- For every male lion, when they're tiny little cubs, they're treated in the same way.

They're cared for.

They're looked after.

They are fed.

They're protected by the family.

But when they get to the age when they're big, they're not permitted to stay.

(lion vocalizes) - [Narrator] When male lions reach a certain age, they're cast out of their pride and into a new and even more dangerous world.

- I think seeing him out here on his own is a little bit sad because these are the remaining days, his last time in the heart of the family, so, yeah, I feel sorry for him.

(lion growls) (animals vocalizing) (lion roars) - [Narrator] There are several lions in the Xudum Pride here that are approaching adulthood, losing their innocence, and starting to take on their own responsibilities.

(lion roars) - We've got four beautiful subadult males in this pride, and those are Manny, Nana, Colin, and Ngkonne.

Colin and Ngkonne are the oldest of the subadult males, but they still really just act like little cubs sometimes.

They quite often can be seen falling out of trees or just messing up hunts.

- [Narrator] These teenage lions are growing fast, just beginning to follow in the footsteps of the dominant males in the pride, Madumo and Big Toe.

- I mainly compare them to teenagers and teenage boys are just as you'd imagine teenage boys to be - Ngkonne is possibly my favorite of the subadult males because I've seen him grow in expertise.

I've seen him physically grow in size.

I've seen his mane get along.

He is looking more and more like a big grown up boy.

But I've seen his sort of, his skill, his hunting skill or his ability to survive, that has improved in the time that that I've known him.

- [Narrator] Part of becoming an adult is learning how to look after yourself and practice makes perfect.

- It almost looks like he's practicing his dispatching skills.

The buffalo is obviously dead, but there's an instinct in him, which is it's got him to class one to the throat almost in a suffocating grasp on the buffalo, and it almost seems like it's like a bit of practice.

He's a young male, so he is not, he's not a proficient hunter yet, but this is almost like going through the motions of what it would be like in the future.

- [Narrator] In the lion's world, this practice could mean the difference between life and death.

- I remember one of the first nights I saw him trying to hunt with some of the females and he was quite, he was clueless, and I thought, if he's out there on his own, he's not gonna be able to effectively catch prey for himself.

And that's, you know, has a steep learning curve and he's managed to, he's managed to do that and he's, he's thriving.

He's sort of over recent months, he's gone from being quite inexperienced and quite clumsy to being, you know, an effective survivor.

- [Narrator] The journey into adulthood is a big step.

Growing up means the only life you've ever known is ending.

- It's a big transitional period in a lion's life.

Everything that you, you've known up until that point has been constant, it's been safe and secure, but at this time, subadult males are forced out of the pride.

They have to make their way in life on their own.

- It's not just Madumo and Big Toe kicking out Colin and Ngkonne because they're of age and they need to leave the family.

This also does help widen the gene pool.

Colin and Ngkonne now have the chance of meeting other lion from different prides and mixing genetics.

- It can often result in the death of that lion that they have nowhere to to go.

They get injured trying to hunt alone, or they get killed by other dominant males in the area.

So it's kind of mixed fortunes for these subadult males.

Every reigning dominant male that's got a pride of lions, they've had the same career path.

He's a handsome fellow.

Maybe that's part of the problem.

You don't want big handsome lions kicking around, you know, it's partly that's it.

They can fly under the radar when they're, they're cubs, but they get bigger and bigger and the pride males will look at and think, okay, hang on.

Last time I saw you were half the size.

So they do become a threat and then instincts kick in that they might want to mate with some of the females in the, in the group.

So it's better all round if they, if they leave.

The path in life for subadult males and subadult females is, is very different.

It's of, it's a foregone conclusion that the females can, can stay.

They're not rejected from the from the pride.

The subadult males effectively become outcasts and the females, the norm is that they can be part of the, part of the pride.

- That's cool.

The girls, they're quite a formidable force.

I'll tell you what, I wouldn't want to be a zebra around here.

You see these lions walking through here and it's like, oh gosh.

Killing machines - From the around 10 subadult females that we have, in the Xudum Pride, we've got three standout characters that's Ula, Balla and Befor.

- The reason they're called the Powerhouse Girls is because they are essentially providing a huge amount of the food that is needed for the pride.

And this bride is growing and growing by the day, but with this group of girls, there's a chance they're not gonna go hungry.

My favorite subadult female is Palesa.

She kind of completely goes against the whole image of her name.

Her name means blossom in Setswana, but she's actually a blood thirsty killer.

One day we were called into a possible hunt situation.

They were moving straight towards a whole herd of buffalo.

Sadly, they messed up the hunt and that's because Palesa was missing and she started contact calling and she couldn't see her friends and she was really concerned about it and they basically just gave up on a potential buffalo hunt just because one of them was missing, which is really, really lovely and just shows their bond.

They're so loving towards each other that even the potential of a big Buffalo meal, they just stopped and made sure the other one was all right, quite sweet, but come on girls back on it now, now you're together.

- It's quite interesting that just their different strategy to survive and get buy in life is not to stick with the core, the mums or the matriarchs of the pride.

It's actually to kind of just find their own way in life.

- We're in quite an unusual situation with the Xudum Pride, and that's mainly because they are just growing so quickly in size.

But I think that there is possibly an opportunity for the powerhouse girls to splinter off and essentially create their own pride for in which they'll be the dominant females, - But that's kind of yet to be seen.

We really don't know what's going to happen.

At the moment, there's still a lot of prey around, but there's gonna be a time of, of scarcity and that's, there's gonna be more pressure on the pride than ever before.

So I think we may well see subadult females and males moving further and further out and just trying to find somewhere else that they can, they can survive (soft music) - [Narrator] The future of this new generation of the Xudum Pride is anything but certain.

The crew will have to wait and find out if the splinter pride begins to form or if the Xudum super pride will continue to rule their kingdom as one huge dynasty.

But as tensions continue to rise between the new generation and the older members of the family, the only thing that's certain is that change is on the horizon.

(ominous music)