There’s a new book out called The Age of Empathy by Frans de Waal about how chimpanzees console each other, prefer to share and nurse the injured. The notion that primates are compassionate and generous leads to the conclusion that humans are hardwired for empathy. I buy it!

That’s the thing about observing animals: you inevitably learn as much about us as you do about them. Take our trip this summer to an animal reserve.

We were horrified. A gang of six male lions had invaded our favorite corner of Africa and were committing gruesome crimes. They took over prides, one after the other, by killing the males, slaughtering all the cubs (yes, the babies) and then raping the grieving mothers. How depraved! How law of the jungle! How like an animal! How not like a man whom Shakespeare compared to an angel!

But wait a minute. Hold on. What about the Trojan women? Odysseus and the Greeks captured Troy, killed all the men and enslaved (raped) all the women. The Greeks didn’t have to kill the Trojan children – whom they enslaved – because human females are what scientists call "receptive," even with kids in tow. Lionesses are only "receptive" once they have no more cubs to care for.

Bosnia. Ancient Carthage. Somalia. Kill the men, possess the women. Cry havoc!

So this is the tale of the Trojan lionesses.


Lionesses have bad table manners, which demonstrates they’re not sharers, but can also lead to tragic consequences, as we were about to learn.

We had just bundled into an open-air Land Rover, wrapped in layers of blankets and vests and scarves and newly acquired gloves. And a hot water bottle! The sun wasn’t up yet and it was winter in South Africa. The radio squawked.

"Some lionesses have killed a giraffe," said Tom, our guide and driver, his South African accent sounding so civil in contrast to his news. "We’ll try to take a look."

Image courtesy of Lesley Stahl

Then the trees and the rutted road and the clear-blue dry-season sky began to roar. Nature’s own surround sound. Roar answered roar. A lion food fight was underway, the roars getting louder, meaner, more frightening. We clutched our hot water bottles.

We were rushing and bouncing and banging into a lion version of Richard III, a tale replete with visions of dynasty, the apparent murder of princes, and a tall-stack breakfast of giraffe meat.


We were staying at Londolozi, one of the great lodges in Africa, located on the edge of Kruger National Park in South Africa. Tom had known for years the lionesses who killed the giraffe, knew when they were born, when they had their first dates, that these moms had followed the unfortunate giraffe into the territory ruled by the gang of six lions, dominated by Satan, so dubbed by the guides because he not only killed other lions – but ate them. Satan is a cannibal. Which we were told is as rare in the world of lions as it is in the world of men.


When the lionesses took down the giraffe, they should have remembered their manners. But they didn’t. There were seven lionesses and their cubs. They couldn’t all eat the prime parts of the giraffe at the same time. So they fought, and growled. That deep, thrilling, terrorizing growl that carries for miles and miles. Two of the male lions heard it and knew what it meant.

"The males came in from the north," our radio crackled.

Perhaps the lionesses stood and fought because they had numbers: Seven females against two males gave them confidence. A thunderstorm of roars. It seemed to move the earth, as Hemingway said. Then the sound changed. Running. Confusion. What was happening?

EDITOR’S NOTE: THE FOLLOWING PAGE CONTAINS A GRAPHIC IMAGE