First confirmed white lion sighting

White lions have always appeared in traditional South African native legends and folklore, but the first confirmed sighting of a real-life white lion took place in 1938, when one such animal was seen by Joyce Little in Timbavati (now a private game reserve), on the western edge of the Kruger National Park in South Africa. Her family owned large tracts of land in Timbavati, and were friends with President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal (aka South African Republic), after whom the Kruger National Park was named.

Although Little's Timbavati sighting did not attract widespread attention outside South Africa, the discovery there during the 1970s of three white lion cubs by Chris McBride hit news headlines throughout the world, and he authored two bestselling books about his attempts to save the cubs from poachers (sadly, however, one of the three was eventually killed, and the other two had to be captured and housed in a zoo to save them).

Today, however, there are white lions once again in the wild at Timbavati, and their white pelage does not appear to cause problems for them when hunting. Their pale colouration is owing not to albinism but to a separate genetically induced condition called leucism, in which normal pigments are present but are very diluted, appearing much paler than usual.