What is the Marsh Pride?

By Jonathan and Angela Scott

Published: Tuesday, 02 August 2022 at 12:00 am

Anyone who watched BBC’s Dynasties, Big Cat Diary or Animal Planet’s Big Cat Tales will already be more familiar with the Marsh Pride than they might think…

What is the Marsh Pride and where is its territory?

The Marsh Pride is a pride of lions based on the edge of the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, a territory protected for wildlife. They’re one of the most highly documented prides of lions on the planet, with hours upon hours of footage captured over the decades.

The Marsh Pride is a boundary pride living both in and around the Mara Reserve, occupying approximately 40km2. Its range is fluid, expanding and contracting according to the seasonal availability of prey and competition from neighbouring prides.

A territory is owned by the pride females and is passed down a matriline of grandmothers, mothers, daughters, aunts and cousins. Each pride has a core area where the females give birth and which they fight most fiercely to defend. For the Marsh Pride, that place was the Musiara Marsh in the dry season and Bila Shaka – an intermittent, tree-lined watercourse – year-round.

We have been following the tumultuous lives of the Marsh Pride since 1977. From the veranda of our stone cottage at Governor’s Camp, we look out over an expanse of Marsh Pride territory that extends from the Musiara Marsh at the northern edge of the reserve all the way south to Rhino Ridge – a distance of 7km.

Back in the ’70s, the pride comprised three males, four females and half a dozen cubs, plus a satellite group of four younger female relatives trying to stake out a home of their own. It was their descendants that would later rise to fame in the BBC’s Big Cat Diary.

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Scarface in 2013, heading to Bila Shaka with the Marsh Pride lioness Sienna (far left) and two cubs. At that point, the pride numbered 23 lions. © Jonathan and Angela Scott

Male lions and infanticide in the Marsh Pride

Every two to three years, nomadic males would oust the Marsh Pride males and kill any young cubs, bringing the lionesses back into season to breed with the newcomers. Infanticide is common in lion society – as it is in that of most big cats – but the approximate two-year interval between takeovers allowed for at least one generation of cubs to reach sub-adulthood and disperse or, in the case of young females, to try to remain within their natal pride.

To prevent inbreeding, every male is forced from the pride at around 2.5 years of age to wander as a nomad. To have any chance of winning a territory, unrelated single males must forge an alliance.

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Tension in the ranks as the Musketeers vie for a female. © Jonathan and Angela Scott

When you are a nomad in a high-density lion area like the Mara, you are always in someone’s territory, forced to watch and wait. You remain invisible during the day and move like a shadow at night, warring with hyena clans over kills. Then, one day, your alliance makes its move, driving out an older, ailing or smaller coalition.

Sometimes the pride males turn and run, sometimes they stand and fight, and the ensuing battles are brutal. Rivals face off, while others circle behind to bite into spine and legs. To see lions like this, their yellow eyes blazing, their mouths bloody, their bodies lacerated with wounds, is to witness how important it is to win the right to breed.

What is the mating process in the Marsh Pride?

Large coalitions may sire many cubs, but they often fail to invest sufficient time with the females to protect their offspring from encroaching males. Instead, they move between prides – mating and moving on again.

Changes in the Marsh Pride’s landscape and the impact of climate change

In the ’70s and ’80s, the pride males we observed were generally vigilant when there were small cubs in the vicinity, staying close to the females and patrolling their territory. The threat posed by intruders was ever present, and we would regularly encounter nomad groups up to nine members strong, particularly when the wildebeest poured in from the Serengeti. Today, nomads are far less apparent.

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Wildebeest cross the Mara River. © Jonathan and Angela Scott

Indeed, change is afoot in the Mara, and it’s not just the social dynamics of lion prides. Physically, the Marsh Pride territory has changed dramatically, due to climate change, livestock, fires, vehicles… and elephants. With poaching at a minimum, there are 3,000 elephants in the Mara ecosystem.

These giants rip up acacia seedlings as they criss-cross the savannah, and have turned the once virtually impenetrable forest bordering the Musiara Marsh into a graveyard of fallen trees. The thickets that the lionesses prized as den sites are now fragmented and punctured by daylight, rendering them far less secure for raising cubs. Bila Shaka, likewise, is no longer the wooded landmark it once was.

How many lions are in the Marsh Pride?

Gone are the days, as in 2003, when the Marsh Pride reached 29 members – an all-time high. The pride has splintered into groups of two or three females trying to raise cubs in different parts of the territory, moving between Bila Shaka and Musiara Marsh and generally avoiding each other.

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Hyena numbers have risen as the lion population has declined. © Jonathan and Angela Scott

The impact of tourism on the Marsh Pride

And while lion prides have shrunk, the number of visitors had been buoyant prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has halted international travel in its tracks. Tourism is a mainstay of Kenya’s economy and vital to funding the conservation of areas like the Mara. But the explosion in camps and lodges means up to 100 vehicles now jostle at river crossings, impeding the safe passage of wildebeest and zebras, while dozens crowd around predator sightings.

Why have so many Marsh Pride lions been killed?

The illegal encroachment of tens of thousands of cattle into the reserve at night, and sometimes during the day, means that we lose thousands of lions to retaliatory killings each year by Maasai herdsmen. They have walked these lands for generations in relative harmony with wildlife and understandably think of the Mara as their own.

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Addressing illegal grazing inside the reserve and managing tourism are priorities. © Jonathan and Angela Scott

Lions that take cows outside the reserve must suffer the consequences. But during the past decade, the situation has escalated beyond reason, with the lions increasingly compromised in the very place they are meant to be protected.

Events came to a head in December 2015, when eight members of the Marsh Pride were poisoned after a cow was killed inside the reserve. Three died, including the iconic lioness Bibi, of Big Cat Diary fame.

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Bibi the lioness (seen here with her siblings) was almost 17 years old when she died of poisoning in 2015. © Jonathan and Angela Scott

Things have since improved, but as conservationist Richard Leakey says, “If we are serious about preserving wildlife, part of the action must be the total exclusion of domestic animals from protected areas.” The only way to prevent further tragic events is to enforce the rules and provide incentives that persuade the herdsmen that lions equate to tourists, and thus a financial return.

The importance of raising awareness

The interest shown by guides and visitors in Maasai Mara in following and contributing to the never-ending flow of information on these big cats is hugely important. It raises awareness of their life stories on a global scale and has the potential to help ensure they still have somewhere to call home. The poisoning of members of the Marsh Pride in December 2015 is a case in point. It focused attention on the issue of poisoning of predators and helped to implement change due to the coverage it attracted from the world’s media, something the Mara Predator Conservation Programme is actively engaged in through its outreach work with the local community.

Similarly the illegal killing of Cecil the lion in July 2015 by a Minneapolis-area dentist, Dr. Walter Palmer, who allegedly paid $50,000 for the chance to kill the 12-year old lion on a bow hunting expedition to Zimbabwe, caused an outcry and raised huge sums of money for lion conservation. Cecil was a well-known lion resident in Hwange National Park who was allegedly lured out of the park with a bait before being killed from a hide. The recent decision by the South African Government to ban the breeding of lions in captivity for canned hunting, or for tourists to pet, is to be welcomed.

The Warrior Spirit that we so admire in lions has been refined over millennia by nature’s creativity. The power and strength of these magnificent creatures makes us stand in silent awe. We immortalize them and feel inspired by their tenacity and determination to live every moment as if it were their last. We salute them for being themselves and honor them in life and in death, when it comes to visit, as it inevitably must. Fewer than 10% of male lions reach old age, many suffer terrible injuries along the way yet somehow survive. Nature has its own rules. Let us respect and abide by those without fear or favour.

The robust tenacity of wild lions has been honed through competition to ensure only the fittest survive and breed. Interfering in natural processes is likely to disrupt that process. Why? Because treating a lion injured in a bruising battle with other males might enable it to recover and retain its territory rather than it being ousted thereby denying or delaying other lions – younger, fitter and/or more numerous – their chance to become pride males and breed.

The future of lions in the Masaai Mara

The Mara’s 14 wildlife conservancies – the first of which was established in 1992 – provide valuable buffer zones around parts of the reserve. Big cats feel safe in these areas thanks to the relationship forged between Maasai landowners and tourism partners, and leopard and cheetah sightings are particularly good. The current slump in visitor revenue has prompted the government to allocate almost US$10 million for the 160 wildlife conservancies across Kenya, highlighting the importance of the conservancy movement.

Organisations such as Kenya Wildlife Trust’s Mara Predator Conservation Programme also work with communities to encourage the installation of predator-proof enclosures and solar lights that flicker at night, keeping hungry mouths at bay. And, significantly, a campaign has been launched at local and national level to have the Mara designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO – a process to be completed by 2022.

A coherent management plan for the whole reserve, with a moratorium on the construction of camps and lodges and stricter control of tour vehicles are the desired outcomes. This has long been the norm in the Mara Triangle, which is administered by the Mara Conservancy. It has just been announced that a collaboration agreement has been signed for the main reserve. Work has begun on infrastructure and roads, facilitating the purchase of five ranger patrol vehicles, collaboration on security and provision of radios.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a new reality that we hope will make protecting the natural world the priority for every country. The Mara is the jewel at the heart of Kenya’s tourism industry. If nurtured, there is no reason why it should not prosper, and why its magnificent grasslands should not echo with the roars of iconic creatures such as Scarface for decades to come. As we always say, if we had only one day left, we would spend it right here in the Maasai Mara.

Top image: Lions cubs playing in the plains of Africa during a wildlife safari inside Masai Mara National Reserve / Credit: Getty Images