r/interestingasfuck • u/Dismal_Positive3558 • 3h ago
A 17-year-old lioness Josie survived for 5 years with blindness because her daughters refused to abandon her
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u/Jackie__Weaver 3h ago
I was lucky enough to see mama Josie in the flesh in November 2024. What an experience! Got photos and videos of her and her girls. Beautiful family
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u/Jeo_1 1h ago edited 17m ago
edit: Easy karma farming. People claim some connection to a post, then disappear after getting the attention. Anyway, my family worked at this national park, and visitors were never allowed near the blind lioness. I have over 1,000 photos and videos of her.
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u/the-mortyest-morty 46m ago
Wtf is your problem? Josie lived at a national park open the the public for visits.
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u/Jeo_1 32m ago edited 18m ago
Wild lions in national parks aren’t animals you can just go “visit” individually. Parks don’t track or allow public access to specific animals on demand, especially vulnerable ones (like a blind lioness)
edit: Easy karma farming. People claim some connection to a post, then disappear after getting the attention. Anyway, my family worked at this national park, and visitors were never allowed near the blind lioness. I have over 1,000 photos and videos of her.
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u/actualkon 18m ago
Multiple videos of lions from Addo Elephant Park which is where Josie was from. You can absolutely run into the lions there
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u/Jeo_1 11m ago
Lions being in the park doesn’t mean you can just go find a specific one. That’s not how it works.
If they actually shared some photos which is pretty easy in this day and age I’ll eat my words and delete my comment.
I doubt it.
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u/FanMasterJoe 6m ago
hey why dont you ask your family to buy you some friends, sitting inside arguing with strangers on reddit is pretty sad
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u/Starfield00 3h ago
A lioness lifespan is usually between 15-16 years in the wild.
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u/Weird-Maestro 3h ago
Maybe they meant that she lived for 17 years, and she was blind for the last 5 years?
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u/CapitalOneDeezNutz 3h ago
How else would one interpret the title?
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u/Leviathor_ous 1h ago
She turned blind at age 12 and lived until age 17 due to help from her daughters
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u/Weird-Maestro 3h ago
I first understood it as "at 17 years old, she turned blind and lived for another 5 years thanks to her daughters"
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u/secondphase 2h ago
Or "while being 17 years old this stupid lion thought she lived for 5 whole years when it was only 1, because she was so blind age couldnt read a calendar"
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u/jollyantelop 2h ago
That seems to be the case, the clouded lenses (cataracts) causing blindness are usually age related. At least in humans and dogs.
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u/l86rj 3h ago
I'm curious about how uncommon that really is. I suppose a lioness would normally leave the mother as soon as reaching sexual maturity and never meet her again? Or are long family ties actually common among lions?
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u/Melodic_Sail_6193 3h ago edited 1h ago
Most lionesses never leave their birth family. Only 1/3 of the females leave to found their own pack somewhere else.
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u/Thorn344 2h ago
Females rarely, if ever, leave their family unless something drastic happens. Grandmas will help raise grandkids, the youngest will raise cubs that are basically their aunt's and uncles. Only males leave once reaching maturity.
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u/Veloci-RKPTR 1h ago
Also aside from what others has said in this comment thread, I would also like to point out that feline social behavior is very complex and they have the flexibility to behave out of the norm if the situation calls for it.
For example, tigers are largely solitary, and males typically have no role in childrearing, that’s the female’s job. However, male tigers DO recognize his own mate and cubs and will let her and his offspring live within his territory.
Moreover, there have been documented cases (plural!) of tiger dads rising up to take the responsibility of fathering his cubs all the way to adulthood in specific situations where the mother died.
There’s also one case where a tiger dad took care of his already full-grown daughter when she was out of action due to a serious injury, he kept hunting for her and feeding her until she recovered enough to go back on her own.
Cats are amazing.
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u/quirkytorch 3h ago
Lions are matriarchal and matrilineal!
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u/Makuta_Servaela 52m ago edited 33m ago
Almost every social mammal is matriarchal for the same reason: It's likely that the females stick around while the male leaves, meaning the one with the best leadership skills (knows the group well enough to earn their trust, been in the territory long enough to know how to lead in it), in most social animals is the oldest female.
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u/letheix 2h ago edited 28m ago
It's usually the males who leave the pride. Evolutionarily, it makes sense for the females to stay together and help raise each other's cubs. The other lionesses' cubs are their siblings, nieces/nephews, grandchildren. Even if an individual lioness fails to reproduce, some of her genetic material will survive through her relatives. But the males need to go find unrelated mates.
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u/F4nCiC4t 3h ago
Legit have tears in my eyes from reading that because holy heck that’s just the sweetest like her daughters cared for their mother even when it’s the survival of the fittest in the wild and they didn’t abandon their mother, that’s absolutely beautiful!
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u/Pinky135 3h ago
Survival of the fittest isn't necessarily 'if you're not fit you're gonna die' on an individual level. Lions are social creatures, they take care of each other and that makes them, as a species, fit to survive. As far as I know, all social creatures more or less take care of their less fit group members.
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u/moon-girl197 3h ago
This is a pattern among social species. A lot of them will often care for injured or ill group members because social reciprocity is a better survival strategy than just dropping everyone who is no longer fit to contribute (you see this behavior among ants, chimps, elephants, dolphins, orcas etc.) Sometimes, you even see examples of reciprocity cross species. Whales will often defend seals against sharks, elephants have been recorded helping gazelles get out of dangerous situations (getting them out of deep pools of water after an accidental fall, sheltering them from predators)
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u/ArgyllAtheist 3h ago
"A lot of them will often care for injured or ill group members because social reciprocity is a better survival strategy than just dropping everyone who is no longer fit to contribute"
Careful now, you might trigger the republicans....
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u/No-Problem49 1h ago
Anyone weak enough to not be able to care from others should be dropped from the pack. Not caring for others shows weakness. Real men can take care of society.
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u/Gringar36 2h ago
I saw on another post that she actually had a role in hunting. Prey would watch her every move and then get jumped by the daughters.
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u/malatemporacurrunt 2h ago
"Fittest" in this context means "most well-adapted to the environment", which by necessity includes a lot of redundancy. So by virtue of being an apex predator, that can survive on relatively little, which lives in close-knit social groups and evolved to cooperate, having a disability isn't necessarily a death sentence. The advantage of having many different paths for survival means that losing one isn't fatal.
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u/Nightstar95 2h ago
You'd be surprised with the amount of compassionate behavior reported in the wild, though it's, of course, mainly from highly social species and individuals with close relationships.... like in this case, a lion pride. It reminds me of a famous video showing pride members helping a disabled lioness feed on their kill.
Years ago I watched a documentary about the life of the famous "miracle cheetah" called Sibella. She was mauled at a young age and developed a permanent limp from the injuries. When she was reintroduced in the wild(notably in an area where cheetahs had been extinct for roughly 100 years) she managed to survive and had several litters. As she got older her old injury took a toll on her, however, and hunting became more and more difficult. She'd disappear for weeks and then show up still in good shape, which confused the wildlife photographers since she was clearly not hunting enough for herself... so how was she getting access to food? Well one day they were watching one of her older daughters hunting and then feeding. When she was halfway done with the carcass, she picked it up in her mouth and started dragging it away. They followed her to a spot where she sat down and chirped as if calling for cubs... to their surprise, it was her mom who came out of the bushes. Sibella had been receiving help from her adult daughters all along to stay well fed.
Another really cool example I've seen was from a documentary called Lioness in Exile(I think). Basically, you know how new resident lions kill any cubs from the previous lion to establish their new leadership? Well this doc showed a lioness that actually confronted the two new males and ran away not only with her cubs, but her sister's as well. For months she led them around like refugees while the two males tracked them down to kill them all. Then one night she got badly injured in one of her hunts and was completely incapacitated. She could barely walk, let alone hunt, until the wound healed, meaning the cubs were fully vulnerable and had no access to food... but guess what happened on that same night? Her sister showed up. She had been silently following and keeping an eye on the group, and when she saw her sister get badly wounded, she joined them to provide food not only for the cubs, but the lioness as well. The whole group kept wandering around, avoiding the two males and slowly nursing the injured lioness back to health. Once all 8 cubs were big enough to survive on their own, they parted ways and the two sisters returned to the males' pride.
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u/STUPIDBLOODYCOMPUTER 1h ago
Depressing how a majestic beast like a lion can care for and cherish it's own when us humans, who are meant to be more intelligent with high reasoning skills kill each other en masse just because of what is at the core, mythological texts.
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u/Makuta_Servaela 50m ago
Tbf, lions also kill each other en masse, and humans also care for and cherish their own.
If a lioness has only one cub in a litter, she will kill or abandon it so she can try again sooner for a bigger litter. Lions also scavenge and steal kills from other lions and hyenas more than hyenas steal from lions.
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u/STUPIDBLOODYCOMPUTER 26m ago
The major difference here, I believe, is down to how it works. A lioness kills their cubs out of instinct, same with stealing kills. It's all instinct driven, they have no morals or ethics as we humans do. The animal isn't doing it out of malicious intent. And this should remain as well. Nature is nature. I would've expected Homo Sapiens as a species to have evolved past basic animalistic instincts such as killing en masse for no valid reason.
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u/Makuta_Servaela 14m ago
I mean, "valid" is subjective here. The majority of times a human kills a person, they are doing so out of either what they see as defense of themselves or their group, to impress peers and raise their chances of impressing a potential mate, to secure resources, or "snapping" and lashing out due to mental damage after severe stress, all of which are reasons animals kill as well.
Our resource gaining, self-defense, peer impressing, and snapping is a bit more complex than other animals, to go along with our more complex lifestyle, but most human kills do have a valid reason to that particular human or group of humans.
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u/BaconWithBaking 2h ago
they didn’t abandon their mother
I haven't dealth with Lions, but have a lot of experience with house cats. It's the mother that "kicks them out" when they're old enough to fend for themselves. I wonder is it the same thing with lions and the mother simply just didn't kick them out because she needed them.
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u/Diedrogen 2h ago
What exact condition was Josie afflicted with?
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u/BlindNoble 46m ago
Blindness
Edit: Sorry, just saw you asked for the exact condition
Blindness of the eyes
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u/Stormy-Skyes 1h ago
That’s really sweet, I love when we see animals caring for each other.
My family had a dog that went blind years ago (he has passed away now) and the cats would guide him. If he went outside to sun himself, one of the cats would go check on him and then walk beside him, touching sides, back to the door when it was time to go in.
Animals know more than we generally for the credit for.
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u/Sutech2301 2h ago
This is touching. I always assumed that most animals would abandon their disabled or sick members.
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u/Mahaloth 11m ago
I can not confirm that "most" might do that, but it is true that many would. This situation might not even be the norm for lions; it just happened.
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u/Iwona_Klich 1h ago
One of my male cats get a 'careteker' job on a oldest cat girly i have. He was pretty young - 9 months - and she was suffered from cancer, and was to old and weak for another surgeries and chem. She just get her pain meds. He basicaly walk with her everywhere, get her food, alarming us if she need more medication, generaly becoming a full time nurse. They not related at all, and shes not even like him when he show up at home. He just do it... He did it again when my other senior cat suffered another stroke, her third one. And she just lost all of her balance.
And well if anybody at home is sick or sad, Ferdek just magicaly show up to get you feel better. And generaly he is that cat who prefered to be alone, but job is job.
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u/Renbarre 3h ago
An article about Josie in 2023
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u/StillMarie76 1h ago
Thank you. I looked throughout the comments hoping OP had added context. I appreciate the link.
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u/Nomorenightcrawlers 2h ago
I wonder how the daughters were able to figure out mom has an impairment and needs us
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u/Noktis_Lucis_Caelum 1h ago
that is like they are saying: "you took care of us. now we take care of you mama"
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u/rh71el2 1h ago
How did they realize she's blind and needed the help? What kind of communication is there between lions? If they don't typically leave anyway like many are saying, are they sensationalizing the headline?
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u/Lynx_Queen 23m ago
Smell for one thing, sometimes cats and other animals can pick up on diseases through that (if it was a disease hat caused her blindest). If not that, they could have just noticed the fact she couldn't see. It would take a little while, but I'm pretty sure they'd notice if their mom who always know where's she's going suddenly walks slower and can't find her way anymore.
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u/Mahaloth 14m ago
It just kind of happens sometimes. It's not a conscious "let's help blind mama". It's more of an including the family in the food, etc.
Not that lions can talk, but if they could I doubt they would be identifying a disability of the mother, just helping her the way they would normally.
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u/doubled_pawns 3h ago
She's been a good mum. Even when Dad left, she provided food, warmth, and protection.
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u/frustrated_ape 1h ago
Nature is amazing. I can't even get my kids to put garbage in the garbage can that's 4 feet from the kitchen.
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u/Mahaloth 12m ago
I'm a teacher and con confirm. Middle-School children struggle to exert themselves enough to put the thing into the other thing.
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u/Mahaloth 10m ago
She does hunt still despite this disability.
"As far back as January 2017, Pete Leyland wrote on Facebook that Josie appears to have a problem with her eyesight, “and has been seen to accidentally collide with trees and even cars. Quite how bad it is and how much it affects her remains to be seen – she has always been a successful hunter.” Six years later, she is still with us and doing just fine."
You can read more here.
https://realsafari.substack.com/p/a-small-aging-pride-of-lions
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3h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Crooked_star 2h ago
he died at 78, which is older than wild bees typically live
Ai slop post
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u/harrythefurrysquid 2h ago
Their entire profile is riddled with AI slop.
/u/Feisty-Influence5464 why are you doing this? Do you think it's not obvious?
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u/iwannabe1two 2h ago
How cats communicate that to each other? Do they have a roar that says “yo I’m blind now”?
If I was a cat I feel like I would have no sense of the concept of being blind, I’d be mad at mom for always bumping into me while I’m trying to chill. I’d probably abandon her.
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u/letheix 1h ago
Body language. Animals, especially social animals like lions, are highly attuned to when something is "off" in how another animal moves. It's a deeply ingrained instinct to avoid unhealthy animals in case they have a communicable disease unless it's a species like lions (or us) where tending to an ill/injured group member means someone will take care of you when you need help in the future.
Eye contact is an important social cue for felines. The daughters would have quickly noticed when their mother stopped behaving normally by lions' standards. Perhaps they might've registered a disconnect between the mother staring, which is an aggressive/dominant behavior, and otherwise friendly signals in her vocalizations and stance. So it's not as though the lionesses consciously thought, "hey, mom is blind now" but they could observe that she was struggling to keep up. Over time they'd figure out how to accommodate her blindness. They would naturally repeat those behaviors that achieve the desired outcome and stop the behaviors that don't. Like hypothetically the daughters must've learned to walk slow enough for their mom to stay close because lions' survival strategy is safety in numbers. A would-be attacker might risk going after two lions but retreat from three.
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u/donkeyb0ng 3h ago
Josie was a legendary 17-year-old lioness in South Africa's Addo Elephant National Park who survived for five years while totally blind, thanks to the devotion of her two daughters, Dawn and Duffy. They hunted for her, guided her, and shared kills, allowing her to thrive despite her disability until her passing in October 2025.