Over the last few weeks many visitors have been worried about the lions on the S100, as they have become comfortable with cars and people and they have been seen biting tyres. The S100, is one of the best roads in the Kruger National Park for lion sightings.
You can read about the Nwanetsi and Shishangaan male lion coalitions found on the S100 here.
Many people reported these lions as they were showing unusual behavior such as tyre biting, this caused a few car tyre’s to explode leaving the passengers stranded among the lions.
The veterinary wildlife service will be collaring one of the lions in order to monitor the prides movement.
KNP management has urged all visitors to keep their windows closed when coming across this pride and for people inside open safari vehicles they have been told to remain silent and keep all limbs inside the vehicle.
The parks management has also asked for visitors who come across this pride to share any videos or photos to the parks social media platforms, this is to establish whether it’s only one member of the pride or if the whole pride showcasing this unusual behavior.
Since the request was made a video has surfaced of an sub-adult lion trying to eat a vehicles side mirror.
Hannetjie van der Westhuizen was driving along the S100, when she came across a pride of lions, one of the lions proceeded to then stroll up to her car and casually chew her side mirror.
In the video the lion attempts to first chew the cars side mirror and he is then seen trying to paw his way through the glass window. When he didn’t have any success with the mirror or window he decided to move onto the tyres.
“He was seriously chewing on the tyres, and I thought those sharp teeth may damage them, so we decided to move on,” Hannetjie told Latest Sightings.
Watch the video:
Visitors are urged report incidents to the Emergency Call Centres on 013 735 4064 / 013 735 0197 or 076 801 9679.