Scarfacein2013,
headingtoBila
Shakawiththe
MarshPridelioness
Sienna(farleft)
andtwocubs.At
thatpoint,thepride
numbered 23 lions.Sometimesthepridemales
turnandrun,sometimes
theystandand ght,andthe
ensuingbattlesarebrutal.
LIONS
by bloody battles, infanticide and violent
conflict with pastoralists. He has also
witnessed – as we have – an era of great
change in the savannah of his birth.A life with lions
We have been following the tumultuous
lives of the Marsh Pride since 1977.
From the veranda of our stone cottage
at Governor’s Camp, we look out over
an expanse of Marsh Pride territory that
extends from the Musiara Marsh at the
northern edge of the reserve all the way
south to Rhino Ridge – a distance of 7km.
Back in the ’70s, the pride comprised three
males, four females and half a dozen cubs,
plus a satellite group of four younger female
relatives trying to stake out a home of their
own. It was their descendants that would
later rise to fame in the BBC’s Big Cat Diary.The Marsh Pride is a boundary pride
living both in and around the Mara Reserve,
occupying approximately 40km^2. Its range is
fluid, expanding and contracting according
to the seasonal availability of prey and
competition from neighbouring prides.
A territory is owned by the pride females and
is passed down a matriline of grandmothers,
mothers, daughters, aunts and cousins.
Each pride has a core area where the females
give birth and which they fight most fiercely
to defend. For the Marsh Pride, that place
was the Musiara Marsh in the dry season
and Bila Shaka – an intermittent, tree-lined
watercourse – year-round.
Every two to three years, nomadic males
would oust the Marsh Pride males and kill
any young cubs, bringing the lionesses back
into season to breed with the newcomers.
Infanticide is common in lion society – as it isT
he still night air echoed
with a faint murmur, a
sound resembling a hint
of thunder that rolled
across the savannah,
building to a crescendo
as the lion drew closer.
Scarface turned his head to the wind, his
right eye staring blindly into the darkness,
his magnificent mane of chocolate-brown
hair encircling his muscular neck. His
flanks heaved with each grunting roar, his
barrel chest forcing air from deep within
his body to produce an explosion of
sound. He stopped, listening intently. Five
kilometres away in the Musiara Marsh, he
could hear the faint sounds of his pride-
mates, as each added their voice to the wind.
This encounter near the Marsh in 2013,
as the night closed around us, was just one
of many memorable encounters Angie and
I have enjoyed with this iconic lion.
Scarface, now in his 13th year, is a legend
of the Maasai Mara National Reserve. He
has been a pride male for eight years, six
of them with the same prides of females- a success by any lion’s standards. Over
the course of his dramatic reign, he has
embodied what it is to be a male lion in
these grasslands, with a life punctuated