By: Ansel Spitler, Montana State University
For this visit into the bush, we traveled to Khwai, bordering Chobe National Park. Khwai is renowned for having tons of wildlife.
I was about to go to bed, when I heard a growl behind my tent. Not a tame growl, not a small growl, but a full-bodied, rumbling growl. I was already halfway out of my tent, and as soon as I heard that, I sped walked away towards the rest of camp. That was totally a lion. People were relaxing around the fire as I burst into camp. “What was that growl?” I asked. “Probably an elephant,” Henrik responded.
That totally sounded like a Lion to me. Gathering my courage, I walked back to my tent, and rummaged around until I found my maglight. I shone it into the field just behind my tent. There was a termite mound, about 5 feet tall, partially blocking my view. The stars were beautiful that night. It was a new moon and we were far from any light source, so we could see the stars clearly and the Milky Way was a clear streak across the sky. The view of the night sky took my breath away every time I looked up; it was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen. The field was rimmed with Mopane and Kalahari Appleleaf trees, filled with dried, brown grass.
Standing just thirty feet away, was a huge, and I mean HUGE, male elephant. He calmly looked at me, and continued eating grass. He didn’t care that I stood before him, he just chomped away on grass, ripping huge bundles out of the ground and shoving them into his mouth with his trunk. He stood about fourteen feet tall, grey skin wrinkled with age, covered in mud to prevent mosquitos from biting him. His tusks were huge and he would have been scary if he were paying any attention to me at all. Each lumbering step he took seemed to shake the earth. I stood there in complete awe and watched him as he ate until he eventually decided that he did not want any more attention, and walked away into the trees.
Later that night, I heard a variety of growls, screeches, shrieks, and other loud vocalizations I could not even describe. These noises all came from one animal just behind my tent. I was convinced that these were baboons, as they can produce a lot of strange noises when they want to. My second guess was lions, followed by elephants. I asked our instructor, SB, and he told me with a completely serious face that it was a herd of Impala. Impala. A small deer no more than 4 feet tall at most. I thought he was joking as SB has been known to play jokes on us before. But no. All of those horrifying and intimidating calls were made by none other than the unassuming Impala.
