By Martin Ruffell
SHOCKING footage shows the moment a FOUR-HUNDRED-POUND adult lion pounced on and killed a baby zebra within moments of being born.
The brutal footage showed a 700-pound mother zebra giving birth to its foal as other zebras and wildebeest looked on in the background. The 70-pound baby struggled to get to its feet as it emerged from its amniotic sac, but eventually managed to make its first few steps.
However, a matter of minutes later, the idyllic scene became a nightmare as a 400-pound male lion leapt at the vulnerable zebra – piercing the baby’s neck with its sharp four-inch-long teeth.
The lion then dragged its prize away to the audible gasps of onlookers.
The visceral video was captured by business owner Mckenna Wentworth (30) from Minnesota, USA, whilst she was travelling on a safari in the south-west of Kenya, with her parents. Mckenna captured the footage of the 30-minute encounter on a Fujifilm Finepix camera from just 100-feet away.
“I fully understand the circle of life and that everyone has to eat, but the way the lion just walked up and broke the zebra’s neck was brutal,” Mckenna said.
“I was in complete shock. I’m a huge animal person and I’m also a vegetarian. The idea of seeing anything die is just heart-breaking.
“It all started when we noticed from a distance that some other animals were acting strange, so our tour guide drove closer and we saw that the mother zebra was in labour.
“You could actually see her contractions because of the stripes on her body moving.
“Our tour guide was pretty sure that the lion would leave the new-born zebra alone as we had previously seen the lions mating and he told us they don’t often hunt after mating.
“The lion waited about thirty minutes, but he just couldn’t resist and walked right up and ate the baby.
“I was mesmerised by how young the baby was, yet it still had the instinct to attempt to run away from the lion.
“The mother zebra walked back to where the placenta sack was and cried a cry that will haunt me forever.
“It was the most heart-breaking thing I have seen. it was really emotionally heavy, and we pretty much ended the safari for that day.”
Zebras have one of the longest gestation periods of any mammal in the animal kingdom with the average female being pregnant for just under 13 months and only giving birth to one foal.