Lioness Captures Baby Baboon. What She Does Next Will Totally Shock You
Lions, widely accepted to sit proudly at the top of their food chain, are excellent hunters with an incredible capacity for patience, waiting for and stalking prey for several hours. Lions generally prefer grazing mammals for prey but do sometimes stray outside of that norm. Lions are opportunists, after all.
In this case, two lionesses chased and sequestered a group of 30-40 baboons up into a tree to wait and attack any brave souls if they tried to make a run for safer grounds. The footage caught here by Evan Schiller and Lisa Holzwarth is an incredible collection of photographs dictating the unbelievable events that happened in the Selinda Camp of Northern Botswana.
Lisa tells National Geographic, “Between the baboons shrieking and the lionesses communicating with deep guttural roars, it was a mad scene.”
After the first audacious baboon braved the descent with a baby hanging onto her, a lioness quickly reacted and caught the mom by the arm. Once the baby baboon escaped the dangerous scene, he ran towards the nearby tree but was too weak to climb it. One of the lionesses directed her attention solely to this little guy.
Lisa and Evan must have thought a blood bath was going to ensue but what they witnessed was much, much different.
Unable to fully ascend the tree, the baby baboon struggles to maintain his strength after the horrific events of the day.
One of the lionesses gently approaches the young baboon and seems more intrigued rather than showing any signs of aggression.
She even starts to gently paw at the little baby in a possible attempt to play. At this point, she’s either playing with her food, or completely switching gears into a more maternal mode from her usual hunter role in the pride. What she does next seems impossible.
The lioness gently picks up the baby and relocates him. She sets him down in a rather intimate fashion between her arms, possibly shielding him from the other lions.
The baby baboon—being exhausted, young, hungry and awfully trusting—seems to relax in this protective lion’s embrace and even cling onto her chest in an attempt to suckle.
The baby baboon seems to get so comfortable with his new situation that he appears to be playing with the gentle lion who might just be his adoptive mother or the architect of his own demise.
Our questions and prayers are answered here as she thwarts an attack by a nearby aggressor that doesn’t seem to hold the same sense of endearment for the baby baboon as she does. Females are just so complex. By the look of his face and body’s projection, I think he learned his lesson.
Although we might have all been rooting for a trans-species adoption here, the ending couldn’t be more perfect. A brave male takes his opportunity during the last distraction to triumphantly rescue the little baboon and whisk him off to safety.
Coddling the young victim in his arms, this valiant male baboon has successfully saved this baby from the lion’s den. His innate innocence has perhaps spared his life from the natural laws of the food chain and for that, we are so very happy.