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The King of the Kings

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The King of the Kings

Science and spirituality come together to save and protect the white lion of Timbavati

By Sofia Solovieva, Ph.D. Biol. Sci. IPEE RAS

Photo: White lion at sunset - Credit: © Can Stock Photo / PureSolution


Introduction

The Timbavati Private Nature Preserve (TPNR), established in 1953, covers 53,000 hectares (ha) and it extends over two provinces, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, in the northeastern part of South Africa. It lies on the western boundary of the Kruger National Park (KNP), one of the largest reserves in Africa that borders the Zimbabwe in the north and the Mozambique in the east and the important areas of the Kruger 2 Canyons and Vhembe UNESCO Man and Biospheres (K2C) and of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA). The name “Tsimba-vaati” derives from an ancient language, the Shangaan, and it means “the place where star-lions came down from the heavens.” It was there that appeared the white lions, the most sacred animals for the Sepedi and the Tsonga people that inhabit that land and protected, according to African record keepers, by South African kings for several centuries before the Kruger National Park was established in 1926. Native elders think that the white lions “arrived” at that precise location for a reason, they are messengers and part of the Divine Plan and Timbavati seems to be in exact geographic alignment with the Giza Plateau along the Nile Meridian (1), a sign of these felids’ sacred origin. Under the lens of science, these large carnivores are “just” lions (Panthera leo) endemic to one region on the globe, the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve and southern Kruger National Park– the Greater Timbavati Region –in South Africa, whose brighter colour is caused by a gene mutation already detected in several mammals such as black bear (Ursus americanus), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), leopard (Panthera pardus) and Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). The white lions are, without any doubt, a symbol of unity and cohesion between science and spirituality, their role in the ecosystem is irreplaceable and their presence can improve the wellness of local communities helping them to restore an ancient way of living and saving their ancestral traditions. But these carnivores are also (just like the Kermode bear) an universal icon of the nature’s magnificence and the story of their disappearance and of their subsequent return is an emotional example of what is necessary to do to protect biodiversity to not alter the balance that allows the continuation of Life on this small planet.

The scientific point of view

Photo: A white lion male roaring - Credit: © Can Stock Photo / Anolis

The first reports of sightings of a white lion emerged in 1928, the witnesses were Shangaans people that lived in the area now known as Timbavati. Ten years later, Joyce Little, whose family knew personally the South African President Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger and owned several lands in that area, declared that he spotted one these bright big cats and he was credited as the first European to sight a white lion. There was another sighting in 1959 and then, in 1975, Chris McBride stumbled upon a pride with two white cubs, wrote about it in his book “The White Lions of Timbavati” (2) and provided the first photographic evidence. However, African elders have always passed on tales that indicated the presence of white lions in Timbavati region for over 400 years. These rare and endangered animals were officially sighted for more than 56 years and then, as attested by McBride in his book, were removed from the wild and transferred to zoos and circuses all around the world and to the hunting/breeding camps in South Africa. There are white lions in the so called “safari parks” in New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore, United Kingdom and Serbia for example and two are the main attraction of a circus in Japan. Due to the trophy hunting and the other forced removals, the white lions went extinct in the wild in 1993 but, fortunately, this is not the end of their story.

In 2004, the Global White Lion Protection Trust (GWLPT, a conservation organization founded by Linda Tucker with the help of the lion expert Jason Turner), started a reintroduction program to reintegrate white lions in their natural endemic habitat. We will talk in detail about Linda Tucker and GWLPT at the end of this text but it is now important to know that lions in South Africa are classified as a species of “least concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and this led to the legalization of a cross-border trade in lion bones and parts. The down-listing made by CITES that defined the lions in South Africa as a not threatened species, increased the demand of this carnivore’s parts and favored the creation of “death camps” in which lions are held and forced to bred, cuddled by tourists as cubs and then killed as adults by trophy-hunters. It is important to remember that these “brave” and “strong” men and women slay lions (that had learnt to trust humans when they were young) in a fenced area and immediately after their awakening from the effect of the narcotic. This is a diabolic business that treats nature and its creatures as property and, in South Africa, it causes the death of 1500 lions every year.

White lions are not albinos, but their leucism is correlated with a double recessive allele and the genetic marker that determines the colour variation was identified in 2013. In the wild, this unique coloration of Panthera leo occurs only in the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve(TPNR) and southern Kruger National Park (KNP), South Africa, and it is often associated with the presence of yellow, blue or green eyes. In their natural endemic habitat, white lions appeared more often but then, from the 1970s onwards, white and tawny African lions (that carried the recessive gene) started to be removed, held captive for breeding and trophy hunting business, sent to zoos and circuses or killed for the cross-border trade of animals parts. These actions caused the disappearance of all the white lions in the wild and decreased the gene pool accountable for the colour variation. From 2006 to 2015, the white lions cubs born in 5 different prides in TPNR and KNP have been 17, attesting that the recessive gene is still present in the wild population.

Many people (and experts too) consider the white lions as freaks because they think, wrongly, that these big cats are albinos and thus without any conservation value and interest. The white lions are not considered a subspecies, not yet at least, and, as a consequence, they are not listed for CITES protection and plagued by the captive hunting industry. As suggested by Linda Tucker and Jason Turner, an appropriate scientific name for the white lions could be Panthera leo Timbavati but, even if not recognized as a subspecies, these carnivores have an important ecological and cultural role, they are fundamental to keep the Timbavati ecosystem in balance and act like a “lighthouse” that guides the native people to their ancestral traditions and culture to keep their spirit alive.

Several biologists expressed their doubts about the real possibilities of the white lions to survive in the wild, lacking the camouflage and hunting abilities. They suggested that the white colour decreased their hunting success rate preventing their survival. A study (4) conducted by Jason Turner et al (2015) investigated this hypothesis monitoring two separate groups of white lions that were rewilded in two areas very similar to their original habitat in Timbavati. Subsequently, the researcher released wild tawny lions into the same territory, but at different time, and then they compared the hunting success rate of the three groups.

Two rehabilitation areas (300 ha and 700 ha) were chosen for the rewilding, they were inside a 2000 ha territory within the Tsau Conservancy, a zone that borders the TPNR. An undulate landscape characterized by the presence of plains, woodlands, riverine vegetation, seasonal water points and streams qualified the two areas as perfect habitat for the lions, giving them all the necessary to try to survive. Turner and his team let the lions free to roam but protected them from poachers, conspecifics and dangerous large preys such as giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) and African buffalos ( Syncerus caffer). Several mammalian prey species populated the two rehabilitation areas: blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus), common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) and impala (Aepyceros melampus) were the most common but the territories chosen for the study were also frequented by steenbok (Raphicerus campestris), Cape porcupine (Hystrix africaeaustralis), aardvark (Orycteropus afer), bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus) and grey duiker (Sylvicapra grimmia). Other carnivores, such as leopard (Panthera pardus), spotted hyaena (Crocuta Crocuta), caracal (Caracal caracal) and black-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas) had been seen in the area but were not considered resident. The entire perimeters were surrounded by an electrified fence to minimize the conflicts with other lions and to reduce the possibility, for the lion examined, to leave the area.

Turner opted for the so called “soft release” technique and the white lions were divided in two groups and then released into the two separated (and fenced) areas. The White Lion Group A consisted of a lioness (who had the highest genetic integrity at that time) and her three offspring (two male and one female) and they came from the Johannesburg Zoo, South Africa. The lioness was hand-reared but they avoided to do the same with the cubs and, for this reason, the human imprinting on them was minimal. The four white lions were released into an acclimatation enclosure (1,5 ha) and then they were sent to the rehabilitation area, free to roam and hunt. At that time, the lioness was 6 years old and her offspring were 3 years old. The second group, White Lion Group B, studied three years later, was comprised of the daughter of the founder lioness, a captive-born adult male (12 years old) and their three offspring. The researchers, as already mentioned, decided to release a third group of tawny lions, the Tsau Tawny Lion Group, composed by two adult lionesses (4 years old) that were rewilded in the 300 ha area (the same chosen for the White Lion Group A).

The lions were radio collared and monitored daily for 1 to 5 hours, approached with a vehicle at a distance of 15-20 m, an appropriate choice to not disturb them but close enough to spot a prey killed by the carnivores. Each lion group was studied for a similar amount of time (8 month observation period), three times a day at sunset, midnight and sunrise and with the same techniques. The study obtained data to determine the kill rate and the food consumption rate of the three groups and then they compared what they found with data concerning several other tawny lion prides from Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR), Majuma Lion Reserve (MLR), Mabula Game Reserve (MGR), Weldevonden Private Game Reserve (WGR), and Karongwe Game Reserve (KGR).

The White Lion Group A accomplished 80 recorded kills and they selected 7 prey species, the blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) was the most common and the second most frequently killed was the common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus). The mean kill rate for this group was 1 kill every 3.038 days, the number of kills per lion feeding unit (kills/LFU) was 37 and the food consumption rate 8,6 daily (kg/LFU/day) and 3.142 yearly (kg/LFU/year).

The White Lion Group B totalized 88 kills, selecting six different type of prey and showing a preference towards wildebeest and common warthog just like the Group A. During the 8 month period, this second pride made 1 kill every 2.731 days, the kills/LFU were 38, the kg/LFU/day 14,9 and the kg/LFU/day 5.468.

A total of 94 kills were recorded for the Tsau Tawny Lion Group, that chose only three types of prey (in order of preference: blue wildebeest, impala (Aepyceros melampus) and common warthog) with a mean kill rate of 1 kill every 2.550 days. Their number of kills per lion feeding was 66 and the food consumption rate so divided: kg/LFU/day 14,8 and kg/LFU/day 5.383.

The researchers compared these results with those obtained from the other tawny lion prides aforementioned and they discovered that the differences were marginals. The so called Dunn’s Multiple Comparison test, showed no significant difference between the food consumption rate of any of the lion groups compared.

Lions are very adaptable hunters, they can easily change prey selection, hunting strategy and activity pattern. Without going into the details of this interesting study, it is important to note that 2 months after the release, the white lions groups reached hunting self-sufficiency and, within 3 months, their kill rate was similar to that of tawny lions in the APR, MLR, WGR and KGR. Even if some factors may have facilitated the white lions hunting success rate in the study area such as, for example, the controlled number and type of prey, the absence of dangerous ungulates and other large carnivores (except for transient leopards and hyaenas) and aggressive conspecifics, these conditions were the same for the Tsau Tawny Lion Group monitored and the hunting success was comparable. It is interesting to remark that very few kills happened near the fence and the three lions groups studied hunted all across the monitored areas. Other factors may have complicated the hunting conditions because in a small size territory the vigilance of prey increases and the lioness and her offspring from the White Lion Group A, had to learn to hunt and overcome negative factors being held captive for some time (the lioness was hand-reared).

What does the Turner et al. study suggest?

It provides a preliminary but notable evidence that white lions can hunt and survive in the wild obtaining a kill rate and a food consumption rate comparable to wild tawny lions. These big cats hunt mostly at night and several preys see poorly when the sun comes down. The white coloration can’t be a disadvantage in this case and the study detected that 30% of the white lions’ successful hunts happened during daylight or moonlight and, even if they probably took advantage of tall grass and dense vegetation, it seems clear that their brighter colour wasn’t so important in determining the hunting success rate.

There are also other evidences in support of this statement:

  • In the 1990’s, a lioness was observed hunting and surviving alone (her tawny sister was killed by a male) in the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve. She was able to raise three litters of cubs.
  • In 2015, two lionesses were spotted hunting with success in the same reserve.
  • A pride of white lions survived in the wild for more than 5 years, they inhabited the Puma Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

The science tell us that white lions are not a “nature’s mistake”, the lighter colour variant is not uncommon among mammals and they are capable of surviving in the wild just like the tawny lions. The white lions play a key role in the ecosystem, their return to Timbavati is stabilizing the natural balance and they should be protected and treated as a precious and endangered species because it is exactly what they are.

The spiritual point of view

Photo: The Sphinx - Credit: © Can Stock Photo / xfargas

Note: In this paragraph I will write White Lions with Capital letters to emphasize their spiritual significance as suggested by African elders tradition.

African elders consider the White Lions as divine creatures and think that their arrival in the Timbavati area fulfilled an ancient prophecy. The Zulu elder Selby Gumbi said: “The White Lions are the First Born of all God’s Creatures upon earth.” People like Gumbi explain the white coloration that connotes these carnivores like a sign of purity and enlightenment, they are white like the sunlight and possess all the colours of the spectrum in one. African lions are apex predators and, everywhere in Africa, Panthera leo is considered the guardian of the land, the wise master that holds the ecosystem together. The White Lion is regarded as the King of the Kings, a celestial keeper ruling and controlling the region he inhabits: the Timbavati wilderness.

These marvelous animals incarnate the African spirit and the pride of the people that live there, harming a White Lion in Africa it is considered a sacrilege that will lead to bad luck and devastation. Native African healers are fascinated by these creature and think that they are here to heal the land and people, because everything is interconnected and alive thank to the countless direct and indirect relationships with other animal and plant species. White Lions are a symbol of the nature’s magnificence, every traditional culture recognizes it and points up the importance of what they represent (3). African legends about White Lions are comparable to those of native Americans that narrate of the white bison calf or to the Black Polar Bear prophecies told by the Eskimo people. Both the White Bison and the Black Polar Bear are seen as precursors of a difficult time of chaos, disease and destruction that mankind will overcome unifying spiritually and treating nature as a mother to respect and protect in order to restore the balance they altered. Alaskan Eskimo elders believe that the Black Polar Bear prophecies are directly connected with the White Lions and that they are messengers of the same message: a new Ice Age is coming.

As supposed by Linda Tucker in her book “Mystery of the White Lions” (1), these felids could be, citing her words, “snow animals ahead of their time” that nature sent us to advice humanity of an imminent polar reversal that will cause a new Ice Age and dramatic climatic changes. The theory of Linda Tucker is fascinating and links the presence of White Lions in Timbavati with the Sphinx and the pyramids in the Giza plateau. Tucker noted that the Nilotic Meridian (31°14 E meridian) had an enormous importance for the ancient Egyptians, it was associated with Zep Tepi, the beginning of time on Earth when the neteru (the gods) walked among humans. According to Robert Bauval , Adrian Gilbert, Graham Hancock and John Anthony West, the Giza plateau (the three pyramids and the Sphinx) was a star map on earth connected with the constellations of Orion and Leo at the time ( 10.970 to 8.810 BC.) in which the sunrise on the spring equinox happened in the “House of Leo.” It is curious to note that Timbavati is in perfect alignment with the Giza plateau along the Nilotic Meridian and Linda Tucker wondered if there was a connection between those two places.

“The ancient Egyptians”, she said, “believed that everything that happened in the star-spiritual realms had a counterpart on the earth. As above as below. If the Giza plateau was a perfect star map on earth, and Timbavati was in perfect alignment with it, what was the significance of the White Lion’s birthplace being located precisely here on our globe? On the one hand we were evaluating sacred man-made monuments, on the other we were considering flesh-and-blood lions: could there really be a connection between the two?”

She started to consider Timbavati as a mirror image of the sacred land of Sokar (the birthplace of the gods) and pointed out that there are several parallels such as the Sokar’s southern border that lies 24°N while the Timbavati’s is 24°S. Specular connection, as above as below. Does the appearance of the White Lions in the south correspond to the birthplace of the gods in the north? The name Rostau designed the land where the Egyptians gods came from, and it reveals the suffix tau that in the Great African Tradition means “star” and “lion”.

Timbavati, from Tsimba-vaati”, “the place where star-lions came down from the heavens.”

Lions were revered by Egyptians shamans, they wore lions’ hides and they were instructed to the to sacrest mysteries as messengers of the Sun god. The image of a male lion with a regal mane is often associated with our star, the celestial element that creates life with the Earth (the terrestrial element) and ancient African regality is deeply connected with the Sun and its flesh and blood representation: the lion.

Credo Mutwa, African elder and “lion shaman” told to Linda Tucker: “Never forget that the story of the White Lions is connected with the stars.” And she believed him dedicating her life and efforts to White Lions, the Kings of Kings, trying to decode their connections with the stars, the Sun and their message to save the Timbavati ecosystem, the Earth’s biodiversity/resources and guide the spiritual journey of human beings on this planet.

Convergence

Photo: Sunset over Timbavati - Credit: © Can Stock Photo / Ads_UK

It all started in 1991, when Linda Tucker and her group of tourists feared for their lives stacked in a broken down open-backed vehicle in the lion’s territory in South Africa. The night was approaching and a pride of 24 lions started to come closer to the Land Rover growling and snarling from the bushes. Linda and the other tourists were without radio and mobile phone coverage and, at that time, the big maned cats weren’t used to human vehicles and, especially the males, showed a more aggressive behavior.

Linda described the scene using these words: “Our group began to panic and were desperately calling for help in the vast darkness. We were sweating in fear, behaving like prey, which further incited the agitated pride (3).”

Then she appeared, showing no fear with a baby on her back and a flashlight in her hand, walking proud among the lions. Her name was Maria Khosa, a African native woman, the Lion Queen of Timbavati that hearing the desperate calls from those panicking white people, decided to help and rescue them. She changed the life of Linda Tucker who left her job in London, came back to South Africa and became a “Keeper of the White Lions”, instructed by Maria and other African elders about the ecological and spiritual importance of the White Lions. In 2002, she founded (5), with the help of Jason Turner, the Global White Lion Protection Trust (GWLPT), an innovative community-based organization that merges science, tradition and spirituality to save and protect the White Lions of Timbavati and help the local communities to thrive while (re)discovering their cultural heritages. Since the beginning, Linda acknowledged that one of the main threats that was pushing the White Lions towards extinction was the business of the “death-camps”, where lions where bred and hand reared by tourists as cubs, killed by big game trophy-hunters as adults and then sell, as a corpse, to lion parts and bones traders.

She fought for 6 years to rescue a White Lion cub born in one of those camps and then she managed to return her, as a lioness with offspring, to the ancestral land of Timbavati. In 2006, Marah (Ma-Ra, Mother of the Sun) was released in the wild, she was probably the sacred lioness announced by African elder, born in a death camp in Bethlehem on Christmas Day. She was able to hunt and survive and raised successfully three cubs, Zihra, Letaba and Regeus, becoming a symbol of resilience, redemption and hope. Marah was only the first White Lion that came back to Timbavati, over the years the GWLPT reintroduced 3 prides composed, today, by 13 individuals.

Meanwhile, Linda Tucker and her team presented at Parliaments in South Africa and Britain, asking for a ban on the breeding camps and the cross- border trade of animal parts. In 2019, a GWLPT delegation appeared, on behalf of the lions, in front of the South African Parliament asking for a moratorium on the trophy hunting in the Reserves that border the Kruger National Park and they achieved a temporary non-hunting policy. The next step is to convince the legislators to write a law to prohibit this diabolic and unnatural business forever.

The aim of Linda Tucker and her organization is to ensure a future for the lions and (re)create the ancient connection between these carnivores and the people that live in the “Heartlands of the White Lions”. In the past, even if the Kruger 2 Canyons and Vhembe UNESCO Man and Biospheres is well-known to tourists, less than 3% of the incomes reached the local rural communities. The GWLPT is trying to change this situation, encouraging a respectful eco-tourism involving the indigenous people that organize cultural events in honor of the White Lions and produce characteristic local craft. The Global White Lion Protection provide jobs and accommodation for several personnel, connects the rural communities to the global one and influences the welfare of thousands of native people. Having in mind three simple words, Lions, Land and People, the organization established seven eco-educational centres and called them “Star-Lion Centres”, they built class-rooms, infrastructures, facilities, nurseries and food gardens to made those centres self-sustainable. Over the years, many students graduated from the so called Academy for LionHearted Leadership™ to become “StarLion” mentors for their communities, agents of change on a local and global scale, embodiments of the ancestral spiritual teaching that come directly from the stars.

The White Lions are considered a sacred solar symbol by the two local cultural groups in the Timbavati area, the Sepedi and the Tsonga, but their heritage and message is recognized by a lot of tribal communities in Africa, including the Khoisan/Bushmen. The cultural importance of the White Lions is as fundamental as their conservation importance, they are “capstone animals” that restore the ecosystem triggering a trophic cascade, they are bearers of an ecological message that humanity should follow to grant its future and they are a source of redemption for the local communities.

The “zoonotic spillover” has been one of the primary cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, the “wet” wildlife markets and the cross-border trade of animals parts created a catastrophe that will probably change our world and way of life forever. Apex predators (like lions or tigers) and primordial animals (for example pangolins) shouldn’t be consumed by humans, their role is too important and their number too small. The White Lions reminds us that will be probably face difficult times and that we will survive changing our despotic and insensate relationship with the natural world.

Credo Mutwa, Linda Tucker’s mentor and African healer, author, artist and philosopher, died in 2020, some months before turning 99, he was considered the living library of Africa. He said:

“People come to my Motherland, people come to South Africa, to brutally murder the White Lions of Timbavati in the name of manliness and in the name of sport … And I ask myself: Did we win our freedom for this? This quiet devastation of our country’s most sacred animals? Did we, by joining the ranks of the democratic countries of the world, also join those people who see it as their task to denude this planet of all life (6)?”

He was right and its message shakes us from the torpor to begin to take responsibility for our future on Earth, along with a (still) astonishing number of species, breathtaking expression of biodiversity.

Bibliography and citations:

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