Many of the wild animals found on Ol Pejeta live in family groups – from elephants to wild dogs, warthogs to baboons – their families provide the framework around which a large part of their lives depend. These groups embody social security, protection, a prosperous territory and a better way of sourcing food. They can also mean, as one of the Ol Pejeta lions found out recently, the difference between life and death.
When young Ajali broke his hind leg, he couldn’t keep up with the rest of his pride. Unable to hunt or defend himself, his days out in the unforgiving wilderness were numbered. In an extraordinary tale of family love, his brother and three sisters broke off from the rest of the pride to stay with Ajali and take care of him. As he rested, his siblings would hunt and bring back their prey for him to eat. They kept him safe from other predators, keeping watch day and night for any animal that might take advantage of a wounded lion.
This tale started at the end of last year, when a group of five lions split from one of our resident lions prides, known as Julie’s Pride. Julie’s pride roams the northern sector of Ol Pejeta and often moves freely across to our sister conservancy Mutara in search of food. To try and find out why this small group had broken away, one of our field researchers went to investigate.
He knows Julie’s Pride well, and was able to identify the five lions as siblings – three females, one of whom is named Kitana, and two males. The reason for their split was immediately obvious to him; one of the males, a sub-adult, had a broken hind leg. He named him ‘Ajali’ – the Swahili word for accident. Ajali could have injured himself in a fight, in a hunt, or simply through bad luck. The Ol Pejeta Ecological Monitoring Unit (EMU) decided to watch Ajali’s group closely, but not to intervene unless the situation got desperate.
Lions are by far the most social of the big cats, and also have the most complex language. If Ajali had been any other cat species, he most likely would have died. To everyone’s great relief however, he has gone from strength to strength – healing well under the care of his siblings. He is now walking – able to keep up with his brother and sisters.
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It is not unusual for small groups of individuals of the pride to break off and spend time in different parts of the territory – but a social occasion such as a kill will bring them all back together. There is a chance that Ajali’s little group could reunite with Julie’s Pride, and as such, it hasn’t yet been classified as a separate pride by the Ol Pejeta EMU.
Want to meet Ajali? Lions are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, due largely to shrinking habitat and persecution by cattle owners. The Ol Pejeta Ecological Monitoring Unit keep a close eye on our resident lions, and need your help to protect them. If you feel like unleashing your wild curiosity, why not sign up to track a lion on Ol Pejeta – where you can help find and identify individual lions, and ultimately contribute to their conservation.