Episode 5 | Battle Lines
Gorongosa Park
Preview | Episode 5 | Battle Lines
A new lion’s arrival sparks a conflict among Gorongosa’s dominant lions.
-
0:30
Gorongosa Park
Preview | Episode 5 | Battle Lines
-
1:24
Gorongosa Park
Clip | Managing the Wild
-
1:28
Gorongosa Park
Clip | Jumping Off a Cliff
-
3:08
Gorongosa Park
Clip | Elephants Don't Forget, But They Can Forgive
-
1:23
Gorongosa Park
Clip | Ants That Can't Walk
-
1:24
Gorongosa Park
Clip | Facing Fears of Elephants
- Show more videos
About Episode 5 | Battle Lines
Premiered: Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Nginga, Gorongosa Lion.Off The Fence
A new male lion bursts onto the Gorongosa scene, and a cold war for lion dominance of the floodplain begins. Joyce Poole arrives back at the park with new questions about the mysterious behavior of Gorongosa’s elephants. Bob joins the rangers on a night patrol of villages suffering from crop-raiding bull elephants, and gets a taste of the danger crop raiding poses to people and elephants alike. Joyce has a breakthrough encounter with the park's aggressive elephant matriarchs, and Helena the young lioness finds herself and her young cubs trapped between two powerful rivals.
Facts From the Episode
1 | For bull elephants, size really matters. When they’re old enough to compete for females, only the biggest bulls will get to mate. |
|---|---|
2 | A lion’s booming roars are like psychological warfare. Letting the competition know their size, health and strength. |
3 | Elephants have an extraordinary sense of smell, which is said to be more acute than that of a bloodhound. |
4 | African elephants are the largest land animals on Earth. Their trunks alone contain about 100,000 different muscles. At an average of 4.8 kg, the elephant brain is the largest among living and extinct terrestrial mammals. |
5 | During the daytime lions do what all cats do — nap — sleeping over 20 hours a day. |
6 | The lion is currently in a race for its survival across Africa. In just 50 years, lions in the wild have declined by 70 percent. |
7 | Gorongosa's elephants play an important role in the park's ecosystem. By knocking down trees and eating tall grass, they keep the bush open and clear, accessible to other grazers. Elephants spend 16 hours a day eating to satisfy their huge appetite, and there are telltale signs of their presence everywhere: enormous balls of poop that fertilize the soil and spread seeds. |
