
In the UK last night, David Attenborough presented the BBC’s latest episode of Dynasties. It’s about a pride of lions, a special pride of lions, the Marsh Pride of the Masai Mara in Kenya. It’s an unusual pride because they are led by an impressive female called ‘Charm’. She is a very effective huntress, killing large prey with a suffocating throat bite. She hangs on relentlessly to her prey until they succumb. She has to hunt daily to feed the pride. The demands are massive.
It wasn’t only humans who were glued to the television; their cat companions were too. Domestic cats recognise other cats so it seems that it does not matter if they are on the television and a lot larger.
Personally, I turned off after about 15 minutes because it was too painful to watch. It is just so hard for the lions. It’s horrible and some farmers poisoned the pride as well which is ghastly. Here is the biggest threat; farmers lose livestock to lions because they illegally use the reserve to graze cattle. They retaliate by poisoning the lions because they don’t revere the lions as we do in the West (unless you are a trophy hunter). There is a huge divergence of opinion about lion conservation and Westerners are more concerned about it than the people who are responsible for it.
The Kenyan government should do much more. They could offer a compensation scheme to farmers and stop them taking their cattle onto land assigned to the lions. It’s not rocket science. Perhaps they do this, but if so it is not enforced adequately.
There is almost nothing worse than seeing the mighty and magnificent lion brought down to a crumbling wreck by human poison. It’s about as bad as humans can be for me.
What a programme this is.
Even my cat is addicted to watching bigger cats#Dynasties pic.twitter.com/TsFMEo21oj— Mr Keer (@sidecarteam33) November 25, 2018
A question that some might ask is whether domestic cats know they are watching television. The answer has to be no. However, they know what they are seeing even if they don’t know how it got there. This is probably why some domestic cats are so fascinated by seeing lions on the TV.
“Oh yeah, call yourself a lion, huh? King of tha jungle? You wanna come over here and see what a real cat is made of, you pussy!”
[30 seconds later, Pippin gave his brother a kiss on the nose then ran away from a shadow] #CatAdventures #Dynasties #WannabeLion pic.twitter.com/iiyCxecFFJ— Lee Cambule (@LCambule) November 25, 2018
“The cats have taken custody of the remote control” says Roger Farrant on Twitter. And Emily wrote, “I think Jasper wants to join the pride”. Be careful for what you wish for, Jasper. It’s damn hard out there in the wild even if you are a fabulously strong and resourceful lion. There are dangers everywhere and even when the best lions tackle a large prey item they can be fatally hurt. Success rates are not high.
My two had a close up look at the two young male lions play wrestling and winding up a hippo.
It was painful to watch for all the reasons you state.
Considering the entertainment the Marsh Pride have given humans via these documentaries (the beeb make millions in global sales of this type of material) one might wonder why an effective warden system could not be funded?
Dynasties has been a bit of a disappointment so far. They seem so desperate to cobble together a story, that they leave narrative coherence behind. The Chimpanzee episode had massive unresolved holes in the ‘story’ too.