- [Tristan] I have always dreamt of seeing wild white lions.
(speaks foreign language)
We found fresh tracks.
- [Man] These lions are wild here, so anything can happen.
- [Tayla] Go Barney, go.
- [Taylor] My name is Tayla.
- [Tristan] My name is Tristan.
- [Narrator] Welcome to Ranger Exchange.
Tristan and Tayla have touched down
at at And Beyond Ngala, on the trail of the rarest
white lion in the world,
the wild white lioness.
To help them in their search, our two rangers
have teamed up with Barney.
He is the head ranger at And Beyond Ngala.
- [Barney] Being a ranger to me
means I get to interact with peoples
from all over the world.
I get to educate,
make peoples understand where we fit in as humans.
I'm a conservationist in short.
- [Narrator] With only three known
to be living in the wild,
white lions are one of the rarest animals on earth.
And Ngala has two of them, a male and a female.
- In the whole world, there has not even been
one record where two white lines have been recorded
in the same pride, at the same time.
- [Tayla] When we talk about white lions,
we're talking about this genetic mutation,
both a male and a female have a recessive gene
that causes a lack of melanin.
So they're not albinos.
Their color is still there.
It's just faded.
- [Narrator] Barney is an experienced ranger,
but even for him,
finding those lions will be difficult.
They are free.
They are wild, and they have hundreds
of thousands of square kilometers to traverse.
- Even if you make it all the way here,
where you know where the white lions are,
it's not a guarantee that you'll be able to find them.
- [Narrator] Enter Richard.
One of Ngala's most experienced trackers.
Just out of camp, Richard spots lion tracks.
- We're often asked by our guests,
how do we track animals?
And how do we tell the freshness?
Well, we've got Richard over here,
and he's the master of the arts.
- Look at this one here.
(speaks foreign language)
- So essentially what Richard has said is
that the tracks, they're compact, they're smooth.
They're shining.
Let's see if we can find these cats.
- [Narrator] So they'd found the pride's trail.
The only question now was,
could they keep up?
- [Tristan] These lions move a long way.
I mean, they can walk 20, 50 kilometers in a night.
- [Narrator] Luckily they've got Barney,
and he knows the land like the back of his hand.
- I was born and raised in the Eastern part
of South Africa in a very small village.
But I was very lucky that my dad was one
of the peoples that was employed to look
after one of the campsites back in the day.
So I had the fortune in my life
of going in and out of the reserve
as a little kid, I was lucky to get a job
in one of the largest down in the South as a tracker.
Ever since that day, I've never looked back.
Well, luck is one thing,
but you also need to be determined
if you want to get somewhere.
- [Tayla] Barney is a gentle giant
with a wealth of knowledge
and it's great to be on a vehicle with him,
exchanging stories.
- [Narrator] With Barney and Richard's combined experience,
it wasn't long before the lions were within their grasp.
- So we found fresh tracks.
It looks like the lions are much closer.
Barney, what's the process from here?
- The tracks are going across
and these lions might be close in this section here.
So Richard is gonna go on foot,
and will let us know when he finds them.
- We're slowly putting the pieces of this puzzle together.
I can't wait for Tristan to see those white lions.
- Lions on foot.
These lions are wild here, so anything can happen.
(speaks foreign language)
- [Tristan] Richard spotted those tracks
on very difficult terrain.
And from there, his expert knowledge of this area
after 37 years led us straight
to those lions
in the most efficient manner possible.
- [Tayla] It doesn't look like they're all here though.
- [Narrator] The pride was there,
but those elusive white lions were nowhere in sight.
- Well, the young lioness had gone off
for a walk about and disappeared.
- Exactly, they were quite worried about her, weren't they?
- Yeah, they were genuinely concerned.
- Pride dynamics put the young white lions at risk.
- Males, when they reach the age,
anything between two and a half to four years old,
they get kicked out from their own pride,
and they form coalitions.
They start wandering as nomadic males
and move from one male's territory to the other.
The lionesses will not blink to move on
with the strongest male that comes in.
- [Narrator] Male lions will often kill rival males' cubs.
- If the Ross male sticks around
for another six months or more,
chances of these guys making it to adulthood
would be quite high.
- [Tristan] And obviously with them being here,
we know that they've produced white lions,
so the longer they're here,
there's a more chance of white lions
being born to this pride.
- The sun has just set behind us.
All the birds are doing their final call before
they head off to wherever they're sleeping.
- Absolutely phenomenal end to the day.
- [Narrator] With the two white lions
still missing in action,
they would need to wait till morning
and start tracking all over again.
Tristan and Tayla were running out of time
to find the rare white lions,
but in a place of such astounding, natural beauty,
it's hard not to get distracted.
And rangers will tell you
that life in the wild is full of surprises.
The sudden entrance of wild dogs
on the hunt proved that to be true.
- The dogs are running.
The dogs are going.
(speaking foreign language)
- Go, Barney, go.
Look at them go.
Bouncing around in a vehicle
chasing after wild dogs is the ultimate adrenaline rush.
- Guys this is amazing,
we finally catch up with the dogs,
unbelievable.
- After all that racing around,
sort of coming out into this open clearing
was pretty spectacular,
to have them on an impala kill.
- [Narrator] Wild dogs are the rarest dogs on the planet.
While Tristan and Tayla take no pleasure in the kill,
they are happy because the wild dogs are fed.
This goes somewhere into ensuring their survival.
- Wild dogs, I love those animals.
They are very, very rare,
with the way they look after each other.
How they look after the youngster,
how they work together as a team,
I tend to have a soft spot in my heart.
They have become my favorite animal of all time.
- [Tayla] I think what we've experienced
here this afternoon,
is good quality guiding, firstly,
and years and years of experience.
- One of my favorite things with dogs,
here, it's a carcass,
but look at how peaceful they are
when they feed amongst one another.
There is no fighting, nothing.
- [Narrator] It's a bittersweet end to the day.
The white lions have eluded the team once more.
It's the team's final day to try
and find the white lioness,
and Barney has received a tip off
about her potential location.
Soon enough, Richard finds fresh tracks of the pride.
- [Richard] Some of the tracks are here.
- [Tayla] Sure, these are big boys, hey.
Oh wow,
so it's the whole pride that's walked here?
- [Richard] It's the whole pride, yeah.
They are very fresh, they must be close.
- Let's go guys.
- [Tristan] The search for the white lions
has been quite apprehensive.
- We were very close to tented camp
on the corner of the property.
If they head east, they'll be gone.
Listen, listen, listen.
Sounds like lions
fighting over food or something.
- [Tristan] Doesn't sound far, does it Barney?
- It doesn't sound far at all.
- I cannot wait to get my first view
of these mysterious cats.
It's such a perfect textbook track of lions.
You drive a little bit, then you stop,
and you listen, and you try and kind of triangulate
where the sound is coming from.
It's such an incredible experience.
- [Barney] Can you guys see the hyena?
- [Tayla] Yeah, sure it's really camouflaged in the grass.
- [Barney] If we look at the direction
where it's looking at,
and the fact that we hear this lion audio
once in a while,
I think these lions might have killed something big.
- [Narrator] And then finally, in the thickest bush,
their patience was rewarded.
- [Tristan] Absolutely amazing.
- [Tayla] I cannot believe we've seen the white lions.
- The whole pride is here,
both the white lions,
it's just the absolute best scenario
that we could have hoped for.
Barney, you guys have done a great job.
Well done.
For me, it was those eyes.
They were unbelievable.
- [Barney] With this color,
it's like everything just shows.
I wouldn't be surprised
if he's got more scars than the rest of them
because this is a brave lion.
(lion roars)
- To think that there's only three wild white lions
and two of them are right here,
and especially because the little female
is the only female white lion in the entire world,
that is wild.
- Our hope's to be able to keep on
seeing the white lions,
and for the young female
to actually stop wandering around
and be able to stick around
and stay with a pride.
- Hopefully she'll have white cubs,
wouldn't that be cool?
- It's a great story to follow.
- How do you feel when you've managed to deliver
on this huge expectation of white lions?
- It makes you feel good,
but I would have never seen those tracks
if it wasn't for Richard.
Two of them are quite full,
and they're starting to lie down,
every now and again,
you'll start seeing a little bit of squabble like that.
So we will conclude this sighting
by letting these lions carry on,
doing what they do.
- I am really, really happy that we got to see lions,
and particularly those white lions.
I mean, it's a bucket list animal for me.
So to tick that off is an experience I'll never forget.
- Sharing ideas with peoples
that are like-minded and have got the same passion,
was really amazing for me.
It makes you realize how what we do is important.
- It's been action packed madness.
These last couple of days.
- I think you guys brought us luck.
People need to get here,
get to experience nature firsthand,
breaking away from their busy lives,
stress and all of that.
You come here, you get to clear your mind.
- On a personal level,
coming and seeing those white lions for the first time,
it's just been,
I can't explain it,
it's been something that I'll never ever forget.
- [Narrator] Tristan and Tayla are leaving
Ngala all the better by having spent time with Barney.
He is a man of great courage,
great leadership,
and is a shining example of what's possible
when one person dedicates their life to conservation.
Thank you for watching this episode
of Ranger Exchange here on Brave Wilderness.
Don't forget to comment below and share this episode
with your friends.
And remember be brave, stay wild.
We will see you on the next adventure.