Today (4th Feb) was a tracks and trails in the morning. Sometime during may we will be tested on how well we can track animals, identidy prints, marks on the ground, poo and any other sign an animal might make. To prepare us for this we are doing quite a bit of practice. This consists of one of the trainers (it was Ed's turn today) to drive to a spot, jump out, walk down the road and circle 'spoor' (markings etc). We then follow behind and try to work out what it is.
Ed had literally pulled out of the school area and parked up on a track called Nungu - this was a favourite area for tracks because there is a tree line a small wood to the left and a plain to the right. Therefore all manner of animals pass this way.
He started off and got about 50 yards away, then called back that Rach and I could start going through the sequence - once we are done with the first track the next 2 students start and so it contniues. Ed had marked 6 tracks so we started our way through.
After about 10 minutes we had got to track 6, by this time Ed had walked on a bit further and found track 7 and 8 and was looking at what he wanted to be 9.
Rach and I started to walk towards him when there was a very deep, and menacing growl. Unknown to any of us but on th eplain, about 40 yards to Ed's right (and about 100 yards from where Rach and I were was a lion. No, make that 3 lions. One of the big males, a female (the one with cubs that is very aggressive and charges without any provocation) and the sub-adult male. This was a little interesting now!!
Ed called to us to stay where we were and go no further (we had reached tarck 7). I called back to the other students who were behind us to carry on what they were doing but "don't run". Ed kept an eye on the cats and made his way back to us at a walk. A few minutes later the female, followed by the big male, walked across the plain and into the tree line to our side - we had now lost sight of them. The young adult moved a little closer to us but sat in the open on the plain and watched us. We carried on what we were doing but kept an eye on the cat we could see, and kept checking the tree-line to see if the other 2 cats had moved closer.
After about 15 mins or so the young male looked across to the tree-line, stood up and then when to the trees himself and out of sight.
We had finished our tracking there anyway so we headed back to the cruiser (which was about 100 yards away, so if the lions charged us we would not have made it back there - hence the pointlesness of running from lions.
What this encounter taught us was that lions (or any other animals) rarely want an encounter with man and with choose to move off if they can. The lion growled to warn us that we were getting too close and were in his confort zone - up until Ed got to within 40 or so yards of him the male was clearly comfortable with us as he didn't growl or warn us. Had Ed ignored the warning, the next likely action by the lion would be a warning charge. Only if they didn't deter Ed would the lion choose flight or fight and make an attack. So yes, lions are scary and can kill people but as we have seen here already, if you respect them and look at what they are 'saying' you can control the situation.
In the next few weeks we will be walking dangerous game (lions, hippo, rhino, eliphant etc) - that is, trying to get close to the game to view them but hopefully without the animals knowing that you are there. We will almost certainly have a lion charge us, or an ellie being unhappy at our presence, but the idea is to teach us how to handle this situation (preferably without soiling our pants or getting anyone killed :) ) this evening we headed off to waterberry pool, by the waterfalls, for a braai (bar-b-q) and a few beers. This was a good night and the new 1 month students joined us too so we got to meet our new camp pals for a beer and chat. We didn't party too hard as we, as always, have a 5 o'clock start in the morning....
Sounds like the drink was well deserved.
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