Saving Sirga: Journey into the Heart of a Lion

Guide and tracker Val Gruener rescues a lion cub, Sirga, from a lion enclosure at the Grasslands game farm in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana.

Hunting with Sirga seems an impossible dream, until she brings down a hartebeest at 16 months old. This will give her more freedom.

The rainy season transforms the Kalahari Desert, and hunting becomes scarce. Val and Sirga find giant bullfrogs, play in seasonal ponds, and the lioness enters her first heat.

Sirga is ahead of her wild peers in hunting, as she has taken down prey, but is suddenly taken ill by a severe parasitic infection.

The second rainy season of Sirga's life has ended, and she is maturing quickly. The group investigate a disturbance at the lion enclosure.

Three-year-old Sirga weighs in at 130 kilograms but is gentle with Val as he fits her with a camera so she can hunt on her own.