Written October 17th (posted late due to limited internet access in the field)
By Sam Wasserman (Colby College)
“Woah, woah, woah, there’s an elephant!” Vehi stomped on the brakes, put the car in reverse, and backed up over the loose rock until twenty meters to our left, standing between two dense Salvadora persica trees, was a lone male elephant grabbing at the bright green leaves. Unfazed by our presence, he continued to meander through the corridors of vegetation frequently ripping off branches with graceful ease. As he started to disappear around the backside of the tree, we decided to move towards the waterhole directly ahead of us in hopes of getting a better view of the elephant.
We hadn’t even travelled another twenty meters before a spotted hyena darted across the road in front of us and hobbled off into the brush. After Vehi determined that the elephant was a safe distance away, Bekah and I swiftly moved from the enclosed cab of Uncle Duke to the bed of the truck where we jumped atop the game seat, binoculars drooped around our necks and cameras clutched in our hands. By now the hyena was about sixty meters away, slowly making its way up the rocky escarpment and away from the waterhole. This was the first hyena I had ever seen, so I was practically shaking as I tried to steady my binoculars. We watched the hyena for a couple minutes before it wandered behind a large Euphorbia damarana bush and out of sight. By this time, the elephant had walked away from the waterhole and we determined it would be a good time to go pee. Bekah and I set down our gear and proceeded to exclaim about how lucky it was to see both an elephant and a hyena so close together.
Meanwhile Ephraim, a local game guard assisting us with our data collection, started to walk away from the car towards an inviting bush for privacy. All of a sudden, as he approached the vegetation, a loud and unfamiliar roar permeated from the bush. If you’ve ever heard a lion roar from thirty meters away then you know that you can physically feel the vibrations rattle your stomach before it turns into a vigorous thump inside your chest. My head involuntarily shot up just in time to see a large male lion leap out of the bush that Ephraim was facing and trot off in the opposite direction behind a large mound of rocks. Every so often, when one mound of rock ended before another one began, you could briefly see him glide over the sandy surface.
If I had been “shaking” when we saw the hyena, then I’m not quite sure what to call the uncontrollable tremble that consumed my hands in that moment, but “shaking” seems too gentle. It has always been my dream, since I was ten, to see a lion in the wild, but never did I think I would ever end up so close to one. While although this may have been the most thrilling sighting of a lion, it has not been the only one. Other than this startling yet invigorating event, we saw a pride of eleven lions (six mothers, five cubs) on a game drive two weeks ago, and yesterday we came across yet another remarkable scene involving a lone lioness.
All of yesterday was dedicated to moving north from Wereldsend Camp to Anabeb Conservancy where we will be doing wildlife monitoring for three days. About halfway through our drive we noticed an unusually large amount of vultures in the sky, so we pulled over to the side of the road as we typically do when we see an interesting plant or animal, and counted between twenty and thirty vultures. Most of them were the lappet faced vulture, but we were able to identify one white-backed vulture, a species listed as “endangered” by the IUCN.
As we drove closer, curiously speculating the reason for this massive gathering of scavengers, Vehi flung his arm out the window and pointed to a lioness fifty meters from the road while excitedly whispering, “Lion, lion, lion.”
The lioness staring at us from across the riverbed
By now we were all positive that somewhere amongst the shrubs there was a fresh kill. Determined to see exactly what was hidden within the vegetation, Vehi turned the car off the road into a small riverbed, shifted down gear, and pressed the gas pedal down, lurching the car forward and sending notebooks and kindles clambering to the floor. After bouncing over 60 meters of rocky substrate, we came upon a fresh zebra carcass directly next to the top of the riverbank.
A black-backed jackal scanning the scene before turning to eat from the carcass
The hungry lioness had noticed our presence and walked up an adjacent hill where she turned and stared at us panting, waiting for us to leave so she could go back to her feast. The lioness and vultures were not the only ones lurking around the fresh meat. Pied crows surrounded it, while a black-backed jackal vigilantly stabbed at the zebra’s flanks with its teeth, tearing loose strings of meat with every bite. A juvenile tawny eagle awaited its chance to steal a meal before the return of the lioness while perched in a tree just behind the dead zebra. It was quite a surreal scene, being next to an eviscerated zebra carcass with a lioness, eagle, and jackal all staring at you; a feeling none of us will forget for a long time.
Photos by Sam Wasserman.