Celebrating the Lion on World Lion Day

Sunday 10th August was World Lion Day 2014, part of a campaign to raise awareness of the vulnerable plight of the magnificent African Lion - Panthera leo.

A "blog buddy" of mine, Geogypsy has done a great posting on World Lion Day 2014 with lot's of interesting facts about the Lion and the purpose of "today".

Rather than duplicate her research and posting I have given you the link to her blog below, it's well worth it! Click here:- Geogypsytraveler on World lion day 2014

So I am going to limit my posting to showing you some of my favourite photos taken over the last 7 years.....

Lions sleep...... a lot!

So it can be challenging to find them doing anything different!

Fortunately they also need to eat, but as they mostly hunt (and eat) at night it is an incredibly lucky occasion that we find them hunting in Kruger - (I've only witnessed a successful lion hunt three times in my life).

And of course they need to reproduce........

A common misconception is that a pride of lions always hang out together, especially the male(s) with the females. Well, in Kruger that is definitely not true, most of the time.

Dominant pride males need to patrol their territory, younger prideless males and females wander across the landscape and pride females need to keep their young safe.

So we frequently encounter solitary, or very small groups of lion, whereas the full pride is, on average, at least 20 strong.

But lion numbers are declining not only in the rest of Africa but also in protected areas like Kruger National Park.

This is why campaigns such as World Lion Day are so important.

Researchers and conservation bodies need more funds to enable them to investigate the causes and reverse the decline.

Do we really want to only see lions in zoos??

Males & females on the move.......

 Cubs hanging out (& looking cute).....