In many people's minds, the lion is the "king of the grasslands", very powerful, and being a herd animal, the lion cubs can be protected by the lion pride, so the cub survival rate should be very high.

But in fact, the survival rate of lion cubs is not high, according to the statistics of the Sabison lion pride, the mortality rate of lion cubs was found to be as high as 73.5%, and only about 26.5% of the lion cubs survived.

So what are the factors that can threaten the lives of lion cubs?

Female lions are the most gregarious of the feline species and spend the vast majority of their lives in groups, excluding the time of breeding.

In the last few days before giving birth, she will leave the pride, go to a safe place, give birth to her cubs alone, and then raise them alone for about a month or two before bringing them back to the pride when the newborn cubs can follow their mother outside.

The cubs are very weak after birth and completely dependent on the lioness, so when she is away from the pride, she has the responsibility of caring for the cubs alone, which creates an opportunity for rivals such as hyenas to take advantage of the situation.

In the African savannah, hyenas, leopards, bison, etc. can kill young lions, so it is not difficult to understand that the adult lion is the biggest threat to these animals. Strangling the lion while it is still small can avoid future danger.

For young lions, however, the greatest threat is not from hyenas, but from their kind, with more than half of the mortality of cubs, caused by male lions.

The male lion's dynasty is very short-lived, and once the lion king is old, a new male will invade and kill or drive out the old one, and the new male will have very little tolerance for the young lions and will not hesitate to kill or drive them out.

In addition to being killed by other animals, some natural factors are also one of the main causes of lion cub death, such as floods, grassland fires, drought, lack of prey, etc.

Lions are not good at wading felines, in daily life, the lions will try to avoid rivers, but once the lions are short of prey, they must cross the river to go further away to feed.

Adult lions crossing rivers that are not very fast-flowing is not a difficult task, but for young lions, it is quite a challenge.

In nature, not only the lion cub survival rate is low, but almost all animals are in the most difficult stage in the juvenile period, it can be said that the survival of offspring is the key to the continuation of a species or not.