Lion: The Rise and Fall of the Marsh Pride

When it happened, the worst thing to do is say, "I told you so."

But, yeah, you felt like kicking the furniture and everything,

you know, emotionally,

you're pretty angry with the person who did it,

irrespective of their reasons.

And you know you're going to see, you know,

a bunch load of old chums, really,

who are going to be lying around dying.

And, um, everybody arrives there shocked.

But there isn't a single person there that didn't know

that this happens.

Yeah, it's a tragedy.

It's now six years since that incident happened.

Whenever we come to this place,

the memories come back.

This is where we lost these lions.

We were here, and we could feel tension,

we knew that something was going to happen.

Many of the members of the Marsh Pride

were very close to us.

For us to lose them in such a manner

was heart-breaking.

They were the best known pride anywhere in the world.

Our story today concerns the family life

and hunting activities of a pride of lions

that has taken up residence in the South Western portion

of Kenya, East Africa.

Here, in the lush surroundings of a marsh

adjacent to the great Mara plains.

The famous pride of lions in Kenya from the Marsh Pride...

REPORTER SPEAKS FRENCH

It's a family of lions who star in the hugely popular

international wild life series.

REPORTERS SPEAK IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES

There are still people who are following this particular

pride of lions that had had a few babies recently.

Many people around the world may have heard of them.

We've followed them for about...

The Marsh Pride have moved audiences around the world for decades.

It's like a drama, but it's a real drama,

and it's unfolding right in front of you.

Go, Simba. Run, boy. Run, run, run.

It couldn't be more Shakespearian,

it couldn't be more Medieval England.

Bibi, I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do.

Trying to second guess what might happen next is almost impossible.

Maasai people and lion, they fought together for many, many years.

They survived together.

It's a long story, yeah.

Even talking with the days actually.

If you start talking about the Marsh Pride,

each of those lions has his or her own story.

The story of the Marsh Pride is both a story about lions,

and it's about lions trying to live amongst humans.

In the Maasai Mara,

Kenya's richest game reserve,

a pair of lionesses watch over a herd of wildebeest.

And watching over them all is Jonathan Scott,

a young English naturalist who, for five years,

studied, photographed and drew the wildlife here.

LIONESS ROARS

WILDEBEEST SQUEALS

CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS

When I first saw the Marsh Pride,

of course, I was just living my dream.

Here was a kid from England,

degree in Zoology,

wanting to find a way of living

with wild animals in Africa.

It was the best place as far as I was concerned.

This is where you studied for so long

the animals you called Marsh Lions,

now I think we should make that clear,

marsh lions are just lions but they live in a marsh.

That's right. A particular group of lions actually made

this area the core area of their territory.

The Marsh is a glorious place, full of birdlife,

buffalo, elephants in the dry season,

wildebeest and zebra.

We're in the garden of Eden and that is Marsh Pride territory.

These animals are so individual and so complex,

that you haven't got a hope in hell

of understanding them unless you put in the time.

I suppose what I love about looking back at my scrap book is,

the richness of the story that we would be able

to unfold over the years.

LION ROARS

And so 1998, we had the two Marsh Pride males,

Scar and Scruffy,

and they couldn't have been more different.

Scar was this wonderful, magnificent, big male lion.

Scruffy looked younger,

didn't have such a full blown mane, and in fact, never developed one.

That's the case sometimes.

But Scruffy, he was my hero.

If you wanted to be led into battle,

you would make the biggest mistake of your life

if you went with the guy with the big brown mane over the scruffy one.

Scruffy was, he was the real deal.

The males are vitally important to secure

the territory for the females.

You're part of the glue that binds the pride together.

When we talk about a pride, what are we really talking about?

We're talking about the family.

Only lions come together, form these groups,

and raise the cubs as a family.

And it's something that none of the other cats do.

The best-case scenario for a lion pride is where they create a creche,

where they've got lion cubs,

where they've got cubs of a similar age.

So the lionesses by 1998 had come into season,

and we had these 11 young cubs

in the safety of the most perfect breeding place

you could ever wish for.

This is really the heart of the Marsh Pride territory,

and I can literally look today

at every single one of these trees,

every patch of bush, and there's a story.

That's where the lions came under attack from the buffaloes.

The biggest thing that stands out to me from that day

was the difference between Scar and Scruffy.

Buffalo show no mercy to lions,

cos if you're a buffalo,

those cubs are the same creatures

that are going to kill you or your calves.

Glamour boy was Scar.

Well, tell you what, when the chips were down,

Scar was rubbish.

It was Scruffy who just got in there.

So, the cubs were tucked away in the bushes.

Those were little, tiny cubs,

they weren't ready to be running around in the open.

Now the buffalo have tracked them by scent,

and they're almost on top of them.

The big thing that was going through my mind was,

here is the nucleus of a new chapter

in the Marsh Pride's history,

and it's gonna be smashed out of the water by the buffalo.

Amidst the devastation, who knew how many of those cubs would survive?

The mothers were absolutely stressed.

They were salivating,

they were out of breath, and they were calling.

You know, you could feel the energy that had been sucked out of them

in trying to defend the cubs

and trying to chase the buffaloes away,

and the anxiety they were now feeling

because what would it have been like to have been

a tiny lion cub to have gone through that?

I was sure we would lose maybe three, four, five cubs

and, in the end, we just lost one.

And it would have been more if it hadn't have been for Scruffy.

Yet, and this is the fascinating thing,

what happens?

The year after, 1999,

he's moved out of the reserve into areas

where there's Maasai with their cattle.

He hooks up with a female from another pride,

they kill a cow, and they're speared.

In the age-old conflict between man and livestock and wildlife.

If you cross the line as a lion and you ate a cow,

there would be retribution, but I understand that.

But there were far fewer Maasai,

there was far fewer cattle,

and the way in which the Maasai, and the cattle, and the wildlife

and the lions operated,

it worked.

There was still a harmony to it.

A lion does not fear going through the long grass.

A lion does not fear going through a dark night.

A lion does not fear going through forest.

Often the elders and the community also see it themselves,

to a lion.

They say they have a heart of a lion,

they are fearless like a lion.

You find the Maasai people and the lions history

or historically, you cannot separate the two.

What you've got to remember with the Maasai

is their relationship with lions.

And we should say a huge thank you to them

for not killing animals for food.

But that traditional sense of the male lion

as the ultimate prize for a warrior to test his courage.

You were a hero within your group if you killed a male lion.

First of all, I was not a very brave warrior,

that's why I'm here.

I was a coward, because I have seen since I was a young man,

I've seen what lion can do.

Because those warriors,

they don't succeed all the time,

well, very often, the lions succeed.

A couple have shredded.

Even our children, we tell them, "Be careful,

"that male might turn around and say,

"You are invading my family," and it will turn against you.

Looks like we've had visitors in the middle of the night.

Take a look at this here, beauty.

Lion footprints.

Adult female, I think. Front foot, back foot,

Right through the middle of the camp,

in case we had any doubts that we were in the heart of the action.