in the water,
it's at high risk and extremely anxious.
♪ ♪
Finally, one by one,
bedraggled and scared cubs emerge,
each with this grand adventure behind it.
♪ ♪
(mewing)
Most of them at least.
Two never even tried.
It's a bad time to try now.
A crocodile has moved into position.
Even on the bank, the cubs are a target.
Labone and Bolelo don't hesitate.
They both throw themselves right at the danger.
(hissing)
(growling)
(hissing)
The incident triggers that maternal instinct once again.
(hippo grunting)
(hissing)
The cubs have taken this all in attentively.
♪ ♪
(growling)
Neither mother has had much experience at this.
They're confused, stressed, and anxious.
With the water churned up,
even more crocodiles and hippos have been attracted.
(mewing)
But now, the four cubs are alone, unguarded.
(mewing)
The females are learning
that they just can't keep everyone happy.
It's an impossible choice.
You can drag a cub to water,
but you can't make it swim.
Ultimately the loudest voices attract their attention,
and once again the females swim the gauntlet.
Every move is watched.
Monsters emerge from the deep.
♪ ♪
(mews)
♪ ♪
(mew)
♪ ♪
No one is comfortable
with creepy, slithering reptiles underfoot.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
(hippos grunting)
The two females have chosen.
We don't know if lions can do the calculations,
but today, they know where they must be.
♪ ♪
(mewing)
Then, a giant threat,
one that will change everything here today once again.
NARRATOR: Elephants on the exact path to them.
Bolelo reacts with fire in her eyes.
(trumpeting)
The crossing is busy today,
a bad time and a bad place to be having a family crisis.
The inexperienced mother now makes another classic mistake.
To satisfy the cubs, Bolelo lets them suckle.
The only thing that follows suckling
is play, not swimming.
She and Labone are now separated.
That's okay for both sets of cubs,
but not for the objective,
to reunite the pride and find food.
(mew)
One more chance.
But they won't follow her.
Each crossing and its troubles reinforces the idea
that this side is the safest place to be.
Despite their last desperate calls,
she must finally give up on them
and commit them to the night.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
Our cameras are now used as silent witnesses
to their night of terror.
While the four cubs huddle warmly
under the protection of their mothers,
in the darkness,
the little male and his sister wait expectantly.
♪ ♪
If you are this vulnerable,
someone will be hunting you down.
♪ ♪
Lion cubs have been living and dying like this
for hundreds of thousands of years.
At dawn, the two devoted mothers
make one last check before they move on after the herds.
There is a blanket of thick silence over the river today.
(growls)
We don't know if lions feel emotions
or if their sense of loss is the same as ours,
but they do feel something.
♪ ♪
(squawking)
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
(quacking)
(growls)
Somehow, they made it through the night.
The last chance visit has paid off.
Their reunion is complete.
The females' instincts to return were exactly right.
This time, Labone leads the way
and doesn't make the mistake of suckling hungry cubs.
If they want milk, they'll have to follow to get it,
and that is going to involve some swimming.
And at last, the two wayward cubs take to the water.
♪ ♪
(mew)
♪ ♪
(mew)
The pride is finally, joyfully reunited.
♪ ♪
Up ahead, their prey hasn't been claimed yet.
But there are a few problems.
First, they have to cross more water.
This time, the little male leads the way.
Now the two females seem reluctant
to immediately leave the cubs behind again.
The fledging pride goes on the hunt all together.
It's unusual and dangerous.
But there is a much larger threat than buffalo today:
nomads, wanderers that follow the herds,
preying on anything.
Labone knows that aggression is the best form of defense.
(growling)
It is quick and decisive.
This influx of nomads
is another disruptive artifact of safari hunting--
a territory without male lions.
The free-for-all destabilizes prides
and creates a Wild West atmosphere
of kill or be killed,
so she sets the boundaries clearly with fangs and claws.
NARRATOR: Without Labone's quick attack,
the four nomads would simply overwhelm them,
but then something quite unusual happens...
...a temporary truce,
and they all turn their attention to the buffalo.
Now leaving the cubs is impossible.
With the blood of her rivals on her,
Labone blocks the nomads and leads the hunt
while Bolelo keeps the cubs at her feet.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
Suddenly, the nomads follow her lead.
The hungry, the desperate, the innocent
are all caught up in the moment,
united very briefly to kill,
to bring down this colossal quarry,
to then feed and move on.
(lowing)
(growling)
Their first river crossing,
first encounter with wild, unknown lions,
and their first buffalo kill in just a few days.
And the males?
The result of decades of hunting
has left the new males
with a massive territory to cover.
When they do return periodically,
it's an event in the cubs' lives.
(growling)
A time to be reacquainted, and for the young male,
a chance to go boldly where others fear to tread.
(growls)
It has consequences.
The slightest wrong reaction
could cause the massive killer standing over him
to snap out of being a tolerant father
in an instant.
(growling)
It takes a certain strength of character
to go up against a male lion over five times your size,
but cubs have the ability to disarm aggression
with sheer cuteness.
(mews)
(whinnying)
Like the day of the zebra kill some months later.
♪ ♪
Just after the kill, he spots his usual challenge.
The pride males are visiting again.
Their regal position prevents them
from getting down and muddy.
The cub is just the opposite.
He is determined to leave his mark on these males.
♪ ♪
Over the months,
he breaks down the males' resistance to him,
simply by greeting and playing constantly,
and he develops a stronger bond with one of the males,
or perhaps it's one male that simply gives in
to the cub's incessant efforts to win him over.
♪ ♪
As the prey base steadily increases here
and the females go off hunting,
it is the male cub's bond with his brothers
that will better serve him.
He needs to develop a relationship
like the two pride males
to fight off the competition to come.
It is vital to the pride.
At 14 months,
the pride has not lost a single cub.
Now, each day is about learning and bonding,
lessons that will strengthen them as a functioning pride.
And each afternoon, Labone and Bolelo take them off
into the fields of prey to practice.
♪ ♪
Every step of their progress is watched by the males.
At nearly two years old,
a glimmer of maturity shines in their eyes
and shows on the young males' necks.
Once again, when Labone and Bolelo
take the teenagers out to hunt,
our thermal cameras reveal just how different
the male cub and his brothers perform.
♪ ♪
He is characteristically bold,
but he triggers the hunt far too early.
Stealth is less of an issue for him,
more an optional extra.
♪ ♪
It's a bumbling chaos.
The real question is whether they will ever learn
or if they will learn in time for what is coming their way.
NARRATOR: The young pride is in an intensive phase
of learning how to hunt,
but it just isn't working.
Now their time as cubs,
the free-ride phase of their lives,
is running out.
In Selinda, the real riches for subadult lions
lie in the isolated islands in the dark.
♪ ♪
These are one-and-a-half-ton beasts of violent aggression.
(grunts)
♪ ♪
(grunting)
(grunting)
Tonight, the mothers hang back
and leave it to the teenagers.
The young male and his siblings
are better at this kind of hunting.
It's less formal,
more a game of "make it up as you go along."
(grunting)
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
(grunting)
♪ ♪
(bellows)
♪ ♪
And what starts as just a game quite suddenly turns.
One hippo makes a giant mistake.
♪ ♪
They pull off the impossible, a momentous kill for them.
Tonight, they conquered their fears
and opened the window of knowledge.
They realize they can kill hippos.
(hippo groaning)
♪ ♪
As they develop their skills,
the hippo bones start to mount up across Selinda
and drives them to the riverbanks each day.
♪ ♪
This pride has never quite adapted to these crossings.
♪ ♪
(hisses)
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
(hisses)
Even with their cubs almost the same size as them,
Labone and Bolelo must lead the way.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
Like most teenagers, they burn off energy fast--
playing, pretending to be hunters,
refining the kill with sharp claws safely sheathed.
Those will come out tonight.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: As it turns cold in the winter evenings,
Selinda develops a chill.
Some of the smallest creatures
have to find food to convert into energy
and are constantly on the move.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
Not the lions.
They huddle up and sleep it off,
totally oblivious to the things that go bump in the night.
Nothing wakes them,
even the pitter patter of rodent feet past their noses.
The male lion is often the first to rouse the pride.
He's a teenager,
and midnight is his hour to get hungry.
He senses he may just have stepped on something.
♪ ♪
Approaching three years now,
his mane is slightly larger, even than his brothers'.
A benefit or a handicap?
Tonight, his ambition has got him into a difficult situation.
(bellowing)
He's going to need rescuing...again.
♪ ♪
As a decoy, he's done his job.
Using hippo hunting skills,
they isolate a large old buffalo,
and within moments,
the rest of the pride are on the bull.
(bellowing)
The bellows cut through the night
and send a signal to the resident males.
It's an instant reaction.
(bellowing)
♪ ♪
(bellowing)
♪ ♪
(bellowing)
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
It's not the sounds of dying that he's focused on
as the young lions hesitantly go about the kill.
It's who's killing it that the male wants to understand.
(bellowing)
He pinpoints the sounds and slowly hones in.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
(roaring)
For the first time, the young male and his siblings
don't rush to greet their fathers.
Something in their voices warns them off.
(growling)
(roaring)
♪ ♪
(roaring)
Labone and Bolelo can only listen
to the fights in the darkness for days and months
and seem to know that there's nothing they can do
to alter the outcome.
It's the lions' way.
The expulsion of grown cubs
is as old as life or death itself on these plains.
The next phase sends them away into a nomadic life.
♪ ♪
In Selinda, the sins of the past trophy-hunting era
have been turned back,
a recovery from two original females to more than 60 lions
now wandering this paradise.
To achieve that, the pride has to endure
one last expulsion by their fathers.
(growling)
(growling)
(roaring)
(growling)
(roaring)
This violent end to youth
is actually the real birth of a pride,
the natural order restored,
a testament to what can happen when we do silence the guns.
♪ ♪
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