I never thought that I would empathize with the Hyeanas but I did. It was horrifying to watch the male lion kill not one, but two, Hyeana matriarchs in cold blood. It was sad...
I know that it's nature, but I felt devastated after I saw that.
I need Jesus like a starving lion needs a vegetarian platter
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Yeah, they're made out to be equals and rivals, but in the end the lions are just the nobles, and the hyenas are just the peasants. They're stuck being trampled on and taking a crappy lot in life.
shareDon't feel sorry for the hyenas. They'd do the same to lions and their cubs in a heartbeat given half the chance. And hyenas are hardly the "peasants", they come out on top nearly as often as they lose. Their sheer numbers and nearly comparable size to lionesses make them formidable opponents. Next to the lion spotted hyenas are Africa's second largest land predator.
"I'm going with jerk store. Jerk store is the line. Jerk store." -George
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Don't feel bad about the hyena matriarchs since neither were killed in the manner the narration described.
In the first "kill," the matriarch hyena obviously doesn't have its back broken as the narrator describes or she wouldn't have been able to use all four of her legs throughout the entire fight with the male lion. The last frame of this scene shows her still standing on all four legs. Anyone with the DVD and a little objectivity can see this by watching the fight click by click.
The next scene, where they claim to be showing the dying matriarch, is actually that of another hyena that does have its back broken but this is from other footage (Incidentally, this hyena's back was broken by being trampled in a stampede of hyenas). I don't know how badly this hyena was injured but lions kill with their bite and the male lion never comes close to biting this hyena. The lion's opening blow was potentially quite devastating but he was running too fast and the excessive forward momentum caused his paw to slide too much over the hyena's back instead of coming directly down on top of it.
In the last scene, a hyena is definitely killed although I'm not convinced that it's the matriarch hyena of the clan. However, it can easily be seen here that the footage is from more than one film shooting. In this final scene, the male lion manages to catch the "matriarch hyena" but only after a female lion trips the doomed animal. Yet in the immediately preceding scene, it shows all of the female lions merely watching the "matriarch hyena" when the male lion begins his chase after the animal. For all of this footage to be from the same incident, a female lion would have to start running after the male lion and then outrun him so well that she got to the hyena first.