The Lucky Lions of Liuwa

I had the very good fortune to meet the famous lioness, Lady Liuwa, and some of her pride in the Liuwa National Park in western Zambia recently. The sad story of Lady Liuwa – but don’t worry it has a happy ending – has become an icon of lion conservation in the Liuwa National Park. 

Once the last lonely lion left in the park, Lady Liuwa now has a National Geographic documentary to her name, her own Facebook page and a Wikipedia write up. Here you can see her having a great big yawn about it all, typical cat.

We were staying at the new King Lewanika Lodge which is seriously sexy. The decor blends in with the bush, the colours are ancient; animal, stone. By night you can hear the lions, the roar that breaks the night, makes you shift a little in your luxury bed, primal memories astir.   

 By day you can feel that this is lion country. The blonde grass, the woodland pockets, the thousands of plains game like wildebeest and zebra, you just know they're out there....  

Our fabulous guide Rabi tracked them down on the second afternoon Lady Liuwa and her mate and the cubs and their mother had just eaten and were visibly full and chilling out along with the sunset. This little guy, an eighteen month old cub from another lioness, was too curious and came to sit a little closer, watching us watching him.

He was by far the bouncier of the two cubs. The other guy had plainly stuffed himself silly and he just lay there on his back, shallow breathing, his fluffy young balls in the breeze.

The reintroduction of lions into Liuwa has been successful so far. Along with the two male cubs, there are two female who we didn't see. Much credit to filmmaker Herbert Bräuer who came to Liuwa to document hyenas in 2005 and ended up befriending the lonely lioness. It spurred him onto making the documentary Lady Liuwa, Last Lioness, which then generated momentum and money for lions to be reintroduced into Liuwa. 

Brauer tells here of his first meeting with the lonely lioness back in 2005: “Nothing could have prepared me for our first meeting. As I stood outside my tent, a huge lioness appeared and strolled up casually to within ten metres of where I stood - I was frozen to the spot. All my years of experience taught me to be extremely wary of lions, but it was clear that she was totally relaxed and happy. She looked me up and down, and then settled nearby, rolling and purring. I had never seen anything like it in my life".