The Makgadikgadi Pan complex and the respective national park in Botswana is not a very hospitable place for lions and their presence is inconstant.
With the first rains the herds of zebras and wildebeests move to the plain to feed on succulent plants and to give birth to their puppies; while during the dry season the herds are concentrated near the Boteti river, since it is the only place where they can find the water they need and the vegetation with which to feed, thus leaving the expanse of the Ntwetwe Pan almost deserted by the large ungulates .
Some lions follow the herds to the Boteti river, trying to avoid the Western bank of the river, because here there are human settlements; others remain in the Western part of the park, where the grasslands and the pan are located, defying the drought.
In this area usually there are not large herds of lions, it is easier to see small groups, two or three lionesses, covering a very large territory, about 1,000 square kilometers, this because the food sources are scarce and therefore they need to move a lot; the males attend more than one herd, with whom they spend their time, and can walk for over 50 km a night to garrison their immense territory in this desolate land.
The water is not present in this part of the Makgadikgadi National Park and therefore, for about 7 months, the lions have to extract all the water that they need from their prey; as soon as they kill a large prey, such as an oryx, they first open the animal's belly with their claws to drink the body fluids, before they dry out when in contact with the hot, dry air.
Large prey, however, are difficult to find and capture during the dry season, so often the lions hunt the aardvarks and the porcupines; moreover they often leave the borders of the park to hunt some specimens from the herds of cattle, that are much slower than the antelopes and therefore much easier to capture.
