Gerry van der Walt is a photo safari specialist, educator, public speaker and co-founder of Wild Eye. In his career, he has captured beautiful images, but these have undoubtedly been some of the most striking. He captured the attitude of a lioness realizing that her prey, which he had just killed, was about to give birth to a cub, which also died.
Gerry watched as the lioness stopped eating the antelope because the cat noticed that her prey was pregnant.
Gerry said:
“I have seen a lion kill prey that was pregnant, but usually they just kept feeding like nothing was wrong, but this time the scenes that followed had us all dumbfounded. Once out of her mother, the lioness very gently placed the fetus on the ground and spent some time sniffing and investigating the unborn animal.”
The lioness’s reaction
After noticing that her prey was pregnant, the lioness approached to see if the fetus was still alive. Realizing that she didn’t, she hid him behind a bush, she circled around him until she buried him; moments after her the lioness returned close to the antelope, paced back and forth and simply lay down close to her.
To Guerry, she seemed sorry for what she had done. Her motherly love of hers was visible by the way she cared for the fetus, she buried it and she showed respect for it.
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