Predators I Have Known (21 page)

Northern Botswana, October 1993

THERE ARE TIMES WHEN THE
encounters experienced in a single day can overwhelm a traveler with a multitude of memorable incidents the full effects of which are realized only on later reflection. It’s a matter of timing, planning, and luck. Everything that follows occurred in the same small corner of Botswana, involved the same predator species, and happened over the course of a single fifteen-hour period. Though they followed swiftly one upon another in a blur of blood and teeth and confusion, all are now forever individually etched in my mind. It shows that if you take the time and make the effort to get a little way off the beaten path and away from other travelers, any number of special moments can be had in a short period of time.

I have previously mentioned Chobe National Park. Chobe has perhaps the greatest concentration of elephants in all of Africa. The population varies according to season, the skill of those doing the counting, the weather, and numerous other factors, but at any one time or another the country may be home to as few as 20,000 or as many as 50,000 elephants. Since much of Botswana is desert, a majority of them can often be found hanging out on the banks of the perennial Chobe River.

Viewing elephants at the Chobe can be done from the top of a Unimog, a massive four-wheel drive vehicle capable of ferrying as many as twenty or more chattering tourists at a time over and through nearly any terrain its expansive wheelbase can span. The herds (of elephants, not tourists) can be better viewed from an open jeep in the company of just seven or eight fellow travelers. But if you have a little money that you’re willing to spend on something besides a bigger TV, fancier tequila, or that custom speaker setup for your car, some unpreprogammed travel time, and a deep and abiding interest in what you supposedly have actually come all the way to Africa to see, most places you can make arrangements to hire your own jeep and driver. That’s what I did one fine day in Chobe National Park.

This approach underscores what I call the Inverse Law of Wildlife Viewing: the fewer the number of gawkers, the greater the amount of wildlife you are likely to see and the more satisfying and uncompromised the experience.

In the course of several game drives conducted on board the Chobe Lodge’s Unimog, I’d taken the time to strike up a closer acquaintance with a local Tswana guide named Patrick. Intercepting him on the grounds of the lodge a couple of days later, I inquired if he would be interested in taking the following day off to show me around. Just me. I would pay him for his services as well as for the use of one of the lodge’s jeeps.

“Let me see what I can arrange.” I could tell he was delighted by the offer, and I flatter myself that it was not just because of the extra money but also for a chance to take a break from his daily routine.

Having settled the necessary details with the management, we convened at first light the following morning. In the trees that surrounded the lodge, birds were singing loudly as they reacquainted themselves with the sun. Out front and in the wide, glassy gray river, hippos were snorting challenges like wrestlers working themselves up for a televised tag-team match. I stretched. The sun was barely up, and the air was almost cool. Patrick eyed me speculatively.

“Where do you want to go? What do you want to see?”

I gave him the same answer I give guides everywhere, from Ankara to Alaska. “I want to go everywhere and see everything, but we only have one day. So you choose.”

He smiled, nodded thoughtfully, and pointed to our waiting vehicle.

The jeep had no top and more interestingly, no doors, the better to allow for unobstructed game viewing. After a couple of hours spent paralleling the river and bouncing through dry forest, we eventually turned right and headed down toward the water. Within minutes, you could hardly see the forest for the elephants.

There were elephants everywhere. If you have only seen them in a zoo, you cannot imagine what it feels like to be virtually surrounded by elephants. As Tennyson might have put it, there were elephants to the right of us, elephants to the left of us, elephants in front of us. Yet in all this trunk-waving, dirt-kicking, lash-batting, throat-clearing throng, there was no chaos, no arguing, no confusion. Each herd or matriarch-led group stayed together. Despite what must have been a considerable collective thirst, there was no mad rush for the cool comfort and tipple of the river. One herd would remain at the edge of the forest, patiently cropping at what remained of the badly battered vegetation while waiting its turn at the water. Across an open, bare, gentle downward slope of compacted dirt and sand some eighty yards in extent, the members of another herd were wallowing in the mud, spraying one another with water, wrestling, and conversing as energetically and politely as a gaggle of soccer moms prior to their children’s kickoff.

Off to one side, among the last line of trees and well away from the nearest of the waiting bathers, a single lioness lay on her belly and watched. Watched and waited as though she had all the time in the world.

From the front passenger seat of the open jeep, I stared in awe and amazement. I had seen more anarchy, disorganization, and hostility displayed at municipal swimming pools. I turned to Patrick. As I spoke, I gestured in the direction of the herd that was killing time at the forest’s edge. Its nearest representative was taking a massive leak less than twenty yards from our vehicle.

“Why aren’t those elephants heading down to the river?”

Patrick smiled knowingly. “It is not their time. Each herd will wait its turn so that a favorite wallowing place such as this does not become overcrowded.”

Half an hour passed. The elephants that had been drinking and gamboling in the river began to vacate the beach and move out in the direction of the forest. As soon as they started up the slight slope, the herd that had been waiting at the forest’s edge headed down. They passed one another like factory workers changing shifts. One particularly impressive female striding along less than a handful of yards from our jeep turned to glance at us as she headed for the water. Our eyes met. I received the distinct impression she would have liked to stop and chat except that she was thirsty and besides, in an hour or so, herd number three would be lining up to wait for their turn at the water, and she did not want to waste bathtime trying to make contact with yet another uncomprehending human.

I would have been satisfied to spend the remainder of the day there, watching elephants at play, rolling in the mud, marveling at how none of them stepped on the week-old baby frolicking without a care among tree-trunk-size legs. Instead, after forty minutes and a reluctant sigh, I signaled to Patrick that we should continue on upriver.

That was where, not too far inland at a place where gunmetal gray boulders flanked a small winding tributary of the Chobe, we came upon the devouring.

Lions working a fresh carcass are relentless in their single-minded ferocity. Unlike the jovial elephants that we had just left behind, nothing about the big cats’ gritty activity smacked of playtime of any kind. For big cats, feeding is an ancient and bloody business that is pursued with deadly earnestness. A youngster attempting to force its way onto the corpse is liable to receive a punishing blow from a feeding male or mature female powerful enough to crush a human skull. The intimidating, bloodcurdling roars that periodically erupted from the heaving leonine mass contained none of the melancholy of the plaintive nocturnal bellowing my wife and I had heard at Tarangire.

When a lion looks up from a meal in progress, eyes wide, face and muzzle smeared from one side to the other with bright red blood and bits of torn flesh, it puts one in mind of something other than a child’s smiling stuffed toy ready for nighttime cuddling. A feeding lion’s appearance and attitude are as raw and intimidating as anything in nature.

Despite the gruesomeness of the scene, despite the ongoing carnage, I stared. You have no choice but to stare. It is impossible to turn away. A mass lion feed is exactly what one would see at a car accident if the rescue workers, instead of helping the injured victims, began to gnaw at their bodies.

“What are they eating?”

My voice had dropped to just above a whisper. It was an automatic, instinctive response to something sunk deep in my genes, a reaction to a more primeval time when keeping one’s voice down in the presence of large carnivores was a matter not of politeness or custom but of life and death.

Patrick eyed the
grand guignol
with a professional squint. Though he must have come across similar displays of blood and bodily destruction many times, his expression was solemn. Unlike my voice, his did not change.

“Young elephant. Maybe five years old.” Both hands resting on the top of the wheel, he sat up straighter in the driver’s seat as he strained for a better look. “I don’t think they killed it.”

What?
“Then how did it die?”

“Probably anthrax. Lots of anthrax in the park. Lions here don’t have to hunt. They see a sick elephant, they just follow it until it falls over.”

I had read that the lions of Chobe were among the biggest in the world. Now I understood one reason why. There was no shortage of food here, nor did hunting take a toll on their body mass. Feasting on dead elephants, the local cats had grown enormous.

Spine-chilling snarls continued to reverberate in the air as the members of the pride battled for the best spots, swarming the lifeless lumpy corpse like oversize piglets overwhelming a freshly filled trough. Intently seeking the slightest gap, impatient juveniles and cubs circled the impenetrable congregation of feeding adults. Black-tufted tails protruding from the tawny mass thrashed back and forth like the petals of wind-whipped flowers. Still sporting the camouflaging dark blotches of adolescence, one impatient male youngster passed the time until it would be his turn to eat by chasing off the vultures that had begun to gather on the fringes of the feed.
The King of the Beasts,
I thought as I smiled at his antics, albeit one with a very small “k.”

I was unaware of how much time had passed until Patrick leaned toward me to murmur, “Enough?” I checked my watch and was surprised at the lateness of the hour. We had been watching the feeding lions from morning until well into midday. “What else would you like to see?”

I considered, then asked a question I often pose when traveling in the company of local people. “Where’s
your
favorite place, Patrick? Not the lodge’s—yours.”

“Ah.” His smile grew wide. “It’s a bit of a drive from here. We may get back late, and no vehicles are supposed to be out in the park after dark.”

I shrugged. “Blame me. Tell them the irritating American insisted, and you didn’t want to be impolite.”

He nodded, grinning, put the jeep in gear, and we continued westward upriver.

Coming upon the solitary lioness was an accident. Patrick had not been looking for her. Lolling on her stomach a few yards from the dirt track, head held high and paws stretched out in front of her, she was as elegant as a sphinx and nearly as motionless. She was lying on an open sandy patch with dense forest behind her and us and the river not far off to our left. For the first time since we had left the lodge, I was acutely conscious of the openness of the jeep, far more so than I had been among the elephants. Apprehensively, I searched the immediate surroundings, but to all intents and purposes she appeared to be alone.

Surprising me, Patrick cut the engine. This left me even more nervous, since engines take time to start. Relaxing in his seat, he put one foot up on the dash and leaned back. As far as I knew, there was no gun in the vehicle. Full-grown and magnificently muscled, the lioness barely acknowledged our presence. She was perhaps twenty feet away. The wonder and sheer magnificence of her proximity notwithstanding, I shamelessly found myself wishing that she had been taking her ease on the other side of the jeep—Patrick’s side. That way, if she turned suddenly irritable, or hungry . . .

I glanced back at my guide. He looked completely at ease.
He knows these animals
, I reminded myself.
He lives among them, observes them daily, is knowledgeable about their habits, familiar with their moods, cognizant of their eccentricities. If he’s not worried, can I be less?
I did note that, relaxed as he was, Patrick did not once take his eyes off the lioness. Unperturbed he might have been, but neither was he about to drift off to sleep.

I was very proud of myself for not saying anything. Perhaps he was waiting to see how I might react. If it was a test of some kind, I hope I passed. No doubt I’m overdramatizing the situation. Probably he just wanted me to have an experience I would remember.

On that account, he more than accomplished his goal.

“Is she sick?” On this occasion I felt no compunction about whispering. Once again, Patrick did not whisper, but he did keep his voice down for a change.

“I don’t think so. Sometimes they just like to be by themselves, I think.”

We watched her a while longer. I could have stayed there until night descended. She was so close, I could smell her. But while he was too polite to say so, I remembered Patrick’s admonition that all vehicles had to be back at the lodge by sundown. I said nothing, just nodded that it was OK for us to go. He nodded back and reached for the ignition. As he did so, the lioness yawned.

I had seen lions yawn before and have seen them yawn since, but never so emphatically or at such close quarters. Eyes squeezed shut, she held her mouth open for a long time, revealing enormous canines white as kitchen porcelain, a long and perversely kittenish tongue, and healthy black gums. Her jaws and teeth looked capable of crunching rock, not to mention mere flesh and bone. She did not deign to look in our direction as we drove off.

In my life, I have seen many people and many animals open their mouths wide, but that solitary leonine gape on the south shore of the Chobe remains to this day the most memorable yawn I have ever witnessed up close.