Thinking back to that Natgeo doc on Lions where they followed the path of male lions I've rekindled an old respect for the lazy sods. They're born in equal numbers but there's a reason there are so few of the male ones. At the age of 2 the male cub is betrayed by its own family and exiled under threat of death: Enter Genghis Khan mode. Out in the wild the male cub must skirt its way through every single pride, aware that if it is caught by any of them, even its own, it will be killed. It does not know why this is happening. Sometimes his sisters and brothers will be so attached that they will leave with him when he is exiled, this is a mistake as they simply will not be able to provide food for all of them. Most will starve to death, if not all. Somehow they have to survive long enough to reach their full potential, the point where their size will make them strong enough to fight. This is hard as their mane is biologically designed to make it harder for them to hunt, making them more visible and likely to die of overheating under the scorching Savannah sun. Most will die attempting to steal food from rival prides or hyenas, biting off more than they can chew. What few lions survive then until adulthood must then take over their own pride or else die in the wild, they cannot survive on their own forever and they must father their own offspring or be forgotten by evolution. Sometimes three or four big, scarred males will form a coalition to take on an established pride, whether these allies will not immediately begin killing each other in victory is a question they do not ask themselves until their enemies are in defeat. If they are not ended by disease or hunter, accident or rival, and they take over their own pride, to cement their rule they remove the last vestiges of their past - killing their enemies' children to free up resources for their own. Sitting at the top of the animal Kingdom they wait and they guard their pride and their children, ever wary that one day challengers will arrive who will score victory upon him, kill him and all of his children. When his sons reach the age of 2, to avoid them growing too confident and accidentally end up killing his pride's own cubs, he drives them from the pride. They don't understand, but the ones that survive will.