I don't know why male lions have had this symbol as the king of the jungle for centuries.I mean we can have a big debate as to why or why not they shouldn't be symbolized that way or why elephants aren't after all they're the largest land mammals today with no much threat other than humans.
I can't pretend to know why they had that symbol but here's my personal opinion,first of all the appearance of a male lion with it's huge mane,kind of resembles a king with a crown of some sort and just like kings sat on their golden chairs for hours doing nothing,that's pretty much a male lion sitting on an old termite hill for hours on end,doing nothing but watching the horizon and hoping some herbivores tiptoe along the horizon.
On the other hand a king's life in the past like we see it in movies today,probably involved swords and constant civil wars to protect a monarchy as well as territories and just like lion society like i have mentioned so many times,is brutal and a male lion has that responsibility to fight off enemies to protect a pride and it's territory and if you can't see the comparison,I would like to know any other wild animal that lives like lions.Obviously male elephants don't sit there waiting to be served and am sure a king does and so does a pride male.
Why are there no tigers in Africa,surely Africa has the largest diversity of land mammals and if the world was joint as science makes us belief then what happened to tigers assuming they once roamed Africa.
If you can find a variety of other cats,from the small African wild cat,serval cats,caracal,cheetahs,leopards and lions then why not tigers.
A lion and a tiger can be similar but yet so different and by that i mean their social lifestyles are so different.
You could argue they came from the same ancestor but somehow lions just evolved to have a very complex social life unlike any other cats and extreme brutality that comes with it as they forge prides and territories.
Lions live a life full of constant warfare between each other as males fight for rule and territories and dire consequences for their young if males fail to defend their prides.
Did lions somehow evolve to be so violent due to the brutal African wild,that i don't know but it's a possibility.Think about it,there's dangerous prey everywhere and hyenas which live in social groups as well that can be extremely dangerous to lone lions.A lone lion in the African Savannah is as good as dead,and i personally believe a lone tiger would face the same fate and maybe that's why there aren't tigers.The first biggest threat to a lone tiger in the African Savannah would be a pride of lions,especially male lions defending territory,followed by hyenas that show no mercy to a lone cat!
My assumption is the reason other non-social cats have managed to survive is first of all the cheetah is the ferrari of land mammals and can outrun any danger and the leopard and smaller cats have the advantage of climbing trees to run for their lives,otherwise they would all be toast in the dangers that face every corner of the African wild.
Tigers for sure could not survive the African Savannah as huge and strong as they can get,the African wild is merciless and seems that the never ending wars in lion society has managed to make them the fighters from a land,where danger never sleeps.
Check out this documentary of the mighty 6 male lions of mapogo pride and it will blow your mind as far as the violent nature of lion society!
It's definitely not for the faint of heart,extremely graphic!
I don't know how many times i have watched this video and each time i seem to think of amazing things about the maasai culture in general and more so the past than present.
If u could just take a look at the background and probably will notice a maasai village which is perfectly camouflaged to the environment.
Maasai people have managed to live in such harmonious ways with the wildlife surrounding them that in the past,it would have been more likely to find wild animals gravitate towards maasai villages.
There could be many debatable reasons for that but what's undeniable is the amount of comfort that wild animals seemed to have around the maasai.
The magnitude at which the maasai found comfort in their culture is truly magnificent.They cared less about material things or expensive lifestyles and all that mattered to them is a simple village,their cattle and the surrounding natural habitat.
I think it's really sad that trying as hard as maasai have,to keep their culture and environment intact has had less appreciation and only led to their demise.
Just to give you a rough idea,of how much role the maasai have played in wildlife conservation,today the largest population of herbivores in the world roam the Serengeti-Mara plains that maasai people have inhabited for centuries.
No one really cares to understand why maasai culture has been so crucial to the world we live in,but imagine the world without the largest mass migration of herbivores in the world,imagine the world without almost more than 30% of African lions left in the world.Imagine an Africa without the Serengeti,Maasai mara,Ngorongo crater,Amboseli and others.
The maasai culture deserves a lot of credit in playing such a huge role in wildlife conservation.
Great culture,great people and thanks to their lifestyle we still have the Serengeti-Mara to enjoy for a generation,and hopefully longer.
There's a lot of shows that describe maasai as lion killers and so forth,but let's be honest,lions are now extinct in north Africa and west Africa has barely any lions left in the wild.
Before we discredit the maasai for practicing the culture they have known since before christ,in my opinion a conversation should start by first thanking them generally for co-existing with wildlife for a very long time.
Of course now there's bigger problems than just the maasai doing what they have done for more than 400 years.
The maasai and lion conflict is much different today,most of the lions habitat is no longer there,and that ain't maasai's fault and as a result lions end up trying to get an easier prey from their livestock and that's now the biggest problem.
Solving that problem is complex and only the smartest minds that understand the real issues will be able to solve it.
It was mistaken identity,Jericho wasn't the lion killed.
Still very sad that another lion has been killed and no one probably knows who that lion is,but for now at least we know Jericho might be able to buy their cubs sometime.
What really happened though because obviously Jericho was missing for a little while and my theory is he was wandering all over looking for his brother Cecil.
Brotherly love for lions is deep and Jericho is probably extremely depressed and traumatized to have a brother he's known just disappear off the face of the earth.
He's probably going to keep looking day and night calling for his brother and hoping he's still alive.
For sure now, Cecil and Jericho's pride is in a very dangerous situation.
Jericho alone wouldn't have been able to protect the pride's cubs from other males for long,but what could have been possible is he could have bought them some time for cubs to possibly be a little older and possibly increase their chances of survival!
Now, unfortunately, what everyone was dreading is just around the corner.
A dozen cubs left behind by Cecil and Jericho have less than 20% chance of survival.
Any other males that take over the pride will kill the cubs and by any chance, if the cubs escape that, they will not be able to survive on the run, it will be hard to get food or they could just get killed by other predators like hyenas and so forth.
What a sad story!
