The Last Lions

The night skies were once filled with stars.

Today our own lights eclipse the darkness

and spread steadily each day.

Slowly, the dark places in Africa become the last refuge

for one of our planet's most iconic animals.

Fifty years ago 450,000 lions lived here.

And today there may be as few as 20,000.

And yet, in these remote places,

some of the most dramatic stories on Earth are played out.

They are harsh, sometimes violent,

never malicious, and always real.

This is a story

of some of the last wild lions on Earth.

Here in a small pocket of this darkness,

our story begins.

It is an old saga of life lived by tooth and claw.

A lioness in perfect condition.

It's unusual for a lioness to be without a pride,

but she's not alone.

She has a mate -

her companion and protector,

and the father of her cubs.

The beginnings of a new pride

for this unspoiled land deep in Botswana.

Tonight the bush is uneasy.

The distant calls they've been hearing

for some time are getting closer.

It puts them on edge.

Invaders! And they suddenly materialize.

Lions from the north,

forced here by the relentless encroachment of man.

They're ready to risk everything to win new territory.

Her male has no choice but to fight.

It's a battle that could change the bloodlines here forever.

The invaders with a clear determination

to win and to stay.

When she finally emerges from hiding,

her shoulder almost healed,

she is ready to pick up her life.

She starts by trying to find her mate.

Every sound makes her freeze.

Every breath of air brings unfamiliar scents.

Until she finds him,

she is a fugitive in her own land.

By now her mate has had weeks to recover.

He should be answering her calls.

His wounds are too severe.

His spirit has gone out of him.

He has become old, damaged, broken.

His reign is over.

There are new rulers now.

To survive here,

she will have to submit to these new masters.

But until the newcomers detect her presence,

she still has a choice.

The swirling air carries a hint of her unfamiliar scent.

The hunt begins.

She decides to leave...

to leave immediately.

For she has a secret -

all that is left from her old life...

A secret that must be protected.

This will be her life now...

To secure the survival of her cubs.

With the males behind her, back-tracking is impossible.

The females of the marauding pride,

blocking her escape to the west.

The leader will remember the violent night they last met

as vividly as she does.

The night she was left battered and bitten,

bleeding to death...

But she, in turn, left the largest of them

with one eye blinded for life.

It's a wound the silver-eyed leader of the pride

will never forget.

They can smell her tracks.

The storm ignites the bush and she is trapped.

Now she must choose:

north towards the villages and people,

or south along the fireline

to an even more daunting obstacle for her...

The swollen river.

In this part of Africa, a mother is named

after her first-born as its protector.

He was always just a little smaller than the other two,

slower, prone to getting lost.

Today Ma di Tau, Mother of lions,

earns her name as protector of her young.

As the smallest,

he must get used to being constantly bullied.

It will either build him up, or wear him out.

Ma di Tau knows the pride will be coming after her,

but what lies ahead is terrifying.

Lions detest deep, open water.

It hides things that seem unnatural to them.

But the options behind are worse.

If she stays to fight, the male lions will kill her cubs.

It's their instinct to wipe the face of the Earth

clean of the old male's genes.

She must make her decision now.

The male cub doesn't hesitate this time.

He knows to stay close.

His sister wades in more cautiously.

But the third cub holds back, scared of the water.

By the time the third cub plucks up enough courage,

she's become an easy target...

both on the land and in the water.

The males turn back into their newly won territory,

satisfied that she and her cubs have been expelled forever.

The silence is a condemnation.

Ma di Tau, the protector,

has failed for the first time as a mother.

As she turns away, she is turning her back on her past,

on the pride that was so desperate to be rid of her.

And she steps forward into an uncertain future

with her two surviving cubs: the little male and his sister.

The battle for the territory has been decided.

Ma di Tau and her cubs have escaped

to an almost deserted island in the swamp,

the only lions on this vast, isolated wilderness called Duba,

in the middle of the Okavango delta.

Here the land is plagued by seasonal floods

and rivers that weave through it.

If it is a refuge for them, it will be a wet one.

A few weeks have passed.

Food has been scarce,

but there are still no signs of other lions,

and they are starting to feel safe at last.

The smaller cub has gained a renewed confidence

by being one of just two cubs now.

In his heart he is a hunter,

always ready to explore the endless possibilities

that lie in wait for a cub with a restless spirit.

For the young male, it was a close call...

He may have thought he so nearly notched up his first kill,

but that little hunter's heart did skip a small beat today.

The cowardly withdrawal by the elephant

confirms that there will be another chance,

perhaps when he's a bit older.

Until today, she had only time to focus on escape and survival,

but now she must find a way to get her cubs

safely through their first critical year,

until they can fend for themselves.

And as a single mother,

this will take every ounce of her energy and intelligence.

The fire and march of human settlements

to the north have driven other animal refugees

towards the island.

Duba is about to change.

These are some of Africa's most aggressive animals.

Their sharp horns and bone-crushing bodies

are perfect weapons,

and their massive numbers give them confidence.

At the head of the herd is one of the most fearsome of them:

a scar-faced bull weighing almost a ton.

For the past few weeks this has been her island.

The arrival of the buffalo brings hope as possible prey...

but also fear.

These will be her new enemies on the island.

Buffalo are not easy prey.

They dislike the scent of lions,

and they don't hesitate to attack.

For the cubs,

life so far has been a litany of narrow escapes,

one long line of enemies out to get them -

a strange way to start life as king of the beasts.

With more and more of the newcomers

flowing onto her island,

Ma di Tau and her cubs are destined to run into them again.

The herd's pathfinder is now aware

that this island has lions,

and from now on he'll always be on the alert.

It will be an almost daily conflict,

unavoidable in this open, yet confined space.

If she is not going to be at their mercy,

she will have to learn more about this new presence.

She will have to test them for weaknesses

and she must look beyond

the strong outer wall of their heavy armaments.

In time she must become expert at finding those weak points...

small, hidden chinks in the armor

that will stumble out into view

and excite her instincts as a huntress.

Night is an advantage for her.

She can hide in the shadows of a crescent moon

and let her eyes brighten to take in her quarry.

Now she has to become invisible.

It is what a solitary hunter does best.

The damp grass helps her perform like a silent ghost,

flitting in and out of reality.

Two mothers now battle for the survival of their young:

buffalo desperate to deflect an attack;

lioness eager to double back and strike quick, fatal blows

to earn a meal for her cubs.

It's the eternal dance of Africa.

The young lions will go hungry a little longer.

When the buffalo calf escapes, it carries a chilling message

of a near-miss written in blood back to the scar-faced bull.

It's a race against time.

The cubs are demanding more from Ma di Tau