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I think it's over there. There's another one over there.
We were certain that there were lions near us.
After a week of searching the lion family,
we found three female lions taking care of 9 offsprings.
Lion is the only one out of 35 animals in the cat family that lead communal living.
Scientists have long searched for the reason for their communal life,
and the one of the reasons was that it gives an advantage in bringing up their offsprings.
The mother won't give its *** to only its own children.
Offsprings grow strong immunity while getting milk from each mother lion.
When a mother lion dies, the other mother lion takes over its role to take care of its offsprings.
We decided to trace this lion family.
The filming started from 5 o'clock in the morning everyday.
The lion family has already finished the morning hunting.
Lions usually begin their hunting just before the sunrise.
As they have 6 times better eyesight than human,
it wasn't easy to take a shot of their hunting.
The massive fleet of wild flies came to annoy us without fail
when the morning sunlight passed off.
We ran into BBC's nature documentary team in the midst of filming the lion family.
James says he has been filming nothing but lions for 15 years.
BBC has been producing nature documentaries in the Serengeti Savannah for 25 years,
and they have many camera teams in Africa
simultaneously moving along with wild animals to film them.
The vehicle that was perfectly remodeled for filming in the wild
and the camouflaged high resolution camera with remote control!
We could feel the 25 years of filming know-how
and plenty of production support at a glance.
Two vehicles, 6 staffs and the limited time of 6 months.
We could only give more effort and save time.
We spent 14 hours in the Savannah everyday.
A thwarter came around while the lion family was enjoying their meal.
It was a vagabond tom-lion.
With the large hairy head, male lions can't run fast,
and they can't hunt well as their mane can be seen so easily.
This vagabond can plunder the food any minute,
and female lions wouldn't just sit around and do nothing about it.
But in that psychological warfare, the vulture and hyena,
the scavengers of the Savannah came by to *** the food.
The children were killing their breath in the bush.
While the mother lion was confronted against the vagabond...
It snatched the baby lion. Quick! Hurry!
One of the lion's offsprings became a sacrifice for hyena.
It's a known fact that hyenas attack lion's offspring,
but it has been rarely filmed.
We seized a very valuable scene, but had to share the sorrow with mother lions.
Losing an offspring, the lion family hurried to move to seek for another refuge.
There were 9, but are only 8 baby lions now.
A mother lion came toward us all of a sudden.
We could easily find out her destination.
It was the shade to hide from the scorching sunlight of the midday
as hot as 35 degree celsius.
Don't you miss the taste of gimchi pot stew?
Lions don't initiate attack human
when they don't take harmful actions or stay still in the vehicle.
We locked ourselves inside the vehicle.
Baek Seung-wu, Camera Director It's like them making a documentary of us, not us filming them.
They must think we look funny.
I wonder how we look to them, don't you?
Anything could happen any minute
that we couldn't take our eyes off even while eating.
Choi Sam-gyu, Director
For 14 hours inside the vehicle, we had to depend on this lunch box.
At 11 o'clock and 3 o'clock, we had to eat little by little.
Park Hwa-jin, Camera Director
Something happened to the lion family that we were tracing after.
The lion research team came up.
There are about 2,000 lions in Serengeti,
and the lion research institute tracks down these lions to study their ecology.
When a lion needs their observation,
they put a radio transmitter around its neck to trace after it.
They gave us some information about this family.
The lions we were tracing after were an old female lion called "Namanga",
her two daughters, and her grandchildren.
They said Namanga is a very unique one among the lions in Serengeti.
Ian Margo, Researcher Lion Research Institute
Lion Research Institute
The Lion Research Institute in Serengeti was established in 1965.
In the beginning, there was only one biologist from America in the institute,
but now they are supported by the Lion Research Foundation of America
and a film production company that uses the lion as their symbol.
The Lion Research Institute is currently tracking down 25 lion families
by naming each lion 1 year after their birth
and making individual records
to maintain data concerning family relationship and biological changes.
Researchers go around the savannah everyday to look for lions.
When a lion with radio transmitter comes into the radius of 3 to 5 km,
it will turn on the alarm.
The lions' data are continuously renewed.
Researchers learned how to identify one lion
from the other through many years of experience.
These detailed studies have become great help for lion protection.
In 1994, over 1,000 lions died of an epidemic of dog disease,
and the Lion Research Institute found out the cause
and vaccinated dogs around the area.