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It is KTP and it is a bit of a bad lion day and and I think human error. The Landy that was attacked was one of those open vehicles where there is no roof and people sit quite high up on seats. I do have a pic but it has people in it and I would rather not post it here. It appears the excitement and movement of the people irritated the lion and he decided to show them just how angry he was. No one was hurt but all must have been very shaken up.

Looking at the charging lion, makes you respect the power and speed of these beasts.
Maybe pictures like these if published will make those palookas who climb/hang out thier vehicles at lion sightings think twice before they do it again.
Pity there are no photos of the passengers faces during the incident, but luckily i have a good imagination.........hehehehehe

Another theory is that maybe it was a mating couple. Male lions get very aggressive/protective if they have a female on heat with them. A number of cases is known where mating couple lions have attacked cars. I don't know what happened there, but I'm sure the lion gave warning signs before charging. It could be that the driver either didn't read those signals or that he was plain stupid. Either way they're lucky to have survived. If the lion had gotten into the car then they would have all been dead.

Here is the pic of the vehicle (faces blocked out)



When you break the skyline like this you have to expect the worst. Its hard to tell from the pic if there was a female present but maybe if there was it might have been a mating couple.

One thing is sure.....it's not the KTP. I'd say somewhere in Namibia maybe?

I think it was stated that this video was taken in the 1980s. Well, I first came to KNP as an "ignorant furriner" in 1984, and I was well aware of such rules as not protruding and giving the animals their space, so it can't have been that hard to know the basics about how to behave. I didn't take a course or anything, just some basic reading and paying attention.

I'm really tired of hearing that people made/make mistakes because they didn't/don't know any better. The information was available 20+ years ago, otherwise how would I have known — or was I perhaps the only one who happened to read the materials I wa issued and listen to the advice that I was given. There's a truism that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" — it isn't now and it wasn't then. Perhaps technology has made the information about rules more easily avaialble, but I haven't noticed that visitors are paying any better attention to it, given the amount of protruding, speeding etc that I witnessed. Rather, I think that plenty of people know the rules, but chose to ignore them

PB: I am not familiar with the areas you mentioned.

I have been going to game reserves on and off since 1956 and must have seen approaching 1000 lions in the (albeit protected) wild and have NEVER seen such behaviour. During the DAY they are almost always the laziest things on the planet and take some serious rousing.

To start with my late mother stuck her posterior out of the car door to relieve herself and a camouflaged lioness in the front row had a bemused but unmoved view of the procedure before my father yelled at her (mum) to get back inside. - That was not the cause of her becoming 'late'.

We have driven inside a pride with lions on all sides, cubs and all (on the S100 Oom Wtm) without any reaction.



We have driven past sleeping mature males so close that our wheels have almost touched them - no reaction

We have seen a number of relaxed pairs of males on the roadside in Kgalagadi

Another pair

Large

We have had a large male come up under our armpits on a night drive while watching his brother (oh there are 2!)

Large

The only remotely aggressive behaviour we have witnessed was when I imitated a roar at a kill and caught the male's attention from about 30 meres, but all he did was got up and looked for a rival, and on a hell-hot day near Grootkolk, a male made as if to get up and chase us away across the 5 metres that separated us, but it was just a sign showing who is the king.

There MUST have been some external reason for the broad daylight attack.

BB I love that pair of Males sitting looking the other way on the Nossob river north of Nossob...I reckon I could take you to that exact spot...the pic enlarged looks like one is actually there

Here's a picture of the lioness we spotted at the quarry near Tamboti. The road to the quarry is a no entry one, we got there on a sunset drive.

I promised to post this pic, but I forgot in which thread. :redface:

Running the risk of sounding like a skeptic but we hear from all sources (particularly in the rules of parks) that 'changing the profile of the vehicle' is a major problem...

while this sounds like common sense has it been proven - or is it just a cautionary, anthropogenically intuitive rule?

Do lions and the like know the profile of all motorvehicles and therefore feel less threatened? Does my rooftop tent, spare wheel, shower, multicoloured jerrycans, cadac bottle and the like not appear unconventional to animals used to seeing nissan almeras? It just seems to me that the outline of a person sitting on the roof of a vehicle does not resemble the outline of a natural person. It would look like a giant blob with a head and arms. Movement of people can be seen through windows - kids busling to get a closer look and clambering over their siblings making quite a comotion is 'alright' so long as the window is closed?

If altering the profile of a vehicle is such a problem why then are game-drive vehicles completely open topped?

While it seems sensicle (word?) not to alter a vehicles profile is it a real issue or just one that we have made up to keep people in check and as an excuse to explain unpredictable animal behavour around vehicles.

I dont want to be a stick in the mud and im not saying that remaining inside vehicles is a bad rule - im just wondering about the science behind it. I havnt noticed changing behavior on hunting trips when we are on the back of the bakkie, or inside it...but maybe im just lucky.

Regards
SAHGCA

Maybe the fact that the lion was about the same height as the people on top of the car has something to do with it?
If you drive around with an open vehicle you are positioned higher than the game with only the top of the body visible...?

I also was a wittness to an angry mating lion in Kruger some years ago before I had a camera to take pictures of this lion.
This was on the Skukuza LowerSabie road. I was watching these lions on one of those loop dirt roads before you get to the high water bridge from Skukuza's side. There were lots of cars. People also could see the 2 from the tar road.
The male also gave warnings to the people in front of me but they didn't react. They were taking photos with their flash all the time.
Then suddenly the male charged their vehicle and stopped with his paw on the ladies window.
This I then saw on a documentory on Tv one day. I could also see my car behind the attacked car.
This happened in 1997 or 1998.
I wish I can get hold of that video. I think it was a broadcast by SABC.

Respect the big 5. They are the big 5 for a reason.

Regards
LaeveldLeeu (LowveldLion)

Stompie (in 2004):

And him with his mates:


A mean fighting machine this one. He passed within centimeters of the car, and his look combined with the scars actually caused Madach to close his window.

My wife, our baby and I saw old Stompie in July about 10km north of Satara towards Olifants. He certainly means business.... got some nice video footage, not a "very friendly pussy cat this one"!

DuQues, Where were these pics taken?