Skittish Lion - Suja | The Lion Whisperer

[Music] um right good morning everyone um so today uh we're going to be taking suja and bongani for a walk and i'm doing things a little bit differently before i intro the video i'm going to just let them out because they are rearing to go um and i don't want to disappoint them they've come up so nicely so i'm going to let them out and then i'm going to introduce today's video and tell you what it's all about [Music] excitement all right guys so i've left out bongani and suja they're going on an enrichment walk but it's an enrichment walk with a bit of a angle to it because uh today we're gonna be introducing you to the one and only suja as part of the one and only uh meet the one and only series that i've been doing so let me just give you a bit of background i actually had to look it up i can't believe the age of these lines how the time has flown so bongani is 17 years old can't believe i'm saying that 17 years old and in june um suja will be 17 years old so these are not young lions by any means they've lived a long life they've lived a good life in a captive environment they certainly had their fair share of enriching activities and this is one activity that they both thoroughly enjoy it's really just getting out and going for a long walk uh being able to uh sniff and uh you know scratch around and do whatever they want to do really there we have old bongani and sutures running ahead so one of the things that qualifies suja to be uh the one and only and it's not the it's not the the quality that makes him so unique that i'll get to but it is a quality that does um hold firm for for suja and and that is his skittishness so suja is scared of his own shadow in many respects he doesn't trust anything and he's scared for the slightest reason um and he will react either with a grail or he will kind of run away earlier on when he he saw my other camera for the first time today and it's got the the fluffy microphone um he got a fright and jumped back about half a meter but today he's now certainly keeping ahead of me um because of that little incident so it's going to take probably half this walk before he gains his confidence back he realizes that this uh little fluffy the end of the mark and the the reflection you may have seen at the other end of the lens is not an issue it's as hot as hades and it's humid and wow i'm out of breath already helicopter boy there he is oh my gosh look who's that suji sojou soju oh oh all right just a quick glimpse of suge's bum i think we want to head up the other way so kind of going to follow bongani and i know if i follow bongani suju will follow suit um so suja is certainly not a leader he's a follower so pretty much whatever bongani does suju will do he'll never take the initiative and go walk off in a direction and expect bongani to follow it's always been like that what's really interesting is although lions are not meant to really have such a strict pecking order or hierarchy in fact they're not meant to have one meant to be egalitarian i've certainly found within certain groups of lions that we definitely have um picking orders and this guy has in many respects and on many occasions been the underdog and at a time when another lion by the name of um by the name of saw was still alive um yeah pongani and saw used to tuck into old suja and he still got those scars and i think that is why he um has got these kind of emotional scars and he's uh he's so skittish um so he's always a bit suspect oh i can smell i can smell a carcass so i think bongani can too what do you smell boy there's something that's something you died here aha i see it there now how on earth it's a impala i'm not sure bongani is going to want to go after that it's not something worth even eating so sure all right so what's certainly interesting is that gosh scared of my own shadow thought i heard something [Laughter] i'm i'm behaving a little bit like a suja wait a moment there's a lion that's what i heard oh gosh so pongani would far rather roll around in uh you'd fall rather around in the lovely bush then go and eat a stinky maggot-filled impala carcass bongani we're going to have to make this video about you boy the one and only bongani which i do want to make a video about him but today is meant to be about suja so we'll persist we'll persist hopefully suja gives me the time of day just now um he's patiently waiting up ahead but as soon as we get too close then he runs off again so good old suja one of the attributes that makes him the one and only um and he's already calmed down so look at that so just leading but he's not actually leading because what happened was he was waiting for bongani to finish rolling around i can't believe guys that these two lions are 17 years old it's just crazy they're still in really really good condition um especially suja suja's never had any health issues throughout his life he's been a strong lion besides the the nicks and cuts and bruises that he used to get from bongani and saw they used to dish them out liberally so besides those few scars on his body he's actually in very very good condition and if i had to look at suja in the wild i would say that that is a six seven year old lion basically suji and bongani are going on a fence walk they're doing the entire perimeter fence of this area which is quite large it's about 40 odd hectares and they are saying hello to their neighbours or more like taunting them but certainly you can see suja has gained his composure and his confidence and he's a lot more relaxed with me here's all bongani bolgani is always full of confidence so guys i don't know if you can see with uh suja is really hot in his painting now i have a closer look at his tongue you can see his tongue has a split in it on the left edge it's actually you can see a little piece of the tongue that's been hooked and that was um because of a fight with mongani and benghani slapped him with a paw and caught his tongue with his claw and that's the result uh nothing you can do it bled a bit it bled a lot but that's how it's healed and uh so he's definitely unique in the sense that he has the only flappy tongue in the sanctuary posing nicely for us that boy suju looking at a hyena arena not really in the mood today a bit too hot for their liking lawnmower starting up in the background yay should you you're not gonna seriously lie here are you what's basically happening is these guys have done a full perimeter check of our fence which i'm thankful for so now i can see that the fence is in good condition thank you suja and bongani so it's been a nice long walk but before it ends i want to touch on and i was hoping he was going to do it now what i was hoping he would do guys is start roaring this lion has the most unique roar you will ever come across in the lion kingdom period and that's actually what makes suja suja and the one and only he's actually the one and only lion when he roars there's no doubt who's roaring here's such a distinctive raw other lines in the sanctuary raw and we go could be bobcat it could be bongani it could be whoever but when suji over there when suji roars there's no doubt it is suja and i'll tell you how the raw goes i'm going to try and do my best sujoo impersonation goes something like this sounds a bit like a hyena no it doesn't it's not like that it's something like that it's not a oh [Music] not like that that's the hyenas now i've really set the hyenas off oh boy obviously my hyena impersonation is better than my lion impersonation he's tired hello [Music] all right so unfortunately we didn't get to hear um the one and only raw oh he looks cross sure looks could kill bongani look at that tight face oh and he's back are you back for more i'll just sit in the shade mate like suji suji that's wise uh got all the lines roaring we'll get sudra roaring [Music] okay well you certainly heard suja roaring there that bulgarian suja siam on that side gandalf on that side [Music] you

Channel: The Lion Whisperer

Views: 248,679

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Id: x-DF_hWXapk

Length: 15min 40sec (940 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021