A male baboon rescued a lion cub from danger by carrying it up a tree to safety before tenderly ‘grooming’ its fur in scenes reminiscent of The Lion King.
It’s like a real-life “Lion King,” although experts are concerned about the fate of this little “Simba.”
Incredible photos show a male baboon carrying off a lion cub in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. After carrying the cub into the branches of a tree, the primate proceeds to groom the little lion.
The guide said that he caught the scene early Saturday, after seeing a troop of baboons acting excited and animated. It is possible they had discovered the lion cub, he explained.
Schultz and others on safaris in the park watched the rare sight and took photographs.
Baboons “are really strong animals and when they were all excited and fighting over the baby in the beginning, it could have been injured internally,” Schultz noted. It was a hot morning and the cub was also showing signs of dehydration, he said.
While the rest of the baboon troop settled down, the male “moved from branch to branch, grooming and carrying the cub for a long period of time,” Schultz said. “The cub seemed very exhausted.”
“No lion cub of this young age could survive without milk for this period of time,” Kurt Safari added in the post. “Nature is sometimes cruel and we as guides and Park rangers would not intervene, as nature needs to take its course, regardless of the outcome or how we as nature lovers might feel.”
In an earlier post, Kurt Safari explained that baboons have previously been seen killing leopard cubs, so it’s likely that that the lion cub would not have survived even a day with the baboons. This, it said, could be “either due to other baboons fighting for the cub or just the strength of the baboon moving around with the cub or the heat of the day.”
A survey conducted in 2005 and 2006 reported that Kruger National Park was home to an estimated 1,600 lions, according to its website.