Leo : The Lion King

[3rd POV]

[Name: Dr. T. Soma Tonson

Role: Lead researcher and ethologist.

Nationality: Indian (from Nagaland, Northeast India)

Age: 62]

"Leo trains,"

"Although not exactly fulfilling the meaning of the word, animals do train in the wild. They have to pick up the skills and go through physical conditioning to survive. Predator cubs learn to stalk and fight, birds especially those that hunt train their flying skills and dive, wolves are observed to train coordination and teamwork etc," Dr. Tonson explained.

"But we ever only see these types of things when the animals are juvenile, not when they are already adult. We've mentioned how intelligent Leo is and it seemed the concept of training stuck with him ever since he was a cub. He knew very well that the act of repetition was a clear way of getting better and stronger,"

The scene changed to show Leo training in the passing month. The way of his training varied and some might mistake it for a lion doing normal things. But the fact that he was doing these every day without any particular reason proved that he was indeed training.

"The activities varied. He would sprint uphill, only to come down and run up the same hill again. Sometimes he would run across a strong flowing river, resisting the current to strain his muscles and he would repeat it many times. One other activity that he indulged in heavily was the act of dragging his prey to far distances before eating. He would also steal the foods of other predators even though he ate just the day before. He would drag their prey as far as he could or sometimes climb a tree and put it there for no solid reason. He was particularly fond of putting the food of hyenas in trees or somewhere inaccessible," Dr. Tonson said.

The scene showed the respective footage of each training method. It shows Leo sprinting up hills, dragging prey or fighting with other predators.

One footage in particular caught the eyes of the viewers. Leo was running across a river with a strong current. It was during the wet season and although Leo was huge, you could see that he was actually being forced back by the current. It was a very dangerous and reckless method of training when the river was that strong.

One crocodile even came close to Leo, thinking the lion was drowning. The crocodile attacked him and they disappeared into the river. There was a violently splash in the water for a while before it disappeared completely.

After that, Leo came back on shore while dragging the crocodile. His teeth were clamped down on the back of the crocodile's head, his fangs penetrating the skull.

"Of course the activities I've mentioned so far were just some of many. They are the ones that stood out to us because normally, a lion would avoid all of those activities. The uphill sprinting worked his leg and spinal muscles, dragging heavy prey for long distance worked the back and forearm muscles so on and so forth. The fact that he was eating so much food compared to other lions and him dragging his prey also increased his bite force to insane heights," Dr Tonson said.

The screen showed a clear picture of Leo and how these so-called trainings helped in overdeveloping his muscles. Even through the loose skin that should not reveal muscle definition, his body looked sculpted when he moved.

"He also trains to sharpen his skills as well. His frequent hunting, or his act of swinging his paws at the leaves of bushes as if training the accuracy of his strike are some examples," he said.

The screen shifted through the incredible footage of Leo that the researchers had taken over the course of half a year. The episode was stretching at this point so not everything could be showed to the viewers.

"We can't show all the amazing things that we captured in this short episode so if you want to access these raw footages, you can go to our website thekingarchive.com," he said and the link to the website was also shown on screen.

The incredible raw footages they captured during this short time were too wasteful to remain unseen by the public. So the production team wanted to put them out there for everyone to see.

"Leo spent the six months like that, eating as much as he can and training whenever he can. He was like a lion with a mission, completely driven by something because there was no reason to display such activities otherwise," he said, "Well, we found out what was driving him but that story is for another day and another episode,"

"Time passed quickly when you are so engaged and before we even knew it, the dry season came,"

The screen showed a timelapse of the Serengeti. The land changed from its lush green savannah to a land that was mostly filled with dry grass and sand. The rivers dried out, leaving a muddy watering hole in their wake.

The animals that would graze and wander through every inch of the Serengeti disappeared. The herds moved in number of thousands and they were leaving the land in search of greener place. Their hooves stirred up sand and they looked like a living sandstorm from above.

"The dry season in Serengeti is rough and unforgiving. The rains stop around May and the change is drastic from then on. Within weeks, the grasses that once blanketed the plains begin to yellow and vanish. Surface water evaporates fast due to the heat and nearly 90% of seasonal watering holes dry up by mid-June. We measured rainfall in March at around 130mm. By July, it was less than 5mm,"

"It was not a gradual shift, it was cliff. The animals living in these region suffer this change in full. Animals die from dehydration, most herbivores have no food to eat so they migrate. If they don't move fast enough they die of hunger,"

The screen showed the dry season and its consequences in full. A group of zebras collapsed due to dehydration. A multitude of animals fight over rivers that were now reduced into puddles. Elephants dig the land which was once a pool, only to get wet mud which did not quench their thirst but only worked to cool them down when they applied it on their skin.

"And it was not just herbivores either, the predators suffered as well. Due to the migration, predators lack prey to hunt. Their success rate can drop as low as 8% during the dry season. It was obvious to us immediately that Leo would not be able to maintain his huge diet during the dry season and we were quite eager to see how he deals with this. At this point, we were used to being surprised by him," the doctor said.

"The lack of prey got to such a point that Leo and the Serengeti pride and its kings encountered in one of their hunt. We've said this before but the territory of the Serengeti pride was huge, so much so that four other prides could exist in this region. Leo and the pride never meet during the six months. But as the dry season reached its peak, resources were scarce and they met when they tracked down the same herd of antelope,"

Finally, the screen showed Leo in the same footage with other lions. Leo was a lone male and it was rare to see him with other lions.

And when he was hanging with the lionesses during a hunt, it finally struck the viewers just how giant and beastly Leo looked compared to them.

Leo was not only long but he was wide. His muscles rippled and were in full display when he moved as the skin tightened around the body. One look was enough to know that he was a moving raw power and strength.

"And in this encounter, Leo and the three kings of the Serengeti met once more. This was the second time Leo and the kings come into conflict,"

The footage showed Leo tearing open his prey under a shade. After a while three male lions came to disturb his peace. There was immediately tension in the air and there was no longer comments from the researchers.

The raw sound of the confrontation was the only sound in the footage.

The white lion, Snow, immediately caught the attention of the viewers for being a giant. He was even bigger than Leo although the lone male remained the more impressive one. It was like seeing a normal big and fat man with a smaller man who had a ripped body.

The confrontation did not last long. The three lions tried to scare off Leo and chase him out of the area but Leo did not budge.

In the end, the standoff resulted in a short fight where Leo was able to fight on equal ground with the three brothers. Although brief, the result of the clash was bloody.

But when the dust settled, Leo remained unharmed.

The three kings of the Serengeti were forced to leave Leo alone, having to find out the hard way that it was not worth the fight. Leo was not some pushover that they could bully anymore, he was a lion stronger than every one of them if it came down to a 1 vs 1 fight.

"it was an interesting confrontation between lions. We can observe how smart these animals are. They are not just pure aggression, they know when to fight and when to back off. The dry season was no time to pick unnecessary fight, they all know they need to conserve the energy to survive instead. It was also a very pleasant surprise that Leo was able to hold his ground again the three kings, I think no one expected that when it happened although it might be expected now after having seen everything that he would accomplish in the future," he said.

The scene briefly showed Leo finishing his prey under the shade and then cuts to the Serengeti pride eating their own prey.

"Although the conflict may have passed, the challenge of the dry season remained. With the amount of prey decreasing every day due to migration, how would Leo deal with this problem?"

"We thought that there was a very big chance that Leo would try to takeover the Serengeti pride since he had shown his prowess and lack of fear for the kings. We thought perhaps he would side with the many lone males that were wandering in the region and overthrow the current kings. If not that, we thought Leo was intelligent enough to follow after the migrating prey in order to secure his food source," he said.

"But no. Leo did none of that," Dr. Tonson said and shook his head. A smile teased his lips, as if he was aware of a joke that no one knew.

"In hindsight, the solution to his problem seemed obvious," he said and trailed off briefly.

"Leo started moving to bigger preys. He began hunting the animals that did not migrate during the dry season. Mainly, the buffaloes,"

This time, Dr. Tonson could no longer hold back a laugh.

"We thought Leo had made impossible progress during the past six months. How could we not, after all he was able to gain 50 kilograms of mass in such a short time. But the progress he made after changing his diet to the buffaloes borderlined that of supernatural. The insane effort to take down even one buffalo coupled with their higher quality meat was a catalyst to the greatest period of growth in his life,"

"I think I speak for everyone when I say we were not ready, not by a long shot, for the things that we witnessed during this period,"

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[End of Episode 2]

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Author : For those that did not really like these documentaries, we will go back to the main story in the next chapter.

Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading.

Thats 4500 words in one day. Deserves a vote.