Lions: How Wild Can it Get?

     Perhaps the most unique quality of Tembe Elephant Park, is the how WILD it is.  If you go to other large parks in Southern Africa you will find the same big name animals, locally known as “The Big 5” (Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Buffalo, & Rhino). You will find similar picturesque landscapes and possibly even a tranquil sense of removal from human society and technology.  However, you will not have seen the true untamed Africa that Tembe offers.  There are two main reasons for this; first more than 60% of the park is off limits to anyone but management and researchers and second a maximum of 10 cars are allowed in daily.  In fact because of the isolated location of the park, there are so few tourists that it is quite common to go for some days without having to see another person on the roads.

     When driving through the park it is ordinary to come upon animals that have never seen a car before, let alone a human.  While I was out walking my transects through the deep patches of sand forest, walking into creatures large and small could be quite comical as they just stare at you unsure if you’re a killer or a friend or really what the hell you are.  In many other parks there are so many tourists in their own vehicles that, without exaggeration, you would have to wait in a line to see an animal such as a lion leopard.  If you can upon a pack of dogs or lions they would be so accustomed to people that they would sleep on the road next to your car.  This can be great for people looking to view them or take pictures, but you can go to a zoo for that.  If you truly want to see wild animals, those are as wild as house cats.   I have a much more intense and wild story about lions.

One of the less "intimidating" around the park

Lunch with Lions:

For my research I have had to walk in straight 100 meter lines through similar vegetation looking for Suni.  Despite the density of the trees and shrubs it is the most accurate if I stay on my line, which often means crawling through thorns and bushes full of bees.  My first day of work there were no rangers available to accompany me, but I was 2 weeks behind schedule and desperate to start.  So they let me work on some of the plots close to the research camp.  Leonard, the elephant monitor at the park, joined me as a second pair of eyes.  Just the day before poachers had killed a rhino in the park and the police and vets were presently at the office using a helicopter to visit the crime scene. In-between the office, the research camp, and Leonard’s house was a patch of degraded sand forest not 200 x 150 yards big this was my work site for the day.

 

A promo shot we took just before

Setting off the Leonard’s house we started to walk a line and not more than a minute in, found a fresh lion track.  The night before we had gone out with the lion monitor and saw a pride of 5 lions not a few hundred meters from where we were.  Because of that we figured it was from the night before and carried on. A little later on another line we found more tracks and Leonard pointed out imprints from where the lions may have slept last night.  The thing I find neat about tracking other than knowing the direction, speed, and sex of an animal from it’s footprint, is putting together a story behind what you see.  Finding the bed rest of a lion, we stood and imagined it dreaming of meat and territory, smiled and continued to work. 

The whole area had been rubbish and very unsuccessful, which I had figured going in, but I wanted to find something that day.  So when I was walking my last line and stopped before a large dense patch of bushes with only a few meters to go, I figured why not go another a little further, there could be a Suni on the other side. As I got on my belly and entered the thicket, Leonard who was wandering on behind me on lookout, went around.  I managed to push through the thorns and exited to a more open area with small trees and high grass. I stood up, having found nothing and ready to meet up with my friend, but a group of Nyala antelope caught my eye.  And as I turned to view them a much larger objected entered my periphery.  My immediate image in my brain was the back end of a small rhino, but in the nanoseconds that my eyes turned to see the whole animal they became locked with the golden-orb eyes of a male lion not more than 35 feet from me.

           

In that instant my body froze as if incased in ice, my heart fell into my stomach, and my brain began it’s flash of life events searching for correct action.  Having been hiding in the thick grass, the lion stood erect and alert. To the beast’s left stood his brother, another impressive male who also starred, but my eyes were locked with the other.  Without movement from either side, our eyes stayed locked for what must have been not more than 10 seconds, but felt like an hour.  In that time I knew many facts; this lion was deciding what I was, was I food, an enemy, or another beast. He was contemplating to eat, to make a defensive attack, or submit. I knew that they were 2 of the 5 lions from the night before and that the other 3 were likely on my flank.  I knew that this pride came from the far north of the park and did not know of humans.  I also knew that reaching for my knife was useless, as one wrong move could mean instantaneous death from the world’s most efficient killing machine.

Knowing all that I stood my ground and starred back into the lion’s eyes as he starred deep into my soul. A step backwards would signal submission and tell the animal that I was prey, a step forward would be a challenge, and step to either side could mean stumbling, indicating weakness. So I stood there and starred him down.  Sweating and starting to quiver I softly called to Leonard who could not see me. The brothers, having seen me as no threat and possibly a danger, backed away and turned.  I took the opportunity to back away slowly as well.  With Leonard guiding my backward steps towards him, I continued to stare unblinkingly at the lions who continued to turn and stare back at me. Once in the presence of my friend, we made haste to the camp, which ended up being less than 60 feet away.

Not my photo, but 2 males in Tembe going at it

I have been in many near death experiences, I have been bluff charged by a grizzly bear, in the presence of a wolf pack, and venomous snakes at eye level. I have been in burning, collapsing buildings, car accidents, and other potentially immediate life ending situations with the fire department. However never in my life have I felt so vulnerable and fearful that I would not exist in the coming moments.  Never have I felt such fear like that.  Never have I felt such naked, merciless fear fill my body.  And in the moments after realizing I would live, I had never felt so ALIVE!

The point of the story, other than being pretty awesome and a moment I’ll take to the chipper; is that these lions are truly wild.  Go anywhere else and the reaction of the lions would be nonchalant, rather than “is this food?” The lions in this park are divided into 4-5 prides that each militarily govern a section of the park.  The ones I walked into had come down from their northern territory to challenge the big male of the south “Mufasa”. 

A female I spotted a few mornings earlier, their camouflage is amazing

The Lion monitor in the park knows all of them by name and tracks all their movements.  He can tell you stories of their territorial battles that sound like epic human medieval tales.  Such as the battle of “Tembe Bridge” when Tempe (another pride leader) came down from the northeast marshes to retake Tembe Bridge from Mufasa and his pride. The battle lasted several weeks and ended with Mufasa’s pride being badly beaten and losing the bridge.  This is a real bridge that was fought over by lions in the park.

Most of the lions in the park view humans as equally if not more dangerous animals. If a lion ever did kill or injury a human, the façade of fear, power, and immunity to lions would come crumbling down and we would have man-eaters on our hands.   In that case they would have to kill the pride, because once they know we are food (and easy food at that) they will continue to hunt us.  If they ever got out of the park they would have a buffet with the local community.  There have been several cases of prides of lions across Africa in recent times that killed in the hundreds to thousands of humans before they were stopped.  There was a pride in Botswana that hung around a well-traveled powerline clearing between towns and killed over 600 people before they shot them all.  A single pride of lions eating entire villages seems unheard of, but I can only imagine the numbers they took prior to guns entering Africa.  (Yes, “The Ghosts in the Darkness” was under-exaggerated if anything).

Yes, Tembe is wild and not just because of the lions.  Since it’s creation the park has been focused on research and conservation rather than tourism. Most other parks place tourism and income as a priority, which means placing people’s needs first.  There is one lodge for tourist, which is quite small, no stores or cafeterias, just a registration building at the entrance. The rest of the park is a small network of unpaved, sand track roads, and a few management buildings near the entrance.  Phinda, the park I went to before is smaller than Tembe and has some several hundred tracks/roads for viewing animals, Tembe has about 10.  That means there are massive tracks of land between roads, making viewing very hard, but leaves plenty of space for the animals to live in peace. (To Be Continued)