Rampage Through Serena Camp

Last night Serena Camp was invaded by a berserk hoard of lions, hyenas and hippos. They charged straight through camp, taking out nearly everything in their path. Casualties of the battle include the kitchen tent, the storage tent, and my tent. Meg and I are stationed at completely opposite ends of camp, so between us we pretty much witnessed the entire disaster: Meg watched the first half through her tent windows, while I got the "full impact" of the end of the fight (haha, I punned... keep reading to the end so you can appreciate it fully).

You can read Meg's account here to find out how the night started. I'll just be telling you about what I personally witnessed.

It was around 11:30 pm or so when the noises started up. I could hear a mess of hyenas whooping and giggling, and lions roaring, and it was steadily getting louder. Based on the direction of the sounds I thought that something big was happening in our driveway, but I had no idea at the time that Meg was actually in the middle of the fight. Just from the ruckus, I was pretty sure that there were at least 10 hyenas involved, but other than that I was just listening and trying to guess what might be happening. I wasn't worried, since we usually hear things happening just outside camp and we've never had a problem before.

Within a few minutes, it sounded like all the animals were moving closer. I could hear them from roughly the area of the kitchen tent, and started to get a small feeling that maybe things weren't going to go so well. Next thing I knew, I heard a stampede of footsteps charging in my direction. There was a loud crash (which I found out in the morning was the storage tent) and I frantically grabbed for both my glasses and a flashlight. I keep my window uncovered, so I had just enough time to shine the light out my window and catch a glimpse of a big gray shape hurtling towards me. WTF is that a Hippo?! OH HOLY SHIT!!! I flung myself off of my bed and rolled underneath it. Then it felt like the world just came crashing down around me.

For just a few seconds I could hear things crashing and falling over, the tent ripping, a hippo screaming, hyenas whooping from all around me... it was chaos! I was in pitch black because I had smacked the flashlight getting under the bed and must have whacked something loose. Then all of a sudden the cacophony passed over me and everything went crashing away through the trees behind my tent.

I stayed frozen for a while, terrified that they might come back and run over me a second time, but eventually groped around for the flashlight and gave it another smack to turn it on. Then I could only stare. My tent was turned upside down! My chest of drawers had been flung into the middle of the tent, my bookshelf was toppled over, the desk was balanced on two legs and was only upright because the tent canvas had fallen down around it and was anchoring it in place! Everything I had on top of the table or on the shelves had been flung clear across the tent from the impact.

At that point I tried to decide whether or not to get out and get help or at least move to another tent (since Andy's was unoccupied), but I could still hear the lions and hyenas snarling at each other just on the outskirts of camp, and since I wasn't hurt I decided to stay where I was. I also had no clue where my phone might be in all the mess. I yanked the mattress to the floor and eventually managed to get a few hours of sleep, though every sound had me bolting awake in case I needed to take cover again.

Piecing together the events the next morning, it looks like after the lions and hyenas left Meg's side of camp last night, the fight swept through the kitchen tent and then off in the direction of the storage tent. Somewhere between the two tents the stampede picked up a hippo, who was probably just peacefully grazing in camp like the hippos do every night. The terrified hippo got swept along in the chase, the lions and hyenas ran directly over the storage tent, and that was when I looked out the window to see the hippo on a collision course for my tent. The hippo ricocheted off of one edge of my tent, smashing the metal supports, and then lions and hyenas ran directly through the middle of my tent and the whole thing came down on top of me.

We took pictures of the damage once the sun came up, and I think it was actually more terrifying to see the damage from the outside. From inside the tent, things were happening so fast that I was mostly feeling shock rather than fear. Seeing everything in the daylight just makes you realize how close a call it was.

First, a rough map of their path through camp:


The Kitchen Tent:


The Storage Tent:


Close-up of lion prints on the top of the storage tent:


My Tent:


Door to my tent (I had to belly crawl to get out the next morning):


Lion claw marks (sliced straight through the top of my tent):


Inside my tent:


Marks of the fighting on the ground outside Meg's tent:


Broken support poles from my tent:



Despite the damage to the tents, no one in camp was injured and nothing is irreparably broken. We were lucky as hell to get off as easy as we did. I'll be able to drink for free for at least a year if I whip this story out, I'm sure, but I'm still praying that nothing like this happens again! I only have a little over a month left in the field, let me make it out in one piece!

It's a bird... it's a plane... it's SUPERMOM!!!

Sometimes people find it hard to believe that hyenas make good mommies. A few nights ago, though, Meg and I had the privilege of witnessing a showdown that would make a believer out of any skeptic.

We were at the den of our Happy Zebra clan happily watching our hyenas when we noticed a family of elephants browsing about 200 meters away. We at first didn’t pay the elephants any attention but they kept moving closer and closer to the den, at which point I switched to keeping an eye on the elephants while Meg observed the hyenas. The elephants got to within 50 meters of the den when a fight broke out between one of the younger elephant females and the big matriarch with a young calf.

The fight seemed to rile the matriarch up, because once the other female backed down, the matriarch promptly charged at our hyenas, who at that point hd stopped what they were doing and were watching the elephants warily. The visible hyenas scattered in all directions away from the den (and trust me, we scattered with them; there's no way I want to be that close to an angry, trumpeting elephant).

Suddenly, one of our female hyenas, Ojibway, sprang out of the den. She had been completely hidden in the den hole so we hadn't even realized she was there, but Ojibway just happens to have a brand new 6-week old cub inside that den. Ojibway saw the elephants, and instead of running with the others, she planted her feet right by the den and stared the elephants down. There were six elephants total standing less than 10 meters away from her, but she refused to back down. Meg and I were terrified thinking that we were about to watch one of our hyenas get trampled into the ground, but the amazing thing was that the elephants turned away and just left her alone. Way to go Ojibway!



Other nominees for Hyena Mom of the Year are:

Marten!

Marten is a low-to-mid ranking mom in Serena South, currently raising her first ever cub. Marten is such a good mom that, despite her low rank, little Jean-Luc Picard has now caught up in size to the dominant female's cub, who is also about 2 months older!


Left C-Slit!

She just gets to be in the running for being Hagia Sofia's mom, the single most photogenic cub in the history of Fisi Camp.


Pike!

Pike is our teenage momma. We didn't expect her to have cubs for at least another 6-8 months, and lo and behold, she went and had two of them. She surprised us even more when she turned out to be a fantastic mom. Boomerang and Katana are about 7 months old and already two-thirds their mom's size! Pike is also fearless in defense of her kids; she actually once attacked Koi, the top female, when Koi was poking at her cubs.


Sauer!

Sauer is such an overprotective mom that she managed to hide her cubs for us for six or seven months! Then suddenly out she comes with her two huge fluffballs, Optimus Prime and Megatron! Way to be sneaky mama-Sau.


AWP!

Such a patient mom is our AWP. She's happy to just lie there while her little cub Velociraptor uses her for a jungle gym, and gnaws on her ears to boot!


Waffles!

Waffles is second from the bottom in rank in Serena North clan, and a first time mom to boot. Despite that, though, her babies Log Cabin and Hungry Jack always look fat, clean and fluffy. I watched once as several of the higher ranking females banded together to pick on Log Cabin. Good mama Waffles dove underneath the females noses, squealing and giggling up a storm, and shoved Log Cabin out of the way so that he could run for the den! Then, once he'd escaped into the den, Waffles threw her body down on top of the den hole and wouldn't move, despite that fact that the other females were standing over her and beating on her.



So cast your votes hyena-fans! Who should be named Hyena Mom of the Year? You decide!

(Also, bonus points to whoever can guess which of the cubs mentioned in this post were named by me. Pshh, like that's a challenge right?)

Who let the dogs out?

As briefly mentioned in my previous blog entry, the Conservancy has a small team of poacher-sniffing dogs and their ranger handlers. The anti-poaching unit is still in its early days and was only started in 2009, so the dog trainers, Linda and John of the Canine Training Academy, still come to the Mara fairly often to check on the dogs and keep up with the training. Asuka, the Conservancy veterinarian, is also very involved with the dog training and is in charge of the training whenever Linda and John are back in the States.

Linda made a trip here just last month, and while she was here the dogs and their handlers would go on training runs pretty much every day. To do a training run, one of the rangers lays a scent track while carrying around a GPS tracker. The track is recorded on a little handheld GPS unit, and then left to sit for a while (the longer the track is allowed to settle, the more challenging for the dog). Then the dog is set on the track, together with the handler and the tracker who is holding the GPS. The tracker has to run with the dog too, because they're in charge of seeing how close the dog is to the actual trail at any given time.

Linda and Asuka were kind enough to invite me to one of these training sessions, and I was really excited to join in! Yeah I'm out exploring the Mara every day, but my job puts me in the car for all that time. For the dog training, you get to run through the Mara with the dogs and not sit on your ass!

Linda and Asuka picked me up from camp one morning and we headed out to the Ngiro-Are ranger outpost (pronounced something like "Ing-geh-rah-ray") close to the Kenya-Tanzania border, where the anti-poacher unit is stationed. Linda and Asuka decided to take two of the dogs out, Murani and Anna (Murani means "warrior"), and three of the handlers.

For our first run, Linda wanted to start Anna out on an easy run. Anna is a new dog, Linda brought her from the States last month and she's still adjusting to being here in the Mara. Linda had one of the rangers lay the track, a little over 1.5 kilometers across a pretty flat plain. Then we set Anna on the track. Now, 1.5 kilometers isn't bad. I can run that far at a leisurely pace. Unfortunately, none of us expected just how well Anna would perform that day. She was completely on her game, and a "nice easy run" turned into a frantic 1.5 kilometer SPRINT, avoiding holes, dodging rocky patches, yikes! And trust me, when you're tearing through the Mara on foot, you really don't want to be the straggler lagging behind the rest of the group...

We got to the end and I couldn't talk, I was so out of breath. I am obviously NOT built to be a runner. I admit this freely.

We did a total of 4 runs that morning, two per dog. I joined in for the first 3 runs, but after that the boots I had borrowed from Linda had rubbed my feet raw (half a size too small, but the lesser of two evils since I'd rather not break an ankle on the unpredictable terrain). By the time we were ready to do the 4th run, I was hobbling around pathetically and trying not to pop my damn blisters. Ouch! So I changed into my sneakers, waited in the car and drove over to them after Murani completed his run so they wouldn't have to walk all the way back to the car.

I have to say though, that was an absolute ridiculous amount of fun, and totally worth the blisters. Hopefully I'll get to do it again sometime soon, and in the meantime I might just have to run circles around camp to prepare for it.

Okay, storytime is over and now you get pictures:

Ngiro-Are, the ranger outpost. You can't see in this picture, but there are bullet-holes in the gate from when poachers/bandits/etc. have attacked the outpost.

Rangers like to decorate with skulls. Seems like a pretty effective warning to me.

One of the rangers laying the first track.

The group heading out on one of the runs. You can see Murani's tail in the grass.

Murani, the cute little devil.

Anna, isn't she pretty?

And one more of Anna, cause I can ;P


Woah, two entries in one day? I'm on a roll!

Lions and Leopards and Bandits, Oh My!

Alright, I admit it, I'm not the best at keeping current on these blog things. To make it up to you, I've got 3 entries coming up in quick succession. There's been a lot of craziness going on, so yes, it'll probably take at least that many entries to catch you up.

First things first, I'll tackle all the (relatively) recent camp and Mara excitement in this post. Top of the list? Bandits! About a month and a half ago there was a shooting here in the Mara Triangle. Some bandits attacked one of the tent camps, robbed the tourists, and then shot three of them. Two of the victims had to be airlifted to a hospital in the city, and the last one died too soon for medical attention (someone told me that one was shot in the head, but I don't know if this is true). The bandits ran away on foot, and a huge manhunt was organized to find them. The Conservancy put most of their rangers on it, plus poacher sniffing dogs and the local police!

The tent camp was pretty far away from our camp, and we're located very close to the Conservancy headquarters and ranger barracks, so we felt pretty safe. Unfortunately, one of my hyena clans has a territory that reaches all the way up to that area, so we had to restrict evening obs for a while. We were asked to avoid being out after dark until the shooters were found, for our own safety. The Conservancy also offered to station a ranger at our camp until they caught the shooters, but honestly I feel more antsy when there are strangers in camp, so I declined.

Anyway, at the time we had been having elephants in camp every night what better bodyguards could you have than a herd of elephants? They'd trample anyone who came close AND you can't take them down with a few measly bullets. The downside to this was that we spent several mornings in a row trapped in our tents because the elephants would forget to leave, but all in all it seemed a fair trade.

They eventually caught one of the bad guys, persuaded him to talk, and I think they caught the leader based on the info they got. I find myself speculating as to the methods used to make him talk, but mostly I think, "Good riddance!" One of the victims was a 70-year-old man who was just celebrating his birthday with some friends. Bastards.

Next up, more lions! (And why is it that I have so many stories about lions?! I'm a freaking HYENA researcher. Maybe if I pretend like I'm studying lions, I'll see more hyenas?) Before I came to the Mara, there was apparently lioness who decided to take up residence in the Serena Lodge compound and raise her 2 little cubs there (Serena Lodge is the closest lodge to Hyena Camp, only about 5 minutes away). In the process, she went and got herself completely acclimated to humans -- she's absolutely not intimidated at all.

She disappeared for a little while, only to turn up again last month.... in the middle of Hyena Camp. Oh dear.

I was in Nairobi at the time, so I missed the really exciting bits where she strolled through camp in the middle of the day, but read the post by Andy Booms here to get the full story.

By the time I got back to camp she was still hanging around (one day she decided to take a nap up by the choo/toilet, WTF?! We need that!) but mostly I just bumped into her skulking around the edge of the thicket that our camp is in, whenever we'd leave camp for obs.

She's disappeared again now, but I'll keep you posted on whether she comes back again.

And to close off this post, the last bit of camp fun I'll leave you with is: leopards! It's usually really hard to spot leopards out here. They're ridiculously shy, plus they're nocturnal, so you'll pretty much only see one by sheer luck. We at Fisi Camp don't actually have a problem finding leopards though, and that's because the leopards really prefer finding us. They just have to take a stroll straight through the middle of camp, every night.

They usually start at my end of camp, come up by the lab tent, stroll past the kitchen tent, meander up by the cars, and then end their jaunt by walking past the staff's tents. While on their walks, they like to bat at the edges of our tarps, shred helpless tea towels, and sneak up to tents where people are innocently sleeping and then VOCALIZE REALLY LOUDLY. Ok, to be fair I hadn't actually fallen asleep yet, but I was close! Also the leopard got so close to my tent that I could actually hear his paws as he stepped on the grass and leaves -- and if you know how quiet cats are while walking, then you know how flipping close that had to have been. I'm still a little bit pissed about that whole deal, but then it's hard for me to be charitable when something scares the living daylights out of me.

So, that wraps up the recent in-camp adventures. Next up, running with the poacher-sniffing dogs!

EDIT: Also, I don't think I ever officially posted the answer to the "Guess This Hyena!" challenge. I just told a bunch of people via chat. So, the hyena was... GRIMACE! I think that means only one of you got it, but thanks for humoring me <3

Adventures in the City (rated PG-13 for my potty-mouth, kiddies keep away)

Given that my normal living conditions have me situated smack-dab in the middle of the African wilderness, you'd think that my infrequent Nairobi trips would actually bring some respite from all the excitement and adventure. Unfortunately, as I learned on my first trip to the city, this is really not the case.

To give you a little background on our city accomodations, the project rents a cottage in Nairobi year-round. It's a cute little place, and more importantly it's got electricity and HOT WATER. There's also a car that stays in town, a little Suzuki that's maybe slightly bigger than a golf cart. There's a little bit of history behind this Suzuki.

The Suzuki (whom I have dubbed "Posie," as in Piece Of Shit In Everyway") was originally purchased maybe 10 years ago and was intended to be a field vehicle. A really small field vehicle, yes, but not too tiny if there's only one person in it. Anyway, a mere 6 months after this car was purchased, two rather special researchers went out for drinks at one of the lodges across the river from their camp, and got totally plastered. Then, on their way home, they decided that it would be a fantastic idea to try crossing the river without a bridge. Contrary to their expectations, the river did actually have water in it, and both the car and the researchers were swept a kilometer downstream. The researchers didn't drown, but sadly the car did, and it never quite recovered from the trauma. So, it's been relegated to city vehicle only, and we get to use it whenever we're in town and the field vehicles need to be in the shop for maintenance (which pretty much ends up being the entire time we're in the city).

**Sidenote: I pray I never do anything that stupid, else my name will live on in infamy in the annals of Fisi Camp. The names of the two researchers who murdered the car are now listed in the training manual for all subsequent generations of Fisi Campers to marvel at.**

I arrived in Nairobi with my friend and coworker Steph (she's one of the research assistants at the other camp) to find that our dear Posie had decided that starting was just too much for her. I could turn the key in the ignition and not get a single faint sputter out of her. Not the end of the world, right? One of the skills that the guys taught me before handing over the reins was how to pop a clutch (or for the British contingent, push-start the car). Doable, and I handled the driving to start with since I had a little more experience than Steph with sensitive clutches (because really, when you can't start the car, stalling is a no-no). Aside from one minor incident where we stalled in the middle of a huge roundabout intersection and needed a push-start while irritated cars were zooming past on either side of the car, it wasn't too horrific.

We eventually dropped Posie off at the mechanic's for a night and got her back the next morning with the battery issues resolved, or so we thought, but God forbid the car actually go a full 24-hours without unleashing some new and creative form of hell upon us. That same afternoon, Steph and I decided to go watch a movie. By the time we got out it was dark, so we piled into Posie to head on home.

At which point we found that the battery was really not as fixed as we thought. The car started just fine, but we quickly discovered that the LIGHTS weren't working. They were so dim that they were pretty much non-existent. Thus ensued the Ride of Doom. Here, have an excerpt of our evening. I'm driving, and Steph is in the passenger seat.

Steph: Turn on the lights! TURN ON THE LIGHTS!!!
Me: They're on! They're fucking on! The switch says on!
Steph: WTF?! No they're not! Did you turn the right switch? Maybe you hit the wipers, try again!
Me: Do you see the wipers moving? I'm telling you the lights are ON!

*car comes speeding towards us in the oncoming lane and helpfully decides to flash brights at us because, hey, lights aren't on*

Me: ARGH OMG I'M BLIND, HIGH BEAMS!!!
Steph: Where the fuck are the lights?! This car is a piece of shit... OH MY GOD STAY ON THE ROAD!
Me: WHAT ROAD I CAN'T SEE!!! AHHHHH!!!
Steph: AHHHHH!!! ... I've had too much chocolate. Chocolate high! Chocolate high! We're gonna die and I'm high on chocolate!
Me: NOT HELPING! Is this my turn?! Is this my turn?!
Steph: Left here. NO LEFT! YAAAHHHHHH!!!
Both: OMG I FEEL LIKE I'M IN AN INDIANA JONES MOVIE!!!

*pause, blink*

Both: Soulmates!

*pause*

Both: AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

Me: I think I'd feel safer if all we had was a boulder rolling after us.
Steph: ARGH fucking cars need to turn their brights OFF!

*car zooms past with horns blaring*

Me: OMG we're gonna die. I promised my mom I wouldn't die in Africa.
Steph: DON'T HIT THE PEOPLE! WATCH OUT FOR THE PEOPLE! ... I'm so glad we have seatbelts...
Me: WTF good will that do us?! Something hits us in this thing and we won't have the chance to go flying out the windshield, we'll just be pancaked flat!!
Steph: I don't want pancakes! No pancakes! STAY ON THE ROAD!!
Me: I can't SEE! I CAN'T SEE!! OMG, fucking BRIGHTS! Can't see past the BRIGHTS!
Steph: I can see! I can see out my window! Go over, over... NO THE OTHER WAY!
Me: Do you see the sign?! Where's our turn?! Oh shit there!

*SCREEE!!!*

Me: Whew, ok, just one turn left right?
Steph: Where are you going?! That's our driveway!
Me: I KNOW that's the driveway! Look, see I'm turning now... AHHHHH!!!

*SCREE!!! WHOOSH!!! CLUNK!!! THUD!!!*

Both: OMG HOME!!!

*End Ride of Doom*

Needless to say, I refuse to drive that deathtrap in the dark again. I think I'd be safer with the lions.

BTW, no one played the hyena game from my last post :( Sadface. See, that's emphatically sadface even, you get the smiley plus the actual word.

More animal adventures to come in the next post, trust me I have loads!

So what do I do out here?

So what is it exactly that do I do out here? Let me start off by giving you a quick rundown of a typical day. I get up at 5:30am, grab a quick cup of tea, and usually leave camp by 5:45. The sun doesn't start to rise until around 6am, so it's still completely dark at that time. I stay out watching hyenas until around 9:30 am, sometimes later if something really exciting is happening, and then head back to camp for breakfast. During the middle of the day I go through the more tedious aspects of the job, namely transcribing my field notes and attending to any camp maintenance and management work.

Brief segue here: I don't think I realized when I first took this job exactly how much would be on my shoulders out here. I actually run a field camp -- I handle buying supplies, paying salaries, refilling the water supply, camp-community relations, field vehicle maintenance, solar power maintenance, accounting, you name it. It's more responsibility than I anticipated and it can be kind of scary. If I screw up out here, well, then the whole camp is screwed, and it's not easy to dig yourself out of a hole when the nearest town of respectable size is 4 hours away. Still, it's great experience, and it will be so valuable if I get to the point of setting up my own field site.

Ok, back to the job. In the middle of the day there's usually time for a nap, a workout, whatever personal time you want to squeeze in between errands, etc. Then at around 5pm it's back out into the field for the evening session. I'm out until around 7:30 or 8, well after dark, and then it's time to head back to camp for dinner. I'm usually in bed no later than 10pm, so strangely enough I'm getting more sleep out here with a 5:30am wake up call than I have back home for the past 4 years or so.

Now, a crash course on hyena basics. Hyenas are social carnivores. They live in big groups called clans. The camp on the other side of the Mara actually has a clan with over 90 hyenas, but each of my clans has roughly 40-50 hyenas. Hyenas have their cubs in dens, which are usually just old, abandoned aardvark or warthog holes that the hyenas re-use. Each female gives birth on her own in a natal den, then after a few days brings the cubs to a communal den, where the cubs can learn the clan social structure and ranks. This doesn't mean that all the hyenas in a clan congregate around the den. The only time you're sure to see a hyena at the communal den is if it's a female with young, den-dependent cubs. Otherwise, it's anyone's guess where in the clan territory a hyena will be. We can go for over 6 months without seeing a hyena, list it as missing/dead, and then oops, randomly just find it again while driving around.

I study 3 clans (Serena North, Serena South, and Happy Zebra, which gives me about 120-150 hyenas total), go out on observations ("obs" for short), watch hyenas, and study behavior (particularly dominance/submission interactions). So far this doesn't seem so tough, right? But picture this: you have 6 hyenas hanging out around the den. All of a sudden, 2 of the hyenas decide to gang up on a 3rd, who turns and beats up on a 4th because she's not happy at being aggressed on, at the same time as 2 more hyenas arrive from nowhere and join in the party. Wait, which hyena is which? Who were the ones that just arrived? Oh crap, what were the other 2 doing while the 6 were all in a tangle? Sessions can get really crazy, really fast.

There are a ton of behaviors to learn, plus different levels of aggression, contexts for aggression, reactions to aggression, contexts for sound, contexts for pasting (another type of behavior), and you have to train yourself to see it as soon as it happens, because it's happening and over and done in just a few seconds.

This isn't even the hard part though. The toughest part is, none of these interactions mean diddly-squat unless I know who my hyenas are. Each hyena has a name and is identifiable by a unique spot pattern. They're as distinct as human fingerprints. Ok, fine, great. This still does not make them easy to identify. At. All. Here, have a look:

Bartlet


Judas


Bing


Grimace


That is a crap-ton of spots, and that's just 4 hyenas! These are all also really good, clear pictures. These are the kind of pictures we put in our ID books. You can see most or all of the spots clearly, including leg spots, and you might even be able to see ear damage. Hyenas will not always pose for you this conveniently. What you're more likely to get is this:



BTW, this last hyena is the same as one of the hyenas in the first 4 pictures :) Name this hyena guys!

This is also only one side of a hyena. They each have a whole other side and no, unfortunately they are not symmetrically patterned.

So, I have to memorize good spot features on both sides of each of my hyenas, and then I have to prepare for the likelihood that I won't even be able to see that particular feature because my hyena will be lying down, or obscured by grass, or standing in a ditch, or coated in mud, or a million other things that make it not look how it should. On top of that, I need to know which hyenas belong to what clan (particularly important now because some of my hyenas have been showing up in the territory of clans they don't belong to), which hyenas are related, who holds what rank, what genders and age classes the hyenas are... yikes, the mind boggles. And before any of these even comes in to play, I first have to FIND the hyenas, and like I said they can be anywhere in the clan territory at any given time.

Despite all this, I freely admit that this is the best job I've ever had (yes, because I've had just sooo much experience in my 24 years of life, obviously :P ). The hyenas are just so interesting, and once you get to know them them and get a feel for their personalities, it's so easy to get attached. I was onyla few weeks into the job when I already had my favorites, and I know I'll be heartbroken when I have to leave them and go home. And the babies! The cubs are just the cutest thing in the world! Not to mention I'm outdoors all the time and not boxed up in an office all day! So yeah, the work can be tough and the pay is shit, but man is it worth it!

Anyway, I hope you have fun with the little hyena game. If anyone enjoys it, let me know because I'd love to put more up!

Although I’m here in the Mara to study hyenas, for some reason I’ve also been lucky enough to have some amazing lion sightings! Here are a few of the best, pictures included!

About a month ago, we (and btw whenever I say we, I mean me and the other researcher at camp) were out in the territory of our furthest clan. It had been raining a little that morning, so there was no one else out other than one of the ranger cars. All of a sudden we came across 8 male lions trotting along the road. There was a group of 4 up ahead, and another group of 4 trailing behind them. All of a sudden the 4 in the back picked up speed and started chasing the 4 in front! They were roaring like crazy too! I’ve heard lots of lions roaring, usually around the camp at night, and they were never this loud!

For the sake of keeping the story straight, the 4 in the back are the sons of this pretty notorious male lion named Notch, so I’ll call them Notch’s boys for the rest of the story. The 4 being chased are from further down South near the Tanzania border, so I’ll call them the South 4.


(This is Notch, though he’s acting a little doofy right now!)

So the South 4 in front run, and Notch’s boys give chase, and both the ranger car and we are speeding down the road to follow. Then, the South 4 decide, hey, we’re not going to be muscled out! So they regroup, turn around, and they chase Notch’s boys back!!! They chase them all the way past this really picturesque watering hole, and then the South 4 spread out around this watering hole and start hollering and roaring all around it to stake their claim! It was crazy to see, one even climbed this little cliff behind the watering hole and was standing on it, think Simba standing on Pride Rock style! And then Notch’s boys decide they’re tired of running, so then turn around and chase the South 4 again! So off they go in the opposite direction! And picture us and the ranger car, first speeding one way, turning around, speeding back the way we came, then oops, they turn around and off we go in the opposite direction again. It was amazing to see though. They went back and forth several more times before we lost them on a really rocky plain.

















Later on we talked to the Disney crew (Disney Nature is working on a full length film about the big cats of the Mara, and the film crew has been out here following the lions and cheetahs for almost 2 years I think). Amanda and Owen, who are in charge of the lions, have been filming lions pretty much non-stop for over three years and they said they’d never seen a territorial battle that big. The biggest one they’d seen was 2 vs. 2 in one of the other reserves (Tsavo, I think?). Some of you may appreciate this, Amanda and Owen have actually done some filming with David Attenborough (ok, maybe a little bit of hero worship going on here)! They've been doing nature/documentary filming for like20 years! We felt really bad that we were out of cell coverage at the time and we couldn’t let them know about this, but at least the light was not really good for filming (cloudy and nearing dusk) so they didn’t miss any footage. I would have liked for them to see it though.

A few days after that, I was out doing obs on my own. It was drizzling and pretty overcast and I wasn’t having much luck finding my hyenas. I was driving down one of the roads, and I see a big golden mass walking towards me along the road. I stop the car and kill the engine, since it’s headed toward me anyway and I don’t need to follow, and as the mass comes closer I see that it’s actually 3 lionesses and 9 lion cubs walking in a group. They walk right up to the car and just sort of split up to walk past me on both sides. They were SO CLOSE. We have to drive around with the windows open (SOP, better visibility and all), and they were so close that I could have literally just stuck my hand out the window and grabbed their tails. THAT CLOSE. And this is one of the smaller cars I’m in, so the lionesses’ heads were just about level with my very open windows. They went past me and I was about to stick my head out the window so I could look back and count them (since we need accurate carnivore counts) and there was one straggler lioness running to catch up with the rest of the group that raced right past my nose!!! My face was very much: O.O

I may have slightly deficient self-preservation instincts though, because I was way more “OMG THAT WAS SOOOO COOL” than I was “Wow, there’s nothing but an open car window between me and these lions.” Heh.



Fast forward a little. Two weeks ago, we were out looking for hyenas in the morning and we see what we think are 4 lionesses walking down a hill towards us. Again, we record all carnivores we see in addition to studying hyenas, so we waited for them to get closer and as they pass right in front of the car, we see they’re actually sub-adult male lions, not adult lionesses. The Disney crew is following these subs as the main characters in the movie, so we immediately call the Disneys to let them know we’ve found their subs, and we’ll follow them to keep track until they can get over there (bush courtesy, everyone tries to share info on where you’ve seen each others animals). So we follow the subs all the way to a look-out point above the river, and just as Amanda drives up they go over the edge and down to the bank of the river.



So we’re thinking, hmm, WTF are they doing? They’re not going to cross are they?! It’s been raining A LOT so the Mara River is really high right now. And then suddenly, there are four lions struggling through the water, battling against the current! AND THERE ARE THREE HUGE CROCODILES CLOSING IN!!!

Amanda was freaking out, my jaw completely dropped, and everyone was holding their breath! One of the lions lagged behind, and one of the crocodiles was within a meter of him when he finally heaved himself on to the opposite bank! Then the lions sat soaking wet on the opposite bank and were snarling at the crocs that were still in the water. I was so worried that they might have actually got bitten but luckily they were fine. Once she caught her breath Amanda told us that they had only seen these lions cross the river a few times, and never when the water was so high, and also never with crocs around! And sadly Owen didn’t make it and they weren’t able to film it!!!





Ok, last (for now) crazy lion sighting! Right after seeing that crossing, we drove past a lioness that was digging up what looked like a warthog mound. Now, if we see something cool out in the Mara our boss fully supports us staying to watch, even if it isn’t hyena related. So we sat and watched the lioness dig for around 45 minutes (a tourist car wandered by in that time, stayed for maybe 15 minutes, and then left when nothing was happening… stupid, impatient tourists, their loss!). Then suddenly she dove completely into the mound! We could only see maybe a foot and a half of her tail is visible whipping around in the air! Then she heaves backwards with A BABY WARTHOG IN HER JAWS.











So she kills the pig and carries her prize away to the bushes to eat it in peace, and here’s the really sad part. A little set of ears pops out of the den, and then this poor little pig sticks its head out of the hole and looks around, looking really sad and lost. Then it jumps and runs into the grass, probably wondering where its brother or sister went. We felt so badly for the poor little guy ;_;

So yeah, crazy amazing lion sightings, though I would trade one or two of them for crazy amazing hyena sightings! I <3 my hyenas so much! Next post will be all about them, I promise!

Enjoy the pictures everyone!

Adventures with Elephants

It's been raining like crazy recently so camp hasn't had much power. I actually wrote this down on paper back when this happened and am only now getting to type it, so just pretend like you're reading this on March 24.

March 24, 2010

So yesterday was my first solo expedition into the bush. My fellow researchers (Andy and Jen, a grad student and his wife who's come to help him with his research) have been asked to help judge a competition for "Most Responsible Safari Guide." This entails spending the night at 8 different lodges around the Mara, all expenses paid, and going on several game drives after which they score their drivers. They get the works, nice rooms/tents, hot showers, meals and drinks, etc., which ok, makes me a little jealous. Well, not the food though, because our cook at camp tops any of the lodge chefs. But seriously, a toilet that flushes? Serious luxury out here!

Anyway, these stays are spaced out over the course of 6 weeks, but basically when they do one of these I have camp all to myself for about 24 hours.

At around 5 pm yesterday I headed out to do obs on my own for the first time. The session itself was fine. I think I actually spot hyenas better on my own, since I end up over-compensating for not having 2 other pairs of eyes in the car. It was great practice too, since eventually I'll be doing obs on my own pretty much all the time, once Andy dives into his dissertation research.

It started to rain halfway through the session, but not too badly so I decided to carry on. (It's been unseasonably rainy this past month, to the point that we get stuck out on tracks or even get rained in and can't leave camp.) Anyway, despite the rain I was getting along just fine, feeling really sorry for my poor hyenas because the ones I saw were soaked and miserable-looking. It was dark by 7:00 pm, but I didn't end obs until around 7:30 pm once it started raining hard enough that the hyenas all took cover and I wasn't seeing anything useful anymore.

So, there I am on my way back to camp, tootling along carefully down a muddy, slippery road in the pitch black (and when I say road, what I actually mean is an unpaved, glorified track with delusions of grandeur), no one else out because you need special permission to be out on the roads after dark in the Mara, and all off a sudden there's this huge movement just off the road maybe 15 meters in front of the car. In a split second I process that, OH SHIT THERE'S A BIG BULL ELEPHANT. Who looks NOT HAPPY. YAY. Then I slam the car in reverse and floor it back down the track, frantically praying that I remember how the track bends and am not about to slam the cruiser into a ditch.

I back up until I can just barely see the elephant at the edge of the glow of my high beams, and then park my ass to wait and see if the big brute will wander away from the road of his own volition. And btw, I'm watching him the whole time through my binos and I can see him tossing his head and flapping his ears and generally looking like a really aggravated elephant.

30 minutes later, I'm still sitting in the rain as the road slowly turns to muddy slush, at which point I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I wait longer and risk the road getting soaked to the point that I can't drive and am stuck overnight, or do I go for it and hope that the elephant doesn't decide to go for me in return? And if I go, do I keep it slow and unthreatening so I don't skid off the road, but risk getting rammed by a charging elephant, or do I gun it and risk crashing the car in a ditch? Hmm. Tough one.

Oh, and I should mention that I am completely on my own for this one -- I'd been trying at that point to call Andy for 20 minutes, on the off chance that he had more knowledge of elephant handling than I do. But hey, it's raining after all, and I find that although I have great signal where I am, no one else has signal to receive my call.

So I'm wet, I'm cold, I'm hungry, and I decide to just gun it. It would ultimately be easier to tow the car out of a ditch, than it would to unsquash it after 4 tons of angry bull elephant tramples it right? Also, please no squishing of the car while I'm in it, mmmk?

I back up the car a little first to give myself enough space that I can get up into 3rd gear well before I reach the elephant. On your mark, get set, GO! I zoom through the road and my heart's beating triple time as I catch a brief glimpse of startled elephant at the corner of my eye, all while I'm trying to keep the car on the road and stop it from fishtailing. Then woah, YES, I'm through and the elephant is just a fading speck in my rearview mirror.

I get back to camp and the staff are all, oh, late night huh? Oh boy. You have no idea.

Anyway, the car is fine, I'm fine, the elephant is fine, and the nice thing is that it rained so much that I got to sleep in this morning.

We've been getting a little more sun recently, so hopefully I'll be quicker with the updates. I'll check in again soon!

More pictures!

I really need to keep on top of this, there are so many pictures I want to share and they're really piling up. Here are a few more of my favorites so far:

Lion cub! Look how small he is!


I got to go on a balloon ride over the Mara and it was incredible. Here's a shot of the balloon:


And here's some shots of the view:




Hyenas in the mist?


Hug a tree today.


BIG boy.


More lion cubs!


Hello hippo.


Conga-line!!


See, how can you not love hyenas?








Cheetahs are just too gorgeous.


Another beautiful sunset.


And a giraffe, just outside our camp.


More to come, the past week has been packed full of lions!