3-Legged Lion Makes Epic Swim Across Croc Infested River

Earlier this year a pair of male lions swam nearly a mile across the Kazinga Channel in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park. “Hippos and 16-foot crocodiles inhabit the channel,” as the New York Times recounts the crossing, not to mention that one of the lions is missing a leg.

This was the longest-recorded swim ever taken by lions, so noteworthy that the event was written up for the journal Ecology and Evolution. The two lions, brothers named Timu and Jacob, are well-known to the researchers. Jacob had lost a rear leg to a poacher’s trap in 2020, but the park vets treated the big guy and now follow his exploits with a tracking collar and drones.

On this night in February, the brothers had been bested in a territorial battle with other males. They made repeated attempts to get out of Dodge (“during the second attempt, the drone that was tracking them picked up a large thermal signature that may have been a crocodile or a hippo in pursuit,” according to the Times), and were finally successful on the third try.

“It was pretty dramatic,” says conservation biologist Alexander Braczkowski, who has been studying the lions since 2017. “It looks like two tiny little heat signatures crossing an ocean.”

More like heat-seeking. It turns out that the lions were not fleeing their male adversaries so much as gallivanting towards females on the other side of the river. Jacob and Timu had heard the lionesses' roars, which prompted them to take the plunge.

Female companionship is hard to come by here, mostly because local residents had poisoned a number of lions in recent years to protect their livestock. There are only about 40 lions in the park, down from 71 as recently as 2018, with males now outnumbering females two to one.

There’s no word on whether the intrepid lions found love on the other side of the channel but, given their perseverance, we like to think so. 

You can help out Uganda’s lions via the World Conservation Society here.

Photo credit: Alex Braczkowski / New York Times