Anique van der Kuil is a wildlife photographer on a mission. She strives to capture animals in their natural habitats to give ordinary people insight into their world. Anique has searched for an elusive beast within the Kruger National Park in South Africa for more than a year. She finally spotted him and took the time to capture him on video. Casper, The Ghost of Satara, is a rarely seen white lion.
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Those who grew up in the 1960s spent Saturday mornings watching “Kimba, the White Lion” cartoons on TV. If you weren’t that lucky, most of the episodes are available on YouTube. Kimba taught us that these lions are special and unique.
The world has known of the existence of white lions since 1938. The first sighting was in the Timavati region, near Kruger, where Casper resides. Indigenous oral histories tell tales of sightings for centuries, adding to the mystique.
Skip this paragraph if you don’t want to learn the boring stuff. The “white lion gene” is carried by some “normal-colored” cats. A recessive gene is responsible for these unique lions. Like red hair in humans, the recessive gene may skip generations.
Hunters pursued these lions to extinction in the region around Kruger National Park. The Global White Lion Protection Trust began a reintroduction program in 2004. Currently, three prides carry the genetic anomaly in the nature preserve. Casper is one of the earliest cubs of this reintegration program.
Casper is ten years old. The life expectancy of a white lion in the wild is 10 to 15 years (up to 25 in captivity). That means, sadly, that Casper is in his twilight years.
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You can find the source of this story’s featured image here.
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