moonset fireside

jivin' by the fire.  a shoe melting jam. 

you've got a pretty slow car that gets pretty good gas mileage

 

a heady video filmed in a little subaru somewhere in idaho (or was it utahr?)

the humerus bone

here's an original:

what is the strongest bone in a heretic's body?....

...the blas-femur

hyenas by day, hyenas by night

oh, the metamorphoses that the starlight brings

to begin, hyenas from the lone palm clan at their communal den.

hyenas and me, at peace in the waning illumination of the eve

now see them in their midnight attire, singing the songs of the witching hour.  this is what happens when you drop a wildebeest leg for two young lionesses to eat, and one hyena catches wind of what's going on, but realizes that he has not the size nor the brawn to steal the carcass on his own, so he goes and gets fourteen of his laugh-happy, blood-hungry friends (28 glowing eyes approach the scene, and sing their mad incantations).

 

and they keep on a'singin and a'laughin, hootin' and a'hollerin'

and a'wishin' they could have some of that rotten dish

aren't they cute?

appendix to the things i intended to mention

In regards to the post, “in the forest, there lives a lady.”   

Maybe I should append the above-mentioned post a bit for those of ye who have not read previous posts about Lady.  This may help shed some light on why she behaves the way she does.

First of all, if you want to watch an awesome documentary about Lady--filmed by and featuring my friend Herbert--check out  “The Last Lioness.”    here it is...     

The Last Lioness

Liuwa is a vast plains ecosystem situated in far-western Zambia, on the border of Angola.  In the late 1990’s (back in the 1900’s, that is) and the early 2000’s, Angolans who were fleeing their country’s bloody civil war crossed the border into Zambia.  They came bearing arms, mostly AK-47’s.  And they came bearing no food or money.  When they entered the Liuwa area, they found wildebeests by the tens of thousands (the second biggest wildebeest population/migration in Africa next to the one in the Serengeti)--along with dozens of other abundant antelope species.  For these soon-to-be-poachers, there was a food source in the antelope and a money source in the illegal trophy hunting of lions.  And so, the poaching began.  Angolan and other poachers alike completely wiped out several species from the area (such as buffalo and eland--which have since been re-introduced), and they reduced other species like wildebeest to near extirpation.  And they killed every single lion in the entire ecosystem.  Except one. 

Lady lived alone for several years, possibly 5-7.  Lady most likely had several run-ins with poachers, and probably witnessed the slaughtering of her family, her pride, every other lion, and much of her food source.  Eventually, the Angolan civil war came to an end and measures were taken to halt the poaching.  As the ecosystem began to recover, Lady lived alone.  She hunted alone and fended off clans of hyenas alone, neither of which are easy tasks.

 Lions are the only big cats that are truly social by nature.  So a solitary existence may have been difficult for Lady on many levels.  She had to learn how to take down adult wildebeests by herself, and she had to adjust to a life without companionship.  Three or so years ago, African Parks Conservation introduced two sub-adult male lions from another park into the Liuwa ecosystem.  So Lady, for the first time in years, had other lions to interact with.  Yet, there is not a strong social bond between Lady and the males because adult male and female lions do not fully integrate socially.  Males form coalitions amongst themselves, and the females form prides.  The two groups will interact for various reasons, such as during feeding or during the mating season.  She mated with them, but never conceived.  And although the males do not hunt with her, she often willingly shares her kills with them.  I once witnessed her nudging one of the males towards a wildebeest she had killed because she wanted the male lion to eat more than he had already eaten. 

And while I was there, we introduced two sub-adult female lions in the hopes that they would form a pride with Lady (which has not happened yet as far as I know--mostly because the tough-guy males keep scaring the young lionesses away).  So, Lady is still essentially alone and lives a pride-less existence (not to say she is not proud).  This, I believe, really helps explain why she approaches certain humans affectionately.  It seems she chose Herbert and I because we were probably the most open to interacting and connecting with her, and showed the least fear towards her. 

If ever there were a lion that should have a reason to fear or resent humans, it would be her.  But such is not the case.

 How would you feel towards lions (or say, wolves--for certain wolf-hating residents of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho) if they came into your town one day and killed your parents, your siblings, your friends, and your neighbors--and then proceeded to burn down your grocery stores, slaughter your cattle, and trample your farms and gardens?  And towards this species that ransacked your home and forced you to live totally alone for several years, would you show kindness?

Truly, a lesson in forgiveness.  Thank you, Lady. 

And it is a lesson in seeing that not all members of a certain species, ethnicity, or race are the same in their actions and attitudes.  (As a quick aside, allow me to note that many of the species that humans often fear, or label as man-eaters or cattle-eaters, or consider to be evil--such as lions, wolves, and bears--have killed far far less of us than we have killed of them.  For example, in the Great Plains of this country where grizzly bears and wolves used to roam in extraordinary numbers, you now find no grizzly bears and no wolves (except in Minnesota).  But you do find endless miles of genetically modified cornfields that are stripping the ancient, sacred soil of all its worth.)  I am not out to kill lions, nor is Herbert, nor are most of the local people who currently live in Liuwa.  Mabye Lady knows this, and she does not hold us accountable for the actions of the poachers who came before us.  Just as I would not would not want to be accused of being a Nazi despite my German last name.  Nor would I want to be blamed for the once-prevalent slavery in the US of A, despite my white skin. 

So let us see each person as they are.  And always be open to the goodness that resides in each soul, regardless our preconceptions and past experiences.  Because the moment you close yourself off from the beauty of the isness, you may miss the chance to connect with an adult lioness. 

and it's organic

Mt. Brown looking like the great guardian of all that is white. 

Back in Montana now.  So good to be here.  To roam is to know the joy of coming home.

 I journeyed into the magical ewok forest of Glacier yesterday.  The sun was shining, sky was blue, mountains were blindingly white and glorious, chandeliers of dagger-ish icicles bejeweled the streamside cliffs, and the air smelled like immortality.  I was the only human around, walking about with a pep in my step and glide in my stride.  And a perma-grin just above my chin.  Altitudinous winds ruffled the snowy feathers of mountain crowns, stirring up wisps of windblown snow clouds from every frozen peak (set against a lifegiving backdrop of blue)-- creating floating auras reminiscent of magmatic smoke, and projecting upon me the sensation that I was living in a land of waking volcanoes.  The cedar and hemlock said to me, “we are happy to see you again.”  It was the kind of day when the sun is sincere and warm but the air is cold, when the snowy ground sings clearly of crystalline winter while the cobalt sky conjectures that it is indeed spring (and the time of blooming is upon us).  They call this the shoulder season, but I felt it in my legs, lungs, blood and bones -- in my entire body, and every part of my being.  Everything was going great.  until this happened...

"And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair" - Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

three-necked monster and other elongated esophagulistic images

(above)  giraffe, zebra and croc hanging around ye olde watering hole.  (i also spy a little black and white bird on the shore.  that's a blacksmith plover.  a shorebird in the shamrock is a plover in the clover)

in the forest, there lives a lady

Lady

The best lioness

Allow me to sing her praises yet again  

First, some photos.   

All of the photos up until the 57 second mark were taken by a friend named Brad who was helping shoot the documentary about the young lionesses.

a moving picture:

lazily a lady lion lay beside me

(follow the interweb pathway below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6TEBUrnTSo&feature=youtu.be

Here she is touring the camp.  Notice how she rakes the sand with her paw before flopping down.  After a visit from her, the sand around camp would be scarred with paw marks from this maneuver.  Also notice how she checks out the laundry hanging on the wire.  She eyed up Matt’s shirt three times that day.  The next morning, the shirt was lying on the ground with a few holes in it from where she took a bite. 

how about a sneeze

As you probably heard, I said her name a lot.  I do the same with domestic dogs (and with any other creature I'm trying to connect with).  This was my way of keeping her and myself relaxed, of keeping the vibes good and the energy light.  It was a way for me to show her that I was aware of her and that my focus was on her, a way for me to reinforce our connection, and a way for me to show my appreciation and gratitude towards her.  

She would never bring the male lions with her into camp, nor would she come into camp alone if the males were in proximity.  Solo visits only.  It seemed she knew that it would not be safe for the males to be around us.  One afternoon she was lying placidly around camp when we heard the males roaring nearby.  She immediately perked up from her slumber and listened, then quickly moved out of camp.  Interpret it as you will, but I think she was concerned for our safety.

Here are some photos of the males.  

The locals and others who had been around for a while told me that although she is friendly towards most, if not all, humans, she only showed such as strong connection to one other person beside myself.  That person is Herbert Brauer, a Namibian film-maker of German descent.  Herber was one of the first non-locals to ever see Lady (a few years back), the first person to ever film lady, and possibly the first person for whom Lady greeted and rolled.  She would wait for him in his camp and follow him around the way she followed me around.  I felt overwhelmingly grateful and honored to share that connection with her.      

The video below is from my last morning in Liuwa.  Lady showed up the evening before and stayed with me all night.  I didn't sleep much.  I spent most of the night interacting with her, playing guitar for her, listening to her, and just enjoying her presence.  The behaviour she shows in the video was pretty common when she was in camp with me.  She almost snapped the tent poles a few times due to heavy rolling.  At one point in the morning twilight, she walked past my unzipped tent door.  I was sitting inside the tent, and as she was passing by, I stuck my hand out through the door and let it graze along her side.  Either she didn't notice or didn't mind (she just took a couple steps and laid down at the corner of the tent).  It was a touching moment.  

 Listen to those purrs

.   

 How many other wild lions in the world would act this way towards humans?

Sometimes she would walk directly at me, staring straight into my eyes, and when she got too close, I would just put up an open palm towards her and she would change directions or stop.  Just a simple gesture to let her know our boundaries.  She meant no harm (quite the opposite, really), but one must still be careful when interacting with adult African lions.  At one point, I started carrying around a 4ft palm frond as a tool for keeping her from approaching too closely.  But this actually added tension to our interactions.  Legend has is that some years ago a poacher sent a spear into one of her front paws (and thus she has one small paw).  She may be spear-shy, and my palm frond probably made her uncomfortable.  So I abandoned the palm frond of the tree and kept to palm of the hand.  Usually I would accompany the open palm with a calm but confident “hey” or “hey lady” -- to which she would reply with a flop, roll, and purr.

Open palm, not closed fist.  You can live by fear or live by love.  We are animals too.  Humans are not the only animals we can connect with.  

Namasté

 

from a brilliant soul

http://blog.madhallelujah.com/ and http://madhallelujah.com/

i want to show my appreciation for and share the beautiful creations of a friend.  a wizardly star-shaman that goes by many names...daniel wagner, alaska dan, wandering tree, rhythm ra...

dreamthrower EP on the blog site is phenomenal.  please listen. 

and the photos are all amazing

much love

montana-bound mike

hi enas

wild dogs, wild lechwe.

under a tree by a river

Here is a nice tidbit i heard a few weeks ago.  a true story.  as true as stories get, anyways.

There was a man somewhere in Africa.  He wasn’t very old, and he wasn’t very young.  He spent his days sitting under a tree beside a river.  People would often arrive at the river and need to get across.  One day a white man from somewhere in the Western world came by.  He said to the man under the tree, “You know what you should do, get a boat and start charging people a fare for a ride across the river.  Then, after a while, you can hire someone to take people across the river for you, and you can sit here just making money.”

The old man thought for a second and said, “So you want me to work really hard just so I can keep doing what I’m already doing?”

railcar stories of dilapidated grandeur

February 15 2012 AD

About two weeks ago, my friend Scottish Dave and I took a southbound train overnight from Vic Falls town to Bulewayo, Zimbabwe.  For Dave, anything that is good is “the way forward,” and when something is taken care of, it is “sor_ed” (sorted).  And sometimes butter is sal_ed.

In the afternoon before boarding we talked about how nice it would be to relax in a railcar and read our books.  We arrived at the train station at about half past 6, and stepped aboard the boxcar sauna.  The brown metal train had been sitting in the afternoon African sun for over an hour with all the windows closed.  We opened as many windows as we could, though some windows were stuck.

There were places on the floor where there was no floor.  The wood had been rotted away so that you could see clearly to the tracks and gravel below.  In it’s prime, this train was a part of the luxurious Rhodesian Railway, and probably hosted hordes of wealthy white colonialists.  But now the paint on the outside had been overtaken by rust, the doors and windows often got stuck, some of the fold-down beds wouldn’t fold down, and the fold-out sinks in the first class cars probably hadn’t produced a drop of water in many moons.

And the lights in the cabin cars were non-existent.  There would be no reading of books, only moonlit darkness.  But we did not despair.  Instead,  we exalted.  I’m not sure why, but a strange joy soon consumed the both of us.  As the sun neared the horizon, the train lurched forward and rumbled slowly down the tracks.  We hung our heads out of the open windows and sang our praises to the rising half-moon.  A glowing star assumed to be Jupiter was rising too, and the darkening air was cool.  With our heads hanging out of separate windows like exuberant boxcar turtles, we conversed  in raised voices over the sounds of wind and rail.  Saying, “this is what life’s about.”  Dave told me about a book--whose title and author escape me--in which the author says that life is best defined by the cumulative combination of strange moments such as these, where everything seems simultaneously absurd, poignant, and profound.  Like when you see a stranger in a parking lot and they mumble something to you that rocks your world and possibly changes you for good.

So down the tracks we would go, into the great Zimbabwean countryside at night, hanging out of windows on a rusty train.  And then we’d spot a rock-outcropping or branch or sign alongside the tracks and approaching fast, and we’d turtle back into the train car corridor….woah, that was a close one.  And just as quickly, we’d lean back out of our window-shells again, as all exuberant turtles must, returning to the cool air and wonderous night on a southbound journey. 

The moon was perfectly half full and surrounded by a holy halo.  Under its light, I sat on the old green bench in the cabin car room and scribbled in my notebook.

And the train rambled on, stopping every now and again in the middle of nowhere, no sign of a town or village for miles, only bush.  But there would be music.  And there would be people getting on and off the train.  Where are they coming from and going to? And what do they carry?

Eventually, the joy wore me out and I fell asleep.  I slept like a baby in a honey-coated dream.  Cool air rushing in around me.  The gentle rocking of the cabin car.  A rambler’s rest.

It was one of the best nights I have had in Africa.  Nothing extraordinary happened.  It was a just a train ride.  But that‘s the trick:  euphoria in simple pleasures.  Like walking barefoot upon soft earth.  it’s the way forward.

gone and on

January 31, 2011 AD

Hello beautiful creatures,

So, it has been a while.

I am in Victoria Falls and on my way to the Okavango Delta and who knows from there.  I left Liuwa a week ago and will eventually make my way to a different park, South Luangwa National Park, on the other end of Zambia.  But there is not much work to be done there at the moment, so I’ll probably ramble around a bit and end up there in March. 

Internet disappeared from the town of Kalabo for the entire month of January, giving me no reason to leave the park.  So I remained in Liuwa for a month without emerging . 

Often when I sit down to write one of these emails, my initial thought is that not much happened since the previous email.  This is probably because there is quite a bit of downtime when you are sitting in the middle of Liuwa Plain mostly alone.  But then there are the long days of lion darting, wild dog darting and collaring, hyena darting and collaring, watching wild dog hunts, interacting with Lady as she visits us in camp, or even hunkering down during tremendous storms. 

Work did become slower in January due to the rains and the rising waters, which made many places inaccessible and transformed formerly dry ditches into uncrossable streams.

Here is an exerpt from an unsent email from the second week of January…

“In the past two weeks, I have helped collar two wild dogs, a lioness, and a hyena.  Wild dogs are without a doubt the most difficult to dart and handle.  They are the smallest target with the smallest margin for error, and a misfire could easily result in injury or mortality, and they are the most shy about vehicles approaching them.  Once darted, they are also the most reluctant to go down.  Dogs by nature are much more energetic and prone to running than hyenas or lions.  So, both dog collaring endeavors involved 5-6 hours of sitting completely unshaded in the unrelenting sun, trying to get the perfect shot, but both collarings were ultimately successful, and now there are two dog packs with functional collars in Liuwa. 

We collared a lion on the day of my last email, December 27 I believe.  I sent the email from Kalabo in the morning, then we made the 2 hour drive into the park and went straight the lioness, who had been separated from her sister for two weeks--they had been separated ever since the night when they were feeding on the carcass we dragged and dropped for them, with all the hyenas surrounding them, and then the male lions coming in and scaring them off.  The two lionesses were about 40km apart via driving. 

The one lioness had been spending a lot of time near villages--so we darted her, and moved her to where her sister was, about 40km away.  After easily approaching her and darting her from the vehicle, we quickly loaded her into the back on the Land Cruiser and took off driving.  We had to go the entire 40km in about an hour, which is really difficult to do on the terrain around here.  Adding to the difficulty was the fact that we had to drive through villages for about the first 30 minutes.  In the first village, a young child noticed that these crazy Mukuwas (white people) were cruising through their village with a lion in the back of the truck…and not only that, there were two guys sitting in the back with the lion (those two people being my boss, Matt, and myself).  The tailgate was down, so anyone could see exactly what was in the bed of the truck.  Not surprisingly, the child started yelling and calling attention to us.  To people who are not familiar with chemical immobilization, it must look insane to see two guys riding around in a truck with a lion.  To prevent further commotion in subsequent villages, we did our best to cover the lioness with a tarp and Matt hovered across the tailgate to obstruct the view.  The strategy worked, except for a village dog who must have smelled the lioness and started chasing us, barking wildly.  These kind of stimuli can wake an animal from a drug-induced sleep.  We recollected later about the explaining we would have had to do if the lion would have woken up, jumped out of the truck, and mauled a dog or villager or two. 

Alas, that was not the case, and we made it to the other lioness just in time, after a bruisingly bumpy ride.  We gave the drugged lioness the reversal drug, laid her down 30 meters from her sister, and six minutes later (a surprisingly short amount of time) she woke up, made a soft call, and her sister immediately came over to her.  They greeted and all was well.  We dropped half of a wildebeest for them and they chowed as the sun went down and the thunder clouds crept in.  That was two weeks ago, and they have been together since.  I saw them this morning.  They crouched when they saw me, and then made a step towards me as if they were about to charge, but I revved the motorbike and they returned to resting.  They are not quite as friendly as Lady is towards humans, but most lions aren’t.”

About 10 days before I left Liuwa, the lionesses buggered off and as far as I know, they have not been seen since.  They are probably fine, but have just ventured off away from the area we usually survey.  The park manager, who is usually able to track them from a lightweight plane, is on leave and thus there is no easy way to find them.  Liuwa is too big of a place to find wandering lionesses via motorbike.  As long as they are not getting into trouble in villages, I’m sure they are fine and learning how to hunt in their new environment.  They are tough gals and will surely be fine. 


Other than the collarings and following dogs around and visiting hyenas, I spent a lot of time in camp with Lady.  We became good friends.  She would come into camp in the afternoon or evening sometimes and stay through the night.  She would walk around our camp purring affectionately, and would roll around on her back playfully when I called her name.  Flopping around with her feet in the air and big belly exposed (a friendly or submissive pose), staring at me upside-down. 

We had strong connection, and in many ways I think she is the main reason that the universe brought me to Liuwa.  It was a melancholy morning when I left.  I knew she would come to visit me on my last night.   She showed up in the evening and stayed until morning, and then she disappeared when a few local workers showed up in the morning.  I have a parting image imprinted on my soul of her standing illuminated in splintered sunlight, looking back over her shoulder at me and walking off. 



Victoria Falls will change your life if you ever get the chance. 


All for now.  Must go cook some steak and rice before boarding a southbound train. 


With infinite love,

Ramblin Mike

the wild hunt

December 27, 2011 AD

Joyous Holidays to all.  A belated Jerry Christmas to all the Jerry’s
out there.

And a glorious post-solstice to all.  The days get shorter here, the
days get longer there.

My Christmas Eve Day and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and Christmas
Day Evening were filled with the lovely scenes of wild dogs resting,
playing, and devouring prey such as hares, oribi, and wildebeest
calves.  What a gift.  Thanks, Santy Klaus.

I just had a great motorbike ride from camp into town today.  Its
about a 2 hour ride through flooded plains for the first part and
magical woodlands for the second part.  I was loving the ride through
the woodlands, just a rain-compacted sandy track through fantastic
forests, no one else around except a village every now and again.  I
realized that after all this time on the plains, I miss forests.  When
you go through the villages on or in any sort of vehicle, and you are
a white person, all of the children and dogs chase you.  There is
something instinctual in these kids that they all have to yell “Bye!”
and chase the vehicle.  And, the very last part of the journey into
town was adventurous.  I took the wrong track with the bike and ended
up in a tall grass marshland with thigh-deep water.  The bike stalled
and I had to drag it back to dry ground.  Luckily I had the help of
two local boys who couldn’t speak English, but who could clearly see
that this white guy had gotten himself into a situation.

So I’ve been really happy with life and Liuwa and life in Liuwa
lately.  And sometimes I get to thinking that I could just stay here
through February and onwards, but then I hear that call to move on,
and so I made a commitment to myself to fully enjoy every day and
every experience here, so that when I leave, I will leave satisfied.

I’m learning my way around more and more each day, and have had to
ride back to camp in the dark a few times this week (due to twilight
dog watching), which is a strange experience.  In the completely open
plains at night, when the clouds cover the stars and moon, it is
extremely easy to get disoriented (to become less asian?).  To
navigate here during the day or night, you have to recognize
individual trees or clumps of trees.  It is much different than
navigation in the mountains, where you navigate by landscape features
such as streams or valleys or peaks…and rarely would you orient
yourself (become more asian?) in the mountains based on a single tree.
 So, in Liuwa, we have descriptive names for most of the trees and
tree clumps in the 10km radius around camp.  And I am thrilled that
the name of the place where I sat with the cheetahs for 12 hours is
now commonly known as Mike’s Rest.  I overheard the park manager refer
to Mike’s Rest on the radio the other day.  I think the name will
stick for generations to come.

There is a chance I will be in some scenes of the lion documentary
that was being filmed in Liuwa.  It will most likely be aired on Nat
Geo Wild.  The film crew guys just left today with the story of the
young lionesses still unresolved.  But that is how nature, or
existence in general, is.  As Redwood the poet, in her infinite
wisdom, will tell you:  things do not begin or end, they continue.
And so on.

The rains have been many.  Most of my old favorite places to ride the
motorbike are now ponds or streams.  There is standing water
everywhere, filled with vibrant lilies and verdant grasses.  The
landscape has really changed, but it is still really flat.  Red lechwe
and new bird species are arriving daily.  Just before sundown each
night, the numerous frogs begin their bubbly babbling.  They usually
start their frog song right around Frog Time, and continue on through
the night.

I really enjoy observing the birds that come to the bird bath in camp,
especially the ever-vibrant kingfishers.

Most of my days lately have been spent watching the Wild Dogs.  It has
been amazing.  I love those dogs.  The hyenas tend to follow the dogs
around as well, waiting for them to make a kill so that they can try
to steal the carcass.  We have witnessed some really exciting hunts
and some entertaining post-kill interactions between dogs, hyenas, and
wildebeests.  Picture 10 wild dogs chasing a stampeding herd of 100
wildebeests across tall-grass plains with standing water, the light is
fading and the sun is on the horizon, and two guys on motobikes are
riding fast trying to keep up with the chase.  The splashing of paws
in the marshy grass obscures the view of the actual dogs, but what the
guys on the motorbikes see instead is 10 watery specters cruising
behind a massive black blob of beests.

I am drafting this email at night in camp and a lion is roaring nearby
(probably Lady).  Lion roars are spatially deceiving.  Many times it
seems as though they are literally in camp when they roar, when they
are actually a couple kilometers away.  That is how it seems now.
Hello, Lady.

Wishing you all inner peace and vivid consciousness,


Wild Dog Roesch

all those rains and the things that change

Hello friends from earth and other places.  A brief-ish update from
the Liuwa Plain.


December 16, 2011 AD


I am in Kalabo for the day because we had to come down here to bring a
telemetry receiver to the park manager so that he could do a fly-over
of the park and search for one of the young female lions who has gone
missing again.  The youngsters are afraid of the males and thus afraid
to stick around, so they keep wandering off and we keep trying to
bring them back so that they’ll meet Lady.  Playing god.  The main
reason being that we don’t want the youngsters to wander into villages
inside the park and kill people or livestock, and if they learn from
Lady, she’ll teach them to eat wildabeests instead of humans.  And
currently, the youngsters (well, one of them at least) is near a
village and school.

The other night, the youngsters were found 25km away from our camp, in
an area with very little food for them.  They were near the edge of
the park and the border with Angola--areas where they would be more
susceptible to poaching, getting into villages, or landmines (remnants
of the Angolan civil war).  So we drove out to where they were with a
leg of a wildabeest carcass in the back of one of the trucks.  I was
with the four film crew guys, which is mostly who I’ve been working
with lately since I am the only ZCP personnel currently in Liuwa.
Just after sunset, we tied the wildabeest leg to a rope and drug it
behind the truck at a distance of about 12 feet.  We drug it past the
young lions and they immediately began to follow us.  Trolling for
lions.  We had to drive very slowly to keep them interested, and we
ended up pulling them 15km closer to camp, which took us about 5
hours.  I sat in the back of the truck the whole time holding a
spotlight on the leg and the lions, making sure the lions lag too far
behind, and making sure they didn’t grab hold of the leg--which they
almost did about 4 times.  The lions got distracted at one point by a
porcupine, which they proceeded to chase and get quilled by.

At about one o’clock in the morning time, it became apparent that the
youngsters were running out of steam and getting tired of following
us.  I was completely exhausted as well and beginning to have waking
dreams.  So, we cut the rope and let them have the meat.  A lone hyena
had been following us for a couple of kilometers as well, interested
in the meat.  When we cut the rope, the hyena started vocalizing but
was too afraid to approach the lions.  The hyena disappeared and came
back 5 minutes later with another hyena, and they were being quite
vocal but still not bold enough to try to steal the wildabeest leg.
The lionesses would roar while still chewing every time the hyenas got
too close.  The two hyenas disappeared again.  Five minutes later, in
the spotlight I saw 14 pairs of hyena eyes running towards the lions.
They gathered around and started laughing like nothing I’ve ever
heard.  The sound surrounded us, both haunting and amusing, and
strangely harmonic.  Although 14 laughing hyenas could not persuade
the lionnesses to give up their food that they had walked 15kms to
receive, two male lions could.  We didn’t see the males at first, but
we saw the effect of their presence.  In an instant, all of the hyenas
and both lionesses darted off in various directions.  I believe that
was the spark that cause the females to disappear of our radar again.

Tonight might consist of driving back into the park, searching for
both lionesses, and once again dragging a carcass or two away from the
villages and back towards our camp.  It is a difficult situation, and
there is very little precedent for how to handle lion reintroductions
such as these (especially in a landscape where there are only 3 other
lions and several nearby villages).


Besides that, the mangos are getting ripe and delicious and the rivers
are a’rising.  It rains almost nightly now, and all the dry ditches
became streams overnight.  And there are new pools of water
everywhere.  The lechwe (small antelope) are arriving along with new
birds and even more wildabeest and zebra.  Flowers are blooming,
snakes and lizards are appearing, and the sand is hardening into
something easier to drive on.  I ran over a 4 foot lizard the other
day, but did not visibly injure it.  I was on the motorbike and I had
just seen a different one of those 4 foot dinosaurs a few minutes
prior, and when I saw the second lizard at the last second, a sound
came out of my mouth (or more out of my soul, really) that I have
never made before and will likely never make again.  What the sound
was trying to say in less than one second was, “Holy Shoot!  Is that a
giant snake I’m about to run over? and I can’t stop this bike quick
enough! I hope I don’t hit that thing, I hope it doesn’t bite me! Oh
man its another one of those huge lizards! Ahhhh, I’m gonna hit it!
Ahhh, I hit it!”  Those words translated into sound was something
like, “ooohhhhhooggghhuhhhuuyoyu  ahahh  eeee!!!!”   The lizard and I
were both a little shooken up, but fine.

The wild dogs have made an appearance before my eyes twice this week.
They are amazing, and probably my favorite of the carnivores.  We
watched them take down a wildabeest calf the other day, and when they
were done feeding, they proceeded to splash around and play in a pool
of water for over an hour.  While most big carnivores around here rest
for an entire day (or two, or three) after a big meal, the dogs
instead have fun.  They eat some calories, play for hours, rest a
while, then go find something else to eat.  Lions are great to
observe, but more often than not, they are just lying around.  The
wild dogs are always up to something interesting, and they are always
on the go, which makes them hard to find and rare to witness, which in
turn makes witnessing them all the more special.  Just to clarify,
these are not feral dogs or domestic dogs gone wild.  They are a truly
wild species.  Wild and beautiful.


I suppose that is all for now.

Hope everyone is feeling fine

Much Love

boats float, trucks don't

December 7, 2011 AD

Yesterday I went with a couple African Parks people to Mongu for the
day because I had to renew my visa.  There is an immigration office in
Kalabo, but it only has one employee, and she has gone missing for
some reason, possibly sick with Typhoid Fever like the rest of Kalabo.
 We got a late start to Mongu, then had to run a few errands ,
including grocery shopping.  Checking out at the grocery store takes
longer than the shopping.  We had a few other delays and took a lesser
known route to get back towards Kalabo.  To get in between these two
towns, you have to cross the Barotse Flood Plain, which is the 50km
wide flood plain of the mighty Zambezi River.  This time of the year,
the river is still low, so you drive on bumpy sand for most of the
trip and then take a rickety old ferry boat across the river at about
the halfway point.  Usually, its not a big deal.  But we were running
late and the normal ferry had stopped running for the evening.  So we
called the alternative ferry and they came and picked us up right
around sunset (a glorious sunset).  When we got on the boat, I looked
at the driver of the vehicle, Martin, and said, “Welp, we’ve made it
this far.”  A minute later, one of the two outboard motors on the boat
puttered out and stopped working.  But the boat continued along slowly
nevertheless.

I was a weary fellow so I sat in the backseat of the truck (brand
spankin new Toyota Hilux), and took a little nap.  I was awoken
sometime later by Martin, telling me I had to get out of the truck and
onto the shore before he could drive the boat off the ferry.  It is
required that only the driver can be in the vehicle when loading and
off-loading as a safety precaution, maybe in case the car sinks.  I
crawled up the steep, sandy riverbank, which must have been a slope of
about 60 degrees.  I am not sure whose idea it was to try to off-load
the car at this spot, but it seemed absurd.  Martin went for it
anyway.  As he did, the front tires slammed into the steep sand and
got stuck, and in the process, the boat moved away from the shore,
creating a thigh-deep watery gap between the front and back tires.
Then the boat drifted slightly sideways so that the back right tire
was now barely hanging on to the boat.  My first thought, and several
thoughts for the next few hours after that, was that the Hilux was
going to end up buried in the Zambezi.

We slowly got to work trying to mend the situation, not really sure
how to go about it.  Present were about 10 other local guys who had
been on the boat and 2 crew members of the boat.  We got to shoveling
and gathering reeds and grasses, trying all sorts of strategies.  We
attempted to back the truck back onto the ferry, but that didn’t work,
and almost resulted in the front end of the truck submerged in the
river.  We tried going forward, but the back end almost fell off the
boat and got submerged.  After much slinging of sand and grasses into
the watery gap to create a bridge of sorts, and after much arguing in
Lozi (the local language) between the guys about the best strategy,
and after about 2 hours and 20 more locals showing up out of the
darkness, and after digging out the steep river bank to make it a
little less steep, and after some guys showed up with two big wooden
planks to put in between the front and back tires for driving on, and
after a guy with 8 oxen showed up and somehow managed to get the oxen
hooked to the front end of the vehicle…Bam, the oxen were off without
warning, pulling the vehicle, and a bunch of guys pushed the vehicle
from the back and straight up the sandy bank the shiny new Toyota
Hilux went.

There was much jumping around and cheering and celebrating, followed
by much shaking of hands and the guys asking me for money for the time
and effort.  They assumed it was my truck because I was the only white
guy around.  Martin gave them 200,000 kwacha--about 40 us dollars--to
the couple guys who helped the most and they were less than pleased
with the amount.  But we drove off anyway with about 20 people piled
in the back and on top of the truck, back to the village where most of
them came from, and then another hour and a half back to Kalabo down
the bouncy, jarry, pot-holed, watery track that they call a road.  I
tried to sleep in the backseat of the truck on the way to Kalabo, but
with every jolt my head slammed into the door or ceiling.  We got home
at 1 in the morning, exhausted.  I have a lot of respect for Martin.
It was his truck on the line and he laughed the entire time, always
sure that we would be fine (I didn‘t mean for all of that to rhyme).
Welp, we’ve made it this far.


love from afar

mjr

sleeping in the lion's den

December 6, 2011 AD

Hello friends,

What a three weeks it hath been.  I was fairly uncertain about the
whole situation until about a week ago.  The first two weeks were a
bit slow in terms of actual wildlife work, but I did learn more about
vehicles in those two weeks than I had learned in the 28 years leading
up to them.  Along with our two Honda motorbikes, we have a‘91 Land
Rover with no roof and no doors that rattles and squeaks and bumbles
along, and breaks down almost daily for varying lengths of time.  A 2
hour breakdown seems pretty standard.  I was broken down two days in a
row for two hours in the blazing sun with no one around who knew
anything more about cars than I did.  But after much screwing and
unscrewing, tapping and tinkering, twiddling and twisting, I
miraculously got the Rover roving.  The problems have mostly had to do
with the fuel tanks, fuel pump, fuel lines, and fuel filters… exciting
stuff.  Everyone who has worked in the African bush has become a
mechanic out of necessity.  I have decided that the Zambian Carnivore
Programme should become known as the Zambian Wildlife Mechanics
Programme.  I am now a Level 2 wildlife mechanic.

I now know how to drive a motorbike and an automatic transmission (it
only took me 12 years of driving to figure it out).  Riding a
motorbike across the plains is liberating, especially when you are not
wrecking your spinal cord running over termite hills and hidden
potholes.

 On the second of the two days that I broke down, we were very near a
small village and some locals were trying to help us.  I was stuck in
shin-deep muddy water on an incline, and the car wouldn’t start.  Two
guys came by with four oxen pulling a cart.  We asked them to help,
maybe the oxen could at least pull the vehicle out of the mud onto
dry, flat ground.  The guys were very kind to us and took time to
help, but I soon wished they hadn’t.  I realized that slavery is still
real and present in how some humans treat animals.  These guys,
despite being quite friendly with humans, were brutal and cruel
towards the oxen, and every time they beat the animals over the knees
or the head, the children around would laugh and mimic them.  There
was absolutely no compassion, or even respect, for these animals.  It
was the most difficult thing I have had to watch in a long time, and I
felt even worse because I did absolutely nothing about it.  I should
have stepped in and told them to stop, but I didn’t, and it killed me
not to do so.  Later that day, I told my friend Herbert (who is
filming his third film based in Liuwa) about the situation.  He told
me that what I had in that situation was an opportunity.  It was an
opportunity to stand up for something, and to act for something I
believed in and cared about.  Next time, I will not sit silently.

The film that Herbert is shooting concerns with the most exciting
thing currently happening in Liuwa, which is the release of two young
lionesses into the ecosystem.  Other than the two new lionesses (ages
15-18 months), there are only 3 other known lions in the entire
ecosystem.  Two magnificent male lions (age 4-5) and the beautiful and
famous Lady Liuwa, the last lioness of Liuwa (0ne of Herbert’s other
films is  about here, its called “Last Lioness” I believe, look it up.
 His other film is called Bonecrusher Queen, about the hyenas).  The
young lionesses were captured and transported about a month ago from
Kafue National Park to Liuwa, and they had been in a Boma (aka
enclosure) since then.  We released them about 5 days ago, which was a
pretty wild experience.  It has required several people to work 20-30
hour days in order to keep an eye on all the lions and make sure the
three resident lions don’t kill the two new lions.  People are still
watching them day and night, and yesterday the young lions got their
first meal on their own in Liuwa--they stole a wildabeest carcass that
15 hyenas had killed.  The young ones and the other three haven’t
really integrated with each other yet, and they may never.  Lady has
been soft-calling (a series of low roars) for the youngsters, trying
to find them, but they do not call back and don’t seem interested yet
in integrating with her.   It may be that the young ones never
integrate with Lady and just form their own 2-lion pride instead.

Lady Liuwa  (age ~12, a relatively old lion but still a healthy,
expert hunter), and the two males had been regularly hanging around
the lion boma, keeping an eye on the new females.  The ideal scenario
for the day of the release was to have Lady close to the boma and the
males off somewhere else.  We wanted the three gals to meet each other
and hang out for a while before the little ones had to encounter the
males.  The worry was that the males would kill the new lions, and the
hope was that Lady would take them under her wing and start a pride
with them, and protect them from the males, whom she pretty much
dominates.  So, on the day of the release, Matt (my boss) and I woke
up at 4am and went to check on the location of the males and Lady.
Lady was sitting perfectly right outside the gate of the boma. The
males were also ideally situated about 500 meters away in some tall
grass.  At sunrise, some African Parks folks shot two wildabeests.
The first wildabeest was drug behind a truck past the males, a
slightly morbid sight.  The males followed the truck across a flood
plain to a small woodland several hundred meters away.  Perfect.  Then
we had to drop the other wildabeest carcass at the entrance of the
boma and hope Lady and the young lions would meet around the carcass.
They did, and when they did, I thought they were going to kill each
other.  There was a fury of claws and teeth and roaring, but it was
only regular lion behavior at a carcass.   The little ones were
surprisingly scrappy.  They did not back down from Lady, and the
littler one even shared a piece of meat with Lady.  When they were
done eating, the three of them sat about 60 meters apart in a
woodland, resting and watching each other.

That night, the youngsters separated from Lady and slept alone.  Matt,
Jassiel, and I parked the Rover near them all night.  I stayed up most
of the night listening to the telemetry signal of the vhf collar on
one of the youngsters, making sure they didn’t move.  I sat under the
stars, watching multi-colored lightning on the horizon and
contemplating Orion above me, occasionally drifting to sleep to the
white noise static of the telemetry receiver.  It was uneventful for
the most part.  The exciting stuff didn’t happen until the following
night when the youngsters finally encountered the males.  It happened
around 10pm after an intense evening storm.  There was a series of
chase scenes and small fights involving different combinations of the
five lions.  We spotted one of the young lions lying around with the
two males.  They had attacked her, and at first she submitted, but
when they attacked again, she stood up to them and swatted them.  They
sat together for a while not doing much and I closed my eyes out of
complete exhaustion.  I was jolted awake by the most powerful of
sounds, the thunder of two lion’s roaring.  We turned on the spotlight
to see the two males standing over the young female, roaring in her
face.  surreal.  When they were done roaring, the males butted heads
and rubbed necks, as if they were high-fiving.

The next morning, the younger of the two young lions decided to take a
hike.  My boss and others were worried that she would not survive
without her sister (I still wonder how much and for how long we can
baby-sit these wild animals), so we tracked her down and darted her so
that we could put a collar on her and return her to her sister.  It
was my first experience handling an animal, and I probably wouldn’t
have been involved except that the lion’s body temperature got
dangerously high while she was drugged and we needed all the help and
hands we could get to continuously pour water from the nearby pond
onto her.  I reckon we probably poured 600 liters on her.  Her temp
was at 41.7 celcius, and she would have died if she reached 43.  It
was hectic.  At first, I was just running back and forth to the pond
and refilling water jugs--luckily we were near water and luckily we
had two 30 L jugs and luckily there were about 10 people there to make
sure she was shaded by a tarp and cooled by water.  Eventually I
somehow ended up becoming the guy who was pouring the water on her and
checking her temperature every few minutes.  She is a fairly young,
small lion, but her paws are huge.  She is a beautiful creature, and I
felt bad for her.  She’s been drugged twice in the last month,
transported a couple hundred miles, kept inside a fence for 4 weeks,
attacked by Lady Liuwa, attacked by the big males, and inserted into a
foreign landscape.  But it was also amazing to be kneeling next to
her, taking care of her, doing what I could to keep her alive.  It is
a powerful feeling to be able to place your hands upon a lion.  She
and her sister are doing alright now, and hopefully will continue to
be fine.

This is an exciting time to be in Liuwa, probably the most exciting
time.  November, December, January are great every year because the
rains come and the landscape changes from sandy soil and brown tall
grass to flooded plains full of new green grass and colorful flowers.
 In the dry season (May-October), there are not nearly as many animals
on the landscape in the southern part of the park where we work.  But
the rains bring a migration of 40,000 wildabeest and large herds of
zebra, lechwe and other antelope species to the southern part of the
park.  The birdlife, which is always spectacular, becomes even more
abundant as well.  The birds in Liuwa are many in diversity and
numbers.  There are cranes, storks, pelicans, geese, hawks, eagles,
falcons, owls, kingfishers, and endless others.

This is an exciting time to be in Liuwa for other reasons too.  The
landscape is not only changing seasonally, but on a larger time-scale
as well.  Assuming the new lions survive and eventually breed, the
lion population will grow in the next decade and onward, and this will
greatly change the dynamics between the carnivores in Liuwa.  The four
large carnivore species present are Lion, Cheetah, Wild Dog, and
Hyena.  The dynamic between predator and prey will also change.  The
wildabeest population may continue to grow, and Zambian Carnivore
Programme (whom I work for) just received a large grant that will
allow them to carry out the first 3 years of what will hopefully be a
long-term wildabeest study.  This study will inherently involve
further studies of the carnivores, and Herbert the filmmaker will
shoot another film about wildabeest and the study.   I think ZCP has a
bright future.

On the day when we found out that the donors were going to provide us
with the money for future research, I had spent 13 hours monitoring 5
cheetahs.  It was a female with 4 cubs.  They had been spotted for the
first time the day before and I stayed with them for 6 hours, until
sundown.  The next morning, I woke up before dawn and found them close
to where I had left them the night before.  I then stayed with them
from 6am until 7pm.  My bosses, some African Parks people (who manage
the park), and the donors showed up in the evening after I gave them
the coordinates of my location over the radio.  The donors were
thrilled.  They were calling me the hero of the day (which is better
than being called Chuck Norris, which has been a common occurrence for
me everywhere I travel…including Liuwa).  After following the cheetahs
across the plains all day the day before, I spent most of the second
day sitting under the shade of a small tree with my motorbike while
the cheetahs rested under a tree about 50-60 meters away.  They grew
more and more comfortable with me, so that when the donors and others
arrived, the cheetah pups emerged from under the tree and posed in the
evening sunlight for photos.

These cheetahs are not collared, so the purpose of staying with them
as much as possible is to get them used to us so that we can
comfortably get within 20 meters of them, dart the female, and put a
collar on her.  We are trying to collar several wild dogs and cheetahs
so that we can follow them on hunts and learn what they are hunting
and killing and noting any interactions they have with other predators
at the kill site.  We have only a couple wild dogs and cheetahs
collared so far, but if we can get a few more, most of the work in the
next few months will involve following dogs and cheetahs (and
sometimes lions and hyenas) on their hunts.  Apparently, that is
pretty thrilling work.

The animals in Liuwa, and in other national parks in Africa, are
relatively tolerant of vehicles.  They get a bit spooked if they see
you on two feet, but as long as you are in or near your truck or
motorbike, they don’t mind you.  Liuwa is unique in the number of
hyenas present and how easy they are to see.  We know the locations of
the dens of 4 clans, and we visit them regularly.  The cub hyenas are
ridiculously cute, and when you approach the den, they will sometimes
walk right up to you.  Even the adults hyenas that have seen us a lot
will come up to us, sniff the tires of the vehicle and give you a
funny look (not funny as in “uh oh, that hyena is giving me a funny
look, maybe I should be worried,” but funny as in “hey, you’re pretty
funny”).  I’m told that there may not be any other park in Africa
where you can so readily see and get close to so many hyenas.  And I
never thought I’d be that interested in them, but they are adorable
and great to observe.  Usually when we see them, they are just laying
around in the tall grass or in muddy seasonal ponds, and often they
don’t even stand up when you approach them.  I have not seen them hunt
yet, but I think that will give me an entirely new perspective on
them.

I have only seen the Wild Dogs once, and I immediately fell in love.
They reminded me of domestic dogs in their playfulness and
socializing, except they are capable of taking down a wildabeest.  On
the night I saw them, they were initially gathering and fighting with
each other over a piece of blue cloth they had found somewhere.  They
were a pack of 10.  After getting all excited, they decided to hunt as
an amazing sunset was occurring.  By the way, the sunrises and sunsets
in Liuwa are incredible every day…so much sky.  The dogs tried to hunt
a wildabeest herd about 300, but the wildabeests formed an iron
curtain around their young, whom the dogs target.  The large bull
wildabeest even charged the dogs.  When the dogs would chase the herd,
huge clouds of dust and sand would raise from the ground.  The dogs
were unsuccessful in that hunt, but about 30 minutes later, I watched
them chase down a rabbit for several minutes over several hundred
meters.  They are fast!  They killed the rabbit, ate it, and settled
down as the sun set, and we rode back to camp with lightning all
around.  I had also seen my first three cheetahs earlier that day.

The Liuwa sky is incredible.  The landscape is almost completely flat,
so flat that a 6 foot pile of dirt is called a hill.  This makes for
the most vast sky I have ever seen.  It is like standing in the middle
of a dry, grassy ocean.  You can see the curvature of the earth on the
horizon.  And with this being the rainy season, there is always
something of great beauty and importance happening in the clouds.
Storms can be seen from miles and kilometers away.  Its great to sleep
in the tent when the rain is hammering.  Its not so comforting to be
out on the plains in a vehicle when the storms hit, but it is
certainly wild and adventurous.

We have vervet monkeys that like to hang around camp.  We have to keep
our foodstuffs secured so they don’t come in when we are away and rob
us.

Other animals in Liuwa:  two species of mongoose, aardvarks, huge
porcupines (medium dog-sized) whose quills can be up to 18-20 inches
long, eland (enormous antelope that can jump 10 feet vertically), red
ants (who raid your camp and bite you, especially in places where you
least want to be bitten…), oribi (small antelope that is lightning
fast and is the main prey for cheetah), and others.

Many other happenings have happened, but I think this letter has gone
on long enough.  Things are good, life is great.   I’ve been eating
well and getting pretty much no exercise.  I spend a lot of time
sitting in or on some sort of vehicle and it is not wise to go running
around due to the carnivores.  On the rare occasions when it is not
scorching hot or dumping rain and we are not chasing animals around, I
sometimes go for a jog on the enclosed, electrified grassy airstrip
near camp.  So, despite much speculation prior to my departure, I will
probably come back looking more like Buddha than Ghandi.

I will probably not be able to send another email until late December.
 So, until then, enjoy life and go well on your journey.

I love you all.