Josie: A miracle in a pride of lions (4 photos)

Lions are apex predators with no natural enemies. And since they have no one to fight, the main driving force of their evolution has become intra-species struggle. Males fiercely fight over harems, while females fight for food, a place in the pecking order, and the right to their own offspring. And amidst all this malice and competition, the story of Josie the lioness seems improbable. In fact, it is.





The lioness Josie is in the center of the frame. You'll find out what's wrong with her eyes below.

Josie was born back in 2008 in Addo National Park, South Africa. Even as a young woman, she proved herself to be a powerful hunter, capable of holding her own both in the wild and during internal pride conflicts. A few years later, she left her family to found her own pride—a rarity among lions.



Lionesses typically remain in their pride from birth until death. While their chances of reaching the top of the pecking order may be slim, they always have friends nearby to back them up when hunting!

Thus, Josie became the matriarch of her own, albeit small, pack. And all was well until 2017. Then, the lioness briefly disappeared from the radar, and when she returned, her right eye was completely blinded by an infection. It remains unknown where she contracted the infection, or whether the illness was a consequence of an injury. But that's not so important—for a lion, even an injury to one eye is always fatal. Without binocular vision, a predator can't make precise leaps, making it very easy to evade its attack. Furthermore, such a disabled lioness also dies socially—the pride has no use for a blind loser, even if she's the matriarch. And so the family began to fall apart.





If you follow the road, you won't get lost.

And then the unexpected happened: Josie's two daughters, Dawn and Duffy, decided to stay with their mother no matter what, not letting her die of starvation. And the lioness herself refused to die. With animal tenacity, this elderly and injured, but still fast and agile predator continued to participate in the hunts. Although she couldn't deliver the finishing blow, Josie drove the ungulates into the traps her daughters had set.



Josie and her daughters go hunting, 2018. It's not entirely clear where they got such a weak camera in 2018...

But in 2021, she was forced to abandon her hunts altogether: an infection spread to her other eye, and the lioness became completely blind. Even when she became worse, her daughters did not abandon their mother and continued to share food with her. Moreover, when not hunting, they always stayed close to their mother, moving no more than a couple hundred meters away. Thanks to the support and devotion of her daughters, Josie lived an incredibly long life and died peacefully in October 2025. At that time, she was 17 years old, which is surprisingly old, given that the average lifespan of lionesses is 13-15 years. Considering that she was effectively disabled for eight years, her longevity is truly miraculous.