New Life and Harsh Lessons

The summer rains have brought about lots of new life as most of the herbivores give birth en masse, the cutest are probably all the little warthog piglets.

Even with all the predators out there, it's pleasing to see some moms are doing well, we are a little worried about the runt of the litter on the right of this picture though...

Some piglets have unfortunately been a little lacking on good maternal care and a little slow this year...an innocent midday wallow turned into a harsh lesson for 1 of these 3 little piggies.

Once upon a time, there was a mother warthog who had three little baby piglets…Well we all know how the fairy tale story goes. The African version of the fairy tale story came alive on recent safari in the Timbavati. We were sitting at a waterhole in the late morning as the harsh November sun was beating down. To our amazement, 3 tiny little warthog piglets appeared out of nowhere without their mother and seemingly not a care in the world. They proceeded to thoroughly enjoy a mud wallow. Unfortunately for them the wolf disguised as a Spotted Hyena was resting under a bush close by and he couldn’t believe his luck. He simply ran up to the oblivious little chaps and then there were 2 little piggies… We saw them half an hour later about a kilometre from the waterhole seemingly attached to moms back legs…harsh African lesson learn’t.

Other predators are also enjoying the odd daytime pork snack in between the major night time hunts. This Kruger lioness didn’t quite know whether to gulp the piglet down or share it with her begging cubs, there wasn’t quite enough to go around.