I am visiting the Niassa National Reserve in Mozambique to better understand how the Houston Zoo can assist with the conservation of lions in the park.

Last night heading back from a trip downriver, we encountered the lion, Jabru at 5:30pm (it is dark here by 5pm) who is James’ brother and the dominant male in the territory.  He is suspected to be the Father of Akeelha, Akomwana’s cub. We had not picked up his signal recently so it could be the collar or he was just among the riverbeds.

In the morning we headed out to find him again but could not locate his signal. Akomwana, James and Flavia could be heard so we went out looking for Flavia assuming she would be with her sister Fatima and 17 month old son Fabio who we met earlier and I mistook for a 3 year old male. We found Flavia easy enough, relatively speaking given the Land Rovers ability to traverse the moon apparently, and Fabio was with her as was her sister Fatima and a female lion with no collar who we were not sure about.

Then out of the brush popped two little ears!  Fatima had given birth during the wet season as this cub was less then 6 months old and he/she was hanging out with big brother Fabio. This was great news given some of the losses we have seen, clearly there was only one cub which is odd as their litters are 3-4 cubs. The cub was named Fantine (pronounced Fon-teen) as all animals in this line will start with the letter F to keep all the lineages straight in the researchers heads, and it was good to see three generations of lions, a rare sight here given the high mortality to dominant males. The sire of this cub is Malandro who we reported dead just a few days ago after locating his cut collar in the river.

We have seen more lions than we suspected in our short time here and this last sighting  of 3 adult females, their 17 month old son and the 6 month old cub was very special.

Keep coming back to hear more about my experience with the lions of Mozambique.

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