GRAAFF-REINET NEWS - Just one year after welcoming its founder pride of lions, Samara Private Game Reserve is celebrating the birth of its first litter of cubs. Born to the first wild lion and lioness to roam the Plains of Camdeboo near Graaff-Reinet in over 180 years, these cubs represent a victory for wild lion conservation.
“We are ecstatic about this birth,” Sarah Tompkins, founder of Samara, told the Advertiser. “It’s a sign that our move to rewild the landscape to create the conditions for new lion populations has been successful.”
According to a statement by Samara, the birth of the lion cubs is significant for its contribution to wild lion conservation in a region from which lions had gone locally extinct.
“Lions are the sentinels of wildness in Africa, and the success of these apex predators in our protected areas is a key indicator of the effectiveness of conservation measures,” said Professor Graham Kerley, director of the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at Nelson Mandela University.
The latest additions to Samara’s lion population are thought to have been born in September, after a typical gestation period of 105 to 120 days. For the first few weeks of their lives, lion cubs remain hidden in dense vegetation to avoid detection by potential predators.
In choosing to give birth on one of the reserve’s steep mountain slopes, their mother has given them the best chance of survival. She has periodically moved den sites across the escarpment, not far from her hunting grounds on Samara’s plateau grasslands, where large herds of black wildebeest and blesbuck abound.
“The birth of the first wild lion cubs in the region in almost two centuries is a wonderful milestone on our journey,” Tompkins concluded. “It serves as a great incentive to continue our commitment to the preservation of this fantastically biodiverse region.”
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