World Lion Day hopes to not only celebrate but bring awareness to, lion populations. At Xigera, conservation is at the heart of everything we do, we are actively working with Wild Entrust Africa to conserve and manage our wildlife habitats.

At Xigera, we are slowly seeing our lion population increase. We have two pride males Nyakanyaka and Lekau and two lone females Sisilia and Alice. Xigera has not been an area with a settled lion pride before, so it is great to see this developing, with the lions protected within the Moremi Game Reserve.

Read on below as Mike Myers gives us an update on the four key Xigera lions.

Sisilia and Alice

A lone lioness, Sisilia had five cubs in early 2019 to the resident pride males and raised four of them to adulthood. Now 2 ½ years old, her two male cubs are living nomadic lives and will continue to do so until they are strong enough to take over a territory and form their own pride. The two female cubs are with Sisilia and will become part of the resident Xigera pride.

Recently, Sisilia gave birth to three young cubs near our airstrip and we look forward to watching them grow up. We suspect her to become the pride female in the area.  

Alice is a lone lioness who had two cubs last October. She raised them alone at the lodge at Xigera until challenged by Nyakanyaka and Lekau. We saw very little of Alice and her family until recently. It seems that Alice has since mated with one of the lions and we suspect she is pregnant. We look forward to sharing more updates as time progresses.

Nyakanyaka and Lekau

Our two pride males, Nyakanyaka and Lekau, decided to make our camp the centre of their territory after travelling up from the south. They have been the two pride males in the area for the past three years.

Below are pictures of the magnificent Leaku crossing the river. The images were captured by camp guide Des on a drive, who waited patiently for over 30 minutes to capture these stills.

Nyakanyaka, captured here by guide Ike is arguably the most handsome lion at Xigera.