Vegans Love Carnivores

It is getting HOT in Zim now.   At 8.30am today the temperature was already 30C!   We’ve not had proper rains for a few weeks now but they should arrive within the next week or so, which will hopefully clear the air and refresh the atmosphere. I went on my first “Night Encounter” at the weekend, which is basically taking the older lions out for a walk at night time to allow them to hunt some of the game in the park.   However, as they are too big for us to walk on foot, they are trained to follow vehicles, which they seem to do surprisingly well.   We drove around the park for over 2 hours but the only animals they tried to hunt were one steenbok and a zebra.   The steenbok chase was actually pretty good because the lions ran FULL PELT towards this steenbok (I have never seen them run so fast in my life!) and they very nearly caught the steenbok.   It even screamed out in distress (poor thing – I would do too if 4 subadult lions were running for their live...

Had a very stressful time over the last few days here at ALERT.   Two of Phyre’s cubs are missing, presumed dead, with only one remaining that we cannot locate.   Kenge has probably given birth now too but we have no idea where she is, how many cubs she has, and how many may also have possibly gone the same was as Phyre’s.   Athena, the lioness with the eight month-old, has been seen with three baby cubs (not hers), nursing them, carrying them around and letting Wakanaka her cub play with them.   However, this means that the fragile little things are away from their mother and not being cared for properly, so their survival is very much compromised.   We tried to move Athena and Wakanaka into a management enclosure yesterday to give the new mothers time to sort themselves out, but herding lions is about 100 times harder than herding cats, and this ended up being an epic fail on all accounts.   The lions were stressed, we were stressed; it was not a good day...

The rainy season has arrived!   Had quite a few intense thunderstorms since being here, which has been quite spectacular to see, especially as it has been months since it has rained properly here.   The area really needed some moisture as there were quite a number of fires starting in the park that became quite a scare to us.   Fortunately all were kept under control, but there is always that worry that maybe they won’t be able to put it out. Had some very exciting news recently as one of the pregnant female lionesses went off to den a few days ago and has recently given birth!   We accidentally stumbled across the den complete with mother, three cubs and two other lionesses waiting diligently by her side.   The cubs looked very healthy and were suckling when we saw them, which was very cute to see.   Phyre, the mother, looked proud but tired so we left her after just a few moments as we didn’t want to intrude or scare her. A giraffe died in the park rece...

I have been travelling for nearly a month now and it feels like centuries ago that I was back in the UK living in the little village of Shepherdswell and looking after the cats.  It’s funny how when you travel time seems to fly, but when you’re back home it goes really slowly.  I guess it’s partly that I’ve been so busy here that I’ve not had a moment to rest and think.  I apologise to my friends everywhere about being crap at keeping in touch with you, but when you only have a few moments to use the internet each day, and most of that time is taken up by sending work emails, it becomes hard to find a spare minute to message people.  Please do email me though to let me know how you’re all getting on and I will try to find some time to reply!! After watching the Ngamo pride for nearly 4 weeks now I am starting to learn all of the different personalities of the lions and their various quirks.  It’s amusing and fascinating watching AT1, the cub, develop in front ...

Kirsty the current researcher has now finished her time at ALERT, and with that, my trainer has left too.  I’m now the one and only lion researcher here at Antelope Park, which is a bit of a scary prospect! Spent the morning with the pride (the cub seems to keep wandering off, which was a bit of a worry initially but I guess it means she’s growing up and becoming more independent), then midday with the breeding programme lions trying to measure pugmarks from some of the lions there.  This is easier said than done!  Getting a perfect footprint is hard at the best of times and depends a lot on the substrate, the way the animal walks through it and whether they walk back over it to smudge the original tracks.  It took over two hours to get just two individuals to walk over sand in such a way that we could measure their tracks today – what a pain!!  A lot of time was spent waiting around for the handlers to get the lions into their management pens so that we could ...

The lion researcher who is training me felt sorry for me being so ridiculously tired and exhausted so gave me a day off today - thank god, as I really was beginning to crack.  I had a sleep in, managed to catch up on loads of emails I've not had a chance to reply to, did some research for my PhD, had a chat with my Mum, did some bird watching (got some good pics of kingfishers, hoopoes, cormorants, a fish eagle and grey herons), went for an afternoon horse ride in the bush and then a mule-driven carriage ride at sunset.  Managed to see some good game, like tsessebe (with a tssesbok - a tsessebe crossed with a blesbok), wildebeest, impala, kudu, giraffe, warthogs, waterbuck and lots of vultures. The current researcher and I went on a cub walk recently to measure the spoor of one of the cubs as we would like to know if you can ID individuals by their pugmarks, or at least tell the age and sex of the lion.  It was fun going out on the walk as one of the cubs decided it w...

I have been at Antelope Park for a week now, although it seems like so much longer!  I've been going out on research drives three times a day and am starting to learn the IDs of the 9 lions (although it is taking me a while, especially the females that have twins!).  The lions haven't been doing a great deal because it is getting warm earlier now so for the most part they sleep - although I do know that they are meant to be inactive between 20-22 hours per day!  We have entered the research site once at night time and it was amazing to see the difference in their behaviour during the dark.  The lions are far more active, bold and even look larger in the moonlight.  At one point all the females surrounded the vehicle and were within a metre of it, and I'm sure they knew that there were people inside.  Thank god they didn't decide to jump in, because the cage on the back of the vehicle where I stand has a large enough hole in it for them to get inside!  ...