Lion capture: Part II

I've been meaning to post about the second lion capture we did just before Thanksgiving. Craig (the lion researcher) was after two particular lions so that we could change the GPS collars they were wearing before their batteries went flat which means he would have trouble finding them. The collars themselves are quite cool. They have a GPS unit and cell phone transmitter in them so that when the lions come into cell phone range the collars send the GPS data to Craig's cell phone. Craig then knows where the lions have been since the last time they were in cell phone coverage. Very cool.

Anyway, we started in the late afternoon to try to get the first lion, a lioness, before dark set. Craig knew exactly where she was from the signal from the collar she was wearing so we essentially drove right up to the pride. There were two nice males, about 8 females, and half a dozen cubs in the pride. The vet darted Craig's lioness and then a truck pulled a frozen warthog past the rest of the pride so that they would follow the pig and get away from the lioness that we had to work on. The lions however had different plans and held on as tightly as they could to that warthog. Imagine the image of a landcruiser dragging four cubs and two adults down the road while hanging on to a frozen warthog. When the cruiser got the rest of the pride a safe distance away, the Peter, the vet, told Marius, the head of game capture, that the lioness was plenty asleep. So Marius walks up to the lion to blindfold her and put cotton in her ears to keep stimulation down and keep her calm. Well, when he touched her with the blindfold, she bolt. Not so asleep after all. So we waited for her to be really asleep. Once Marius could drag her around by the tail, he decided that she was asleep enough to blindfold. We did our work - changed the collar, weighed her, took blood samples, etc. Woke her up and she ambled on her sleepy way.

Next up was a separate pride down by the N'wanetsi river that runs close to the Satara camp. There we set up the call in station, the sound of hyenas on a kill that attracts the lions. Then we set up the BBQ and have dinner whilst the lions are being attracted. Sure enough, just after we eat we see and hear a male that had been attracted to the noise. When he fails to get close, Craig and the vets head off into the bush after him - just as it starts to pour rain. They get the male in about 15 minutes and by that time the ground was pure sludge from the rain. Since we were next to a river the water table was high and it took very little rain to make things sloppy. The cruiser with the lion on it pulled up and promptly got stuck. So picture us pushing on the back of the cruiser to get it out of the mud with our faces right next to the maw of a 400 pound male lion. A little disconcerting given that the female ealier had just jumped up and run away when they thought she was asleep. When we get the land cruiser out, the vets decide to move to firmer ground so we move back to one of the gravel roads to process the lion. Craig gets the collar changed, vets take blood samples, etc. When its time to weigh the chap, we have to lift him off of the back of the truck so we can attach the strecther to the block and tackle which is attached to the scale. We lift the lion with Peter, the vet, telling us "Gentle, gentle, easy, be gentle". Well as soon as the first paw hits the ground, the lions eyes pop open and off he bolts right out of our hands as we all scatter. Luckily we have this on film, but its too big to post. The male goes out into the grass and collapses. The vets decide that we'll just weigh him out there. As we are trying to roll him over on the stretcher, the lion is growling at us but can't work up enough strength to do anything about it. After the fifth growl, the vets decide that we didn't really need to weigh him and gave him the antidote to wake him up. Good decision.

After that we were all keyed up and excited and wound down with brandy and coke's back on the tar road under the stars and scraped the mud off our shoes. I think that's the last time the vet's will use the "experimental" drugs.

I just posted some new pics on the Flikr website. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kruger_park

Here are a few random things from the past couple of weeks. Didn’t have the concentration to try to spin a good yarn, but here you go anyway.

- Came across a cheetah walking down the center of the main tar road the other evening (animals like to use the roads when they can because its less wear on their feet). We were within about a yard or so of it as it walked right next to the truck. It darted ahead of us and then jumped up on a concrete signpost and proceeded to spray it with urine to mark its territory. Then it hopped down and sauntered into the bush.

- I happened across a pair of mated lions the other day. They walked up onto the road in front of me – female in front as she sauntered in front of the male and kind of waggled her hips in his face. The she swizzled her tail around and flapped him with it to entice him. He walked up and bit at her nape then nuzzled and licked her flanks. Unfortunately, the mood wasn’t quite right so they just walked off into the bush before the magic moment happened. I ran into the same couple just two days ago lying in the middle of the road catching some earlier morning sun. When the female got up to walk off, the male quickly got in front of her to block her path and let out a low growl. She promptly laid back down with the male at her side.

- Allison saw a black mamba around our tent while I was out in the field the other day. Mambas are one of the deadliest and most aggressive snakes in Africa. In some parts it is called the “twos-step snake” because you only get two steps before you die once you’ve been bitten. This is of course not true, but bites are very serious, causing paralysis and respiratory failure, and people usually only survive them by being put on respirators for days to weeks. Allison only saw about 2-3 feet of the snake, but this was the 2-3 feet that was raised off the ground trying to catch birds in the low brush. Since mambas can raise about 1/3 of their body off the ground, this snake was probably pushing 9 feet, which is not a big mamba. She was quite stoked – me, not so much. Sharks and lions I can handle being around. Snakes, no thanks. Hopefully it was just passing through.

- Just yesterday, I was taking my crew out to our field site when we run into several cars stopped on the tar road. This usually means lions so I slowed down so we could see what was happening. As I get closer I see a very strangely shaped creature walking down the tar road towards us so I stop to let this strange beast walk past. As it gets closer, I can see that it’s a big, female hyena (probably the matriarch of her clan as she was obviously nursing), but she was carrying the top part of the skull of a zebra that was still attached to about half the vertebral column of the animal. It was almost as long as her and still covered with a bit of meat. Probably breakfast for her cubs or just trying to get away from the other greedy hyenas that were following her down the road.

- Went on two different lion captures recently and got a female and two big males. One of the male capture has a great story that I will post in a couple of days.