Timbavati Private Nature Reserve 3

Adjoining the Kruger National Park, visitors to the area will find the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve.  It is maintained by the non profit Timbavati organization that since 1962 has been dedicated to the conservation of endangered animals. There are more than 40 species of mammals to be found at Timbavati including the big 5 but, perhaps, the most famous and interesting are the White Lions of ancient Legend.

Incorporated into the Timbavati area are a number of small private game reserves such as Motswari Game Reserve, Ngala Game Reserve, Tanda Tula Game Reserve and Umlani Game Reserve all of which are not fenced off from the Kruger National Park, enabling the animals to roam freely around the entire area.

In 1975 Chris McBride a conservationist and researcher was studying Lions at Timbavati and one day when he was out together with a tracker he spotted a lioness with three cubs about 2 weeks old.  One was tawny and the other two were snowy white. He and his family named the white cubs Temba (The Zulu word for hope) and Tombi (“girl” in Zulu). The tawny cub was named Vela (surprise).

It quickly became evident that white lions and cubs would face serious survival difficulties in the wild because of their inability to use their surroundings as camouflage and would be easy prey for other predators.

For many years there have been legends about White Lions throughout the continent of Africa, from Egypt all the way down south to the land of the San people, who depicted these animals in cave paintings. Even the name Timbavati in Ancient Shangaan means “the place where something sacred came down to earth from the heavens”.

It has been established that these magnificent animals are not Albinos but are genetically rare specimens and should be listed as a sub species.

Since Chris McBride sighted the white lions in 1975, White Lions have been seen in various reserves in South Africa. In 1979 in the Kruger National Park three litters were recorded and later white cubs were seen at Tshokwane as well as in the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game reserve in Zululand.

There is now an all white pride of Lions to be found in the greater Timbavati area and it is believed that these animals are just as capable as tawny lions are in hunting productively and so maintaining their existence within their natural areas.