Although lion are big strong cats and have the advantage of hunting as a pride, it is still not easy to hunt successfully. On a morning on the plains of the Serengeti a herd of zebras was wandering at a casual pace towards a waterhole. Between them and the waterhole a pride of lion had been lingering, waiting for whatever would come along that could be an opportunity to hunt. It was a big pride with cubs of different ages playing in the high grass. When the females saw the zebras heading their direction they silently signalled that all had to go down and hide in the grass. And suddenly there were no lion to be seen anymore. The zebras wandered towards the lion with the stallions in front. Suddenly one stallion stopped and with him the rest of the herd. He was about 100 meters (about 300 feet) away from the hiding lion. He took in the air and seemed to be hesitant what to do, sensing something was not right, but he just stood there for a while undecided what to do. The lion didn’t move, they were lying low, no lion to be seen. It was just quiet, the zebras stood there not knowing what to do, the lion waited. After several minutes of waiting and watching, suddenly a male lion head popped up from behind the hiding pride. The male lion appeared to have been sleeping away from the pride and woke up wondering where everyone was. Now the zebra knew what was waiting for them and they slowly turned around and moved away in the direction where they came from. The heads of the females and cubs popped up now and one subadult lion cub went to chase the zebras, but nobody was joining him, the distance was too big and the females knew it would be a waste of energy to try to get to the zebras. And the zebras knew they don’t need to run too. Nobody wanted to waste energy, as they all might need that energy for something that could come up the next moment. And for the lion the day became eventful. Their position near the waterhole brought them shortly after the missed hunt a new opportunity. A herd of buffalos was approaching the waterhole from the other side. The female lion moved to position themselves in teams of two on termite mounts. The cubs were brought to further away trees to be out of the way. Buffalos are of a different kind of danger than zebras. The buffalos took their time at the waterhole and the lion waited at their positions patiently. If the buffalos would move in their directions, the lion would be positioned well to give it a try. Unfortunately for the lion, after about an hour the buffalos decided to move in the opposite direction. The lion left their posts and the pride lingered further in the grass with the cubs playing again. Only a bit later a herd of elephants came along and the lion didn’t even have a thought that could be a hunting opportunity. The elephants went straight for the lion and chased them away from their nice place near the waterhole. There was no luck for the lion that day, but they were wisely saving their energy, as they might have also no luck the next day and need to manage a bit longer without food.
