While female lions of a pride will hunt and kill for their family, the male lion makes sure to keep the pack safe from outsiders.
Most of the time that means another male lion who would try to take over and control the pride.
If a father lion loses control of his pride, his offspring are in danger of being killed by the new male lion.
So, it was probably a relief when the father lion returned to his pride on the Kwandwe Private Game Reserve in Eastern Cape South Africa.
The video of his reunion with the pride reached 2 million views!
“It’s going to be interesting how he greets them. Or how they greet him,” said a man off-camera.
The video starts with a female lion spotting her dad.
She immediately perks up.
The other females in the pride catch on and they all watch their dad approach with narrow eyes. They all were excited to see him.
The lion, with a massive mane, majestically walks toward his pride in slow steady steps.
His pride doesn’t take their eyes off of him the entire time.
The male lion looks pretty intimidating during his strut. But that’s this job.
And, of course, the one who was brave enough to greet him first was a little girl.
She looked very happy that her daddy was home.
And ran around him in circles in excitement.
Now that the little one showed courage, the older ones did as well.
A female lion came over and started nuzzling the male lion with her head.
“And here comes the daughter,” says the man off camera.
That’s when another female lion comes over and starts smelling his butt. Maybe she wanted to really make sure that it was him.
Meanwhile, the little cub was trying to jump around and grab at his tail. It looks like she wanted some playtime with her dad.
The butt-sniffing continues and the little cub comes over to investigate. She doesn’t get it and just decides to frolic around a bit instead and play with her sisters. The male lion keeps walking ahead.
“He’s probably going to go lie down in the shade,” the man off-camera says.
He starts to nuzzle up against the tree, which the man in the video guesses is because he wants to pee on it. That probably means he’s marking his territory to let other male lions know to back off and beat it.
Eventually, they all just kind of stand around. Everyone is excited that he’s back and the ladies in the pride decide to rest in the shade while admiring their father from the grass.
You can check out the family affair in the video below.
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