Our wildlife parks at Hunter and Mogo both home lions. These magnificent creatures are usually tawny or a sand colour, but can also be white due to a receive gene ‘leucism’.
Lions can run at about 55km/h but their prey average around 80km/h. To get around this they must get as close as possible to their dinner without being seen and then explode from hiding, relying on surprise and brute force. Female lions are the original ‘stalkers’.
Lions are strictly carnivorous, relying on a diet of Buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, roan, sable, springbok, gemsbok, kob, impala, Warthog, waterbuck, haribeest and other animals.
Female lions are the stable presence in the pride. They are responsible for cub rearing and most of the hunting, as well as contributing significantly to the defense of the pride.
Females are the active hunters possessing a balance of speed, power, stealth and endurance that the much larger males struggle to match. Males are primarily responsible for patrolling, marking and defending the pride range as well as mating, but it is the female members that keep the pride together and functioning, often surviving several pride takeovers by various coalitions of males.
Gorillas are the largest of the primate family and the closest to Homo Sapiens, sharing 98% of our DNA structure. They live in family groups and are very sociable animals.
There are two main groups of Gorillas, Western and Eastern Gorillas, both with sub species.
Primarily found in lowland tropical forest particularly where there is dense ground level herbaceous growth, swap forest with new growth and hot and humid with year round rainfall
Gorillas are Diurnal; living in home ranges, which may overlap. Sleeping for about 13 hrs over night and resting for several hrs during the day. Generally peaceful, shy and amiable unless threatened, although males will beat chest with fists to intimidate or show strength. Gorillas build day and night nests on the ground using branches and leaves.
Southern Sudan and southern Ethiopia, east of the Nile River to southern Angola and northern Namibia and northern South Africa
Primarily herbivores eating over 200 types of plants, also feeding on flowers, wood, bark, leaves, fruit and fungus.
No fixed breeding season and mating occurs throughout the year. Once born infants are carried by the mother and by 3 months are able to crawl and cling to their mother. Females provide young with transportation, food as well as protection.
Gorilla group sizes average 10, called a troop, composed of at least one adult male, several adult females and their offspring. Groups are lead by the dominant male called a silverback. ( silverbacks have grey hair on their backs which develops with sexual maturity at around 11 years of age.) Mature males called ‘blackbacks’ are driven out by silverbacks and form bachelor groups or their own families with lower ranking females.
Commercial hunting, Habitat destruction, Disease; Ebola virus, illegal mining, adults poached for bush meat leaving orphaned youngsters to be subjected to the illegal pet trade.