The Roar.

Today was a beautiful day. We were on the field early, as usual, to avoid the intolerable midday heath and to enjoy the morning view of the hilly landscape, shining in soft, orange light.

The sun was just getting pleasantly warm while we walked through high lush grass, responding crisply to our movements and letting its morning dew soak into our clothes. The insects were having a blast, the air was buzzing and humming and every butterfly that flew past was the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen. The birds were singing the year’s best autumn tunes especially for us, and we had to stop and listen not to disturb soft melodies with cracking debris under our feet. Around us, there were forbs that seemed to have just started blooming, even though African winter is coming from around the corner. Their flowers were brightly painted with pink, blue and yellow tans, together creating a bright rainbow curving around the green shrubbery. The light chilly breeze was bringing smells of wild mint and fresh flowers and we all stayed quiet and enjoyed having our senses tickled with those nature’s treats. As if it was the last time we were feeling, as if we knew we’re about to be introduced to Mr Grim Reaper.

I was just taking a photo of a big yellow-black freckled butterfly when I heard a deep rumble sound. Still focusing on the butterfly and the camera, I said “oh, a warthog” to the others, but didn’t get any reply. Lifting my eyes up from the camera, I repeated the question “there’s a warthog close, right?”, aiming especially to the guard. But when I saw his face I knew it was not a warthog. And by that time the grunting became growling and suddenly turned into a loud, angry, cat-like roar. At the same time, it was getting closer and filling us all with indescribable terror.

It was a lion and it was furious.

If there wasn’t for the guard to repeat those too-many-times-heard “don’t run” words, the basic instinct would take over and without standing a slightest chance of outrunning the perfectly designed predator I would have not been writing this post or any of the following ones. Instead, I fought a great battle with myself, a battle between my instinct and my mind – the first thrusting my body into flight and the second holding it back to stand still.

The lion ran towards us, roaring, the guard cocked its rifle, took his aim. I stood behind, looking away and – surprisingly – thinking who’s going to be eaten first.

But the lion stopped, extremely close, yet far enough. Immediately, we started to back up, slowly, carefully. We could still hear the growling and were shaking from the dreadful attack for the next couple of meters, wishing to run, but forcing our legs to walk slowly through the thick bush. It felt like forever before we reached our car. 

We walked into a lion’s den - literally. We came too close too soon. It must have had kittens, or a fresh kill. Otherwise it wouldn’t charge so suddenly, without any previous warning.

The reason for us to be there was actually the lions themselves. We were trying to find a lion kill site, get some clues about diet. Following a GPS with few days old lion location clusters, we mostly find some remaining prey parts that tell us what the collared pride ate few days ago, when the GPS data was received. And those few days are crucial not to walk into the lions when they’re still eating.

However, you can never be sure they’re actually gone. And that’s what we’ve proved today.

Hide and seek with the elephants

Once you get used to the fact that there are many things around you that can kill or at least considerably damage you, you stop being ready to fight-or-flee at all times (even while having a wee, because stuff can crawl into the bathroom). But being charged by an elephant, crossing rivers with crocs and then walking along fresh lion tracks on the river sand bars, finding a tiny white spider in your camera case whose bite launches you to the nearest hospital, or just forgetting to put on (enough) sunscreen and getting roasted by the African sun, quickly brings you back to reality.

The listed experiences are true, and you have to keep your eyes, ears and nose sharp at all times to avoid lethal consequences. Especially when it comes to those sneaky elephants. 

They’re big and they usually break things as they go so you’d expect to see or at least hear them coming. But the shrubs are really thick and their soft feet suppress even the loudest sounds of trampled trees, branches and grasses. So you don’t know they’re close until they’re right at you. 

Been there, done that – my guard on the watch, me busy setting up the transect line, elephant out of the bush. I was already running and whisper-shouting “elephant!” to the guard before he realized what was happening. Luckily, at that moment the elephant had already decided it scared us well enough and disappeared again. 

As if it was a common shrew and not the biggest guy on land.

But that was the second time I got surprised like that – the first time was a lot more terrifying, even though it happened while driving. Just after I made a turn, I saw a little red tourist car standing on the road. Nothing alarming, it is a completely normal sight here in the park; tourists stop their vehicles whenever and wherever they feel like, observe the giraffe kilometres away, study the map, have a cup of tea, change their babies’ dippers. So we slowly, carefully pass them (because for some reason they think they’re the only people in the park and you never know when they’d start driving all over the road again) and continue with our way. 

However, that that particular car had a proper reason to be motionless – it was on a look out for a large male elephant. Though, it didn’t realize the bull was camera shy. Just before the red car would become the elephant’s new football, another car (with me in it) drove around the corner and distracted the bull. He shifted his rage towards the approaching vehicle and started charging. And there I was, still in the process of overtaking the red car, suddenly being charged by a furious elephant. 

Break, reverse, full gas! With the bull just after (in front of) you, it’s too scary and too dangerous to be looking forwards, so I kept my eyes on the road behind me and kept on reversing until the car engine smelled bad. My driving skills did not let me down and the elephant and his bad mood got left behind.

I was thinking about those two incidents afterwards and came to the conclusion that the elephants were probably just playing. And their favourite game is hide and seek. I guess I lost because I found only two of them. But you never know, they might be very patient and still waiting there for me, hiding in the bushes.

Aaaaand action!

My first experiment is set up! Escape impediments positioned, grass measured, species identified, arms hurt, sweat drip, cameras work. And the meaning of all this?

The project I am working on is a part of the bigger programme about "the role of apex predators in the ecosystem" (basically why there must be large carnivores). Only recently have ecologists finally realized that large carnivores are not only one of the most charismatic species but that they are also essential for keeping the ecosystem healthy. What happened in Yellowstone was that wolves somehow modified the river behaviour. If they were absent, rivers suddenly changed their courses, meandering and eroding the banks. That was a disaster for the whole park and made managers’ hair turn grey and then fall out. And it happened when the wolves were not there (probably even hundreds of them digging wouldn’t be enough to change the way the river flows)! Magic!

Or maybe not. Wolves eat elk, elk eats plants, plants “eat” nutrients from the soil. The richest the soil, the tastier the plant, the rather the elk will feed on it. Areas where such plants grow are exactly the river flood plains. Because the elk find these so irresistible, they would keep feeding if they were if something wasn’t holding them back. These areas are open and you can get quickly spotted from a distance. Good for a tourist, not so good for the elk itself. Elk must keep scanning the area to see an enemy (the wolf) before it comes too close. So elk can’t eat as much as it wishes which means the plants get spared when it is on the look-out. Like that, vegetation by the river is not destroyed completely and can continue growing when elk decides it’s time to leave. See the trick? Wolves make elk scared, elk feeds less and plants stays imbedded in the river banks, holding them strong and keep the river flowing straight. This magic is called Trophic cascade.

This is the main concept of “my” programme as well, but only a basis of my project. I will investigate how predators change the behaviour of their prey (like wolves & elk), but in a different setting. For a start, it’s Africa, not The States. Also, there are predators all over the place and I cannot just take the lions and wild dogs out and see if impalas and nyalas eat the whole park. I have to do it in a scientific-small-scale way. I have to use poo and set up the experiment on the available rich spots, grazing lawns (not river banks). They are basically lawns, surrounded by the bushes. Ungulates are lovin’ them, because there’s yummie grass, which makes them a perfect place to test if the impala’s greediness goes beyond its fear. But the fear factor in this setting is not only predators. They could get nervous close to the bushes that can hide the danger, or by the elephant-broken trees and branches over which you can trample while you’re running for your life. Or the combination of both. So I will first check how afraid are they of bushes and the pieces of wood. Then, I will add the wild dog scat and see if that makes them (more) afraid. And all will be carefully monitored by the hidden cameras.

Plenty of work, but the first experiment is now set and the camera traps are doing their job. Let’s hope it works and that the impala gets terrified of them scats!

The Queen of the Bush

I suffer from a mild version of arachnophobia. Mild because only certain spiders in certain places cause a strong emotional reaction from my side, potentially involving baffling speaking, screams of terror, goose bumps, shivers down the spine and uncontrolled arm-waving, expressing the anxious position I find myself in. Depends on the spider’s size and figure and the available help.

So, when I saw the Red-legged golden orb web spider, I was absolutely sure I was in the middle of a bad nightmare. Unfortunately, I wasn’t. It was all too real when the rope used for the field work got stuck around the main supporting branch of the spider’s web and almost broke the branch when we were pulling it back. The web was shaking, the spider got scared and I swear I heard it thinking: “S***, this place is going down, better get out of here before it’s too late!!!!”. I could see it happening – the spider running down the web, over the bushes and into the UNKNOWN. Which could mean anything – the lawn we were standing on, on the tree above us, in my backpack, on my head. Wherever it would feel safest and most comfortable.

My arachnophobia had then reached a completely new level. I was paralysed with the eyes wide open, not blinking or looking anywhere else than at the creature. But that day was apparently my lucky day after all. The branch held strong enough and gave the rope back without breaking. The beast soon got a fresh supply of butterfly prey which probably made it forget about the dreadful experience and convinced it to stay in its golden web and continue with its daily routine of preparing insect wraps for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Oh, I forgot to mention the reason for all this hysteria from my side. This particular she-spider was the most monstrously humongous spider I have ever seen in my life (though I think we might have an alcohol-preserved version of it at my old faculty in Ljubljana). Her body only was about 10cm long (and I’m being objective here!) and if you add the long, thin, very spider-like legs, it reached almost 20cm. She was shining and – decorated – with different colourful patterns. Her webs have a golden shine and are strong enough to last for weeks and catch all kind of things, also bats.

I think it therefore deserves to be addressed by a royal title, the highest of them all. To stay respected and feared of, by all things dead and alive. From this moment on, she will be called The Queen of the Bush.

The Queen preparing a wrap and not being aware of the secret lover behind her

More or less wild dogs

One of the first things in the park I was taken to was a wild dog boma. Boma means a corral, or an enclosure, and the word is used throughout Africa mostly in matters connected to livestock herding; shepherds keep their animals in bomas during the night, to protect them from wild predators. So how come a boma is suddenly there to keep the wild predators in instead of out?

I believe that most of you readers are aware of the human-carnivore conflict occurring where (mainly) large carnivores still persist in the human populated areas (which is pretty much everywhere around the world). If you are not, let me briefly give you the mildest example. Imagine what happens when a pack of wolves, for instance (since you’re mostly European), shares its territory with two local sheep herders. Wolves will sooner or later come across this naïve herd either while in search for food or just during patrolling their area. With poor fencing (if any) around them and no human or dog guarding, the sheep are easy meal. But the wolves will not take only what they can fit in their stomach, they will usually add a bit more. It’s their instinct to kill and domesticated sheep simply don’t know why and how to run away (which they can’t anyway if they’re fenced). Shepherds lose their source of income, they ask compensation from the government and want the wolves to never come back. In short, wolves cause trouble and they pay with their heads for it.

In South Africa, the same problem occurs with the wild dogs. They should limited by the borders of the reserves and parks in which they’re kept but fences are not always enough  – dogs break out directly into the communal land, where cattle and goats are free-range, and for the same reason as European wolves, most often fall under rifle shots soon after. Luckily, parks care a lot about their dogs and as soon as the news about the escapees reaches them, responsible people rush to intervene and take the dogs back before bad things could happen. Such people work 24/7 and dedicate their lives to saving these wonderful carnivores from extinction (wild dogs are an endangered species with a decreasing population trend). Once back in the reserve, the bad dogs are locked up in a boma to stay away from trouble. Sometime it happens they escape again, but the electrical fence usually holds them in. After some weeks of rehabilitation, the dogs are translocated to another reserve, to make sure they will not misbehave in the same way again. There they meet more dogs with the same fate and all together can start living new lives and (hopefully) forget about the past.

Even I benefit from this “boma” practice. While the dogs are kept in the corral, they are feed according to a schedule and it’s easy to predict when their digestion will start working. So I wait there patiently with a plastic bag before it happens, collect fresh scats (poo) when it happens and take them to the freezer where they wait to be used for my experiments.

Steve, Tobby the Spider and the Peppertick Family

After just a few days of life in the park, I already got a pet. Its name is Steve and he is a gecko. His favourite spot is top right corner of the curtain and he comes and goes whenever he feels like it. He responsible that my room stays spider- and insect-free and keeps me company while I work. He is a very clean, quiet and easy-to-take-care-of pet. I like Steve.

Maybe that’s why Tobby the Spider rather stays well hidden in a water tab. He is hidden so well that no one besides ground living creatures that keep their eyes turned towards the sky for some reason sees him. He made his webby house in one of the pipes for drinking water. In the one that the drinking water comes out. His silk is so finely woven that it resists the full gush of water flowing from the barrel through the pipe in the glass of a thirsty researcher, and keeps Tobby happy and dry on the other side. I don’t know if he stays well fed, but I guess juicy insects don’t hesitate to enter the tab for a drop of liquid after being exposed to the African sun for the whole day.

But neither of those hunters is cunning enough (or just doesn’t bother) to catch The Pepperticks. Their name is suggestive enough, and if you put them into a spice jar, labelled “ground pepper”, you would not check twice if pepper is the actual content. They are less than minute and they are numerous. Most likely they hang out in the tall grass where they wait for the dinner to pass by. The dinner of a human origin is their favoured choice. Researchers in the Dung Beetle Camp, including me, are coming back from the field full of those little monsters all over their legs and get bitten a little or a lot. Depends on the Peppertick’s appetite. Also, some of them are parasitized by a nasty Rickettsial bacteria that passes onto men and causes fever of various severities. African tick fever, it’s called.

But nothing to worry about, better to keep an eye on the grumpy buffalos and moody black rhinos and wash those little pepper-like things away as soon as you’re safely back from the field. And be kind to Tobby and Steve so that they stay nice in return.

Better late than never!

I actually made it. After a stressful, boring and miserable weekend of travel, covering everything from disgusting plane food to hoooooours of waiting at the airport on the most uncomfortable seats, I finally arrived to my first accommodation in South Africa, a villa in Durban.

The place had the fluffiest towels ever and was a welcome luxury after a long, dreadful journey. However, to get there was not an easy task – for a local taxi driver. He had quite some difficulties finding the place even though he knew the address, because the street names in Durban have just changed recently. The government decided to rename streets, the famous/important black people from the past were apparently underrepresented. So Fisher Street suddenly became Masobiya Mdludli Street. You can imagine that even blacks find it confusing.

Next day I had to go back to the airport (travelling from and to the King Shaka International with two massive pieces of luggage and another bag in less than a day, feeling like an idiot) where I got picked up by a Dutch family, visiting their son, a researcher, at Hluhluwe – which was my final destination.

The park is beautiful, the scenery amazing and the climate moist and warm. The facilities I’m staying at are a bit less of a sight, but a man gets used to everything. The damp mouldy smell of my room should slowly disappear even though I cannot freely let the fresh air, because cheeky monkeys are just waiting for a chance to inspect your luggage and maybe find a delicious piece of an old cookie. Also, the walls may get decorated by the postcards and cards I will receive over time (just a humble wish), or maybe even by some photos of the endemic grasses, titled by their Latin names, I should memorize.

In the meanwhile, I will enjoy the scenery of the park and the company of the people sharing the common places, such as kitchen, office, open-fire-place and football field. And try to get comfortable in an Isuzu.