Incredible Moment as Lion Pride Cross a Flooded Bridge to Escape Rising Waters

Lions Cross Submerged Bridge as the World Floods Around Them!

In the remarkable video found at the top of the page, a pride of lions is crossing a flooded bridge with water rushing over the top of it! As the video starts, a lioness and her adolescent cub comfort each other through the treacherous moment! Balancing on the raised edge of the bridge, the lioness follows behind her cub in a single file ‘catwalk’. Water rushes through drainage holes in the bridge, with an even larger torrent passing under the bridge! Were the lions to fall into this rushing water, escaping would be a difficult task! The rushing water comes from heavy rains throughout the ‘Masai Mara’, the Kenyan national wildlife reserve that these lions call home! 

As the lioness and her adolescent cub come to the end of the bridge, the mother gingerly steps back off the raised edge! Feeling that the water is only a few inches deep, she reassures her cub to take the same step. Voicing its unhappiness with having to step back into the water, the cub begrudgingly gets its paws wet. The camera stays zoomed in on the pair, while another lioness crosses the bridge to enter the frame behind them. They quickly acknowledge each other before continuing onwards down the road, and the video cuts to a later clip! Now, the big male lions of the pride are making the crossing! The guys don’t think about walking along the dry, raised edge, instead just plowing through the water! Just like in humans, lionesses might just have a touch more grace than their male counterparts!

The first of the two brother lions makes the crossing calmly and continues after his pride. But just then the camera pans back to the other side of the river where his brother is approaching! First, the second male lion nonchalantly approaches the flooded bridge and stoops down for a drink! But after getting his fill, the maned male takes his first few steps into the water to not be left behind by the pride! Even so, the male lion isn’t in a hurry, and looks around at the flooding water as if wondering where it came from! Nevertheless, the caboose of the pride reaches the dry land across the river just as the video comes to an end.

How Common Is This Kind of Flooding in the African Savannah? Is It From Global Warming?

During the wet season in the African savannah, flooding routinely affects the Masai Mara Wildlife National Park in Kenya. The park’s waterways experience these floods and the rivers often have high banks due the strong waters during flooding. As the rains intensify, streams swell, transforming the landscape into a temporary aquatic habitat, like we see in the video above! These seasonal floods play a crucial role in sustaining the diverse ecosystem, transporting nutrient rich soil downstream! It fosters vegetation growth and provides crucial water sources for the park’s wildlife, animals and plants alike!

However, the dynamics of rains and floods are undergoing changes due to the impacts of global warming. Climate change has led to alterations in precipitation patterns, resulting in more intense and erratic rainfall in some regions. This shift poses challenges for the delicate balance of the Masai Mara’s ecosystem. The increased unpredictability of the wet season can disrupt natural rhythms, which creates a more challenging environment for the iconic species that call the park home. As global warming continues to influence weather patterns, understanding and mitigating these changes become super important. Making sure the natural systems of large wildlife reserves stay intact is necessary for the long-term health of the Masai Mara and its inhabitants.

The photo featured at the top of this post is © Dr Ajay Kumar Singh/Shutterstock.com