Balloo The Lion

Balloo was ‘adopted’ as a cub by Serengeti Balloon Safaris in 2012 through a financial contribution to The Serengeti Lion Project.

(follow the story of Balloo from the beginning).

Being almost three years old Balloo, is reaching a critical age as a lioness. We will soon find out if she will be allowed to stay with her mother pride or if she will have to start a new pride. Normally, if the mother pride is already too big to host more lions, the young females in a pride have to start a new pride. But, Balloo is the only female in her cohort of cubs. The ten others born in the pride at the same time are all males. All the males will eventually have to move away completely from the pride to prevent inbreeding. Maybe the fact that Balloo is the only female in her cohort will increase her chances of being able to stay with her parents, after all, it’s just one more lion to accept in the pride.

When Balloo was just over two years old, in march 2014, she started to be seen more and more away from her mother pride together with six of her male brothers and cousins. This is normal in a young lion’s life.
As youngsters lions usually take off to live on their own for a while.
The males will never come back to the pride. But, as mentioned above, the females might. The area these seven lions have been seen is generally between the Serengeti Balloon Safari’s launch site and the hippo pool by the main road to the Naabi Gate. At times they have been seen together with a few of the older females in the pride.