The Miracle Lioness:

In January 2002 a lioness in Samburu National Reserve, Northern Kenya astonished the scientific world by adopting a young oryx calf. A short magazine story of her first adoption was made by Saba and Dudu Douglas-Hamilton, for BBC 2.

A year has passed and astonishingly Kamunyak, (the lioness’ Samburu name), has now adopted a total of six oryx calves. The sequence of her adoptions are as follows:

• Dec - Jan 2002 1st Adoption: 16 days – calf eaten by male lion;
• Feb 2002 2nd Adoption: 2-3 days – calf rescued by Kenya Wildlife Service;
• Apr 2002 3rd Adoption: 2 days – calf rescued by mother, lioness injured;
• May 2002 4th Adoption: 24 hrs – calf abandoned, rescued by mother;
• Sept 2002 5th Adoption: 2 days – calf starves to death, and when dead is eaten by the lioness (lions sometimes eat their own cubs when they die).
• Jan 2003 6th Adoption: 24 hours – calf escapes back to its mother, shortly after there were reports of a battle between Kamunyak and other females.

Saba and Dudu Douglas – Hamilton want to return to Samburu to find out why Kamunyak, the Miracle Lioness, has defied the laws of nature. In a one hour documentary they hope to look at some of the unanswered questions. Who is she? How does she fit into lion society? And what are the theories that might explain her extraordinary behaviour?

BACKGROUND

It is thought that Kamunyak may be around 4 years old now. She was estimated to be about 2 to 3 years old when she adopted her first oryx calf, so she was still an adolescent. There are no sign of teats or lactation so she has not lost cubs. It seems highly likely that within the year she’ll either be in estrus and mating, pregnant, or nursing cubs. As this is likely to be her first mating, it remains to be seen whether the physical transition of pregnancy will curb her obsession for oryx calves.

Kamunyak is most often alone. She seems to move in the same territory as a pride of 7 lions, which is in the heart of Samburu National Reserve, and is possibly one of the better feeding grounds for lions. When she adopts oryx calves she moves in a very small area and when she is alone she sometimes disappears for months. She has not been seen since February 2004. If she shares the same territory as the pride of 7 could she possibly have a history with the pride in whose territory she resides.

It is believed that in the past Kamunyak had a sister. However her solitary life could be a result of being kicked out of a pride. Perhaps her pride became too large and sub-groups split off to form new prides. Perhaps she was cast out as a single lioness and had to fend for herself, in between warring territorial prides, as a vagrant nomadic female, eking out an existence on the periphery.

Kamunyak has been seen hunting warthogs and other small prey. During the first adoption when she remained with the oryx for 16 days, she kept a 24 hour vigil over the oryx. Despite being very thin and hungry, when she caught sight of prey she refused to let the oryx out of her sight.

In February she was seen in a big fight with two females who are thought to come from the same terrirtory. She was skulking around the edge of a giraffe carcass that the pride of 7 had been feeding on.

THEORIES

The story of vagrant lions is an interesting one. They are unable to defend or claim a territory of their own so must slink around the territories of other lions. They cannot advertise their presence by roaring as only lions with claim to land, standing within the perimeters of their own territory, can roar ( Lion Battlefields). Vagrant females are often found alone or in pairs. If a vagrant lioness comes into heat and an adult male mates her, without the support of pride mates to chase off rogue males, it is unlikely that a vagrant lioness will be able to raise cubs successfully to adulthood. Could this be the case for Kamunyak?

In Samburu, lion prides are thought to be similar in social organisation to the lions of the Kalahari and Namibia, but no conclusive study have been done. If this is true, these arid-zone cats may live in loose-knit prides and join up infrequently within vast territories. Perhaps the Samburu lions are less social than the Serengeti lions, and seem to lack male coalitions at their head. Without the prime real estate of open savannah, arid-zone lions must travel further in bush country to look for prey and the chance of face to face encounters with rival prides is lessened by the extensive cover. Perhaps it is not unusual to find lions away from the pride for long periods, alone or in pairs.

However what can explain a predator adopting a prey? So far the suggestions from have been the following:

• Juvenile obsession
• Cat and mouse
• Barren female
• Hormone imbalance
• Phantom pregnancy
• Identity
• Amniotic sack
• Trauma

1) Dr. Craig Packer suggests that adolescent lions in a pride can develop fetishes that disappear as they mature. He thinks that the serial adoptions of oryx calves could be merely an adolescent quirk. The pattern of adoptions lends support to Packer’s theory, as the duration and frequency have lessened over time.

2) The question has been raised whether this could have begun on a hunt with an unusually long game of cat and mouse, where after 24 hours she bonded with the calf. Sub-adults have been known to play with mongooses and other small species over a short period of time. However three weeks suggests that the cat and mouse game turned into something else. However, now on her 6th adoption, it seems that the lioness actively goes in search of oryx calves to kidnap.

3) The Samburu suggested Kamunyak is barren. However this seems unlikely considering that her body is responding to an overactive maternal drive. Plus she is so young and it is very difficult to tell whether a female is barren.

4) She could have a serious hormonal imbalance, which is triggering this abnormal behaviour with another species. There have been records of lioness with huge cysts on their ovaries that effect their behaviour, but perhaps not to this degree.

5) According to a scientist who has studied elephant reproduction, phantom pregnancies are quite common in feline species. It could be compared to domestic dogs that have phantom pregnancies and start lactating. If a lioness’ rank effects their endocrinology perhaps a phantom pregnancy is a possible explanation.

6) Kamunyak only adopts oryx calves. Like all cats, lions have acute vision primed especially to pick up on movement. But they do not seem to be very good at individual recognition from a distance, and rely primarily on their sense of smell at close quarters to identify one another. Oryx calves are remarkably similar in colour to the tawny coat of a lion, and it is possible that once the lioness had locked onto the smell of “cub” in the calf then it’s lack of a feline physique ceased to matter.

7) The park rangers suggested that she found the calf shortly after it was born and the smell of the amniotic sack on the calf’s body triggered some kind of maternal response.

8) Most likely, however, is that Kamunyak’s solitude could well have caused a degree of depression that has catalysed her aberrant obsessive behaviour. Dr. Craig Packer, Distinguished McKnight University professor of the Univeristy of Minnesota has suggested that social trauma such as losing her pride in a particularly sudden and nasty manner could cause temporary psychological imbalance in an adolescent lion of Kamunyak’s age. Results from the Mpala predator programme under the guidance of Dr. Laurence Frank show that Laikipia lions suffer from high mortality outside of protected areas largely due to conflict over livestock. Poisoning of carcasses is not uncommon and can take out entire prides. If Kamunyak lost her pride through conflict then it is possible that the trauma and her sudden solitude as a dependent social predator could well have fuelled her quirky obsession.