Here is a story written by Moses, one of our Lion Scouts.
The other day I went on my daily patrol to monitor the Buffer Zone area and returned to camp at 3:15 pm. When I was in my tent recovering from the day, Shivani came rushing to camp after she had heard that there were wild dogs seen right next to Sasaab Lodge. She picked up Jeneria said that the lodge was saying the wild dogs are in Rokori area and we should go find them. I picked up my camera and ran out of my tent quickly to Shivani’s car and jumped in before the door closed. I have seen tracks of wild dogs and have seen them from very far, but never close up so I really hoped to see them.
We went slowly to the place where the wild dogs were last seen and before we reached that place Jeneria saw 3 wild dogs lying down under the tree. We went close to them and they didn’t move – they kept sleeping. This is the first day in my life I went that close to wild dogs. I saw that they almost look like domestic dogs but the differences are the bigger ears and different colour. Also the wild dog has a big head and they hunt in a group.
Two African wild dogs.
I was so happy now! We stayed with them until dark and they moved around. We thought they were 3 but suddenly there were 10. The thing that made me the happiest was that the dogs came close to the car and came very close as if they were not scared.
The following day at 6:30am, I heard on my hand-held radio that there are lion tracks in Ngare Ndare. I told Jeneria I would patrol that area to see if this report was true. Before I reached that place where the tracks were seen, I saw the vultures flying and landing down. I went to this place and found a carcass killed by lions. I tried to follow the lion tracks but this was very hard because the area was rocky and there was a lot of livestock grazing in the area.
Lions eating a warthog.
I decided to follow Sasaab lugga to see if the tracks crossed the lugga. I found the place where they crossed and where they came to drink water. I followed them and it looked liked they went into the thick bushes. I tried to call Shivani and Jeneria but it was very hard for me to get them because of the network problem. I instead stayed in the area and advised the herders to drive away the livestock that were grazing near those bushes because I knew the lions were in there.
I rushed back to camp to give the full report and we decided to go in the evening at 5pm. We drove towards the river and suddenly saw three spotted hyenas walking around as if they were looking for meat. We then saw the 3 lions at the same time. The hyenas were scared of the lions and ran away very quickly. They were the biggest hyenas I had ever seen and it looked like one was about to give birth.
The lions were hiding in the bushes and I was very happy to see them because I thought I would not see lions that day. I had seen Magilani from far one time long ago, but this was the closest for me to see lions in Westgate. It was Nanai, Nabulo and Sipen. The first time I had seen them was one year ago when we went into Samburu National Reserve and we saw the 3 females chase a leopard up a tree. Now, one year later, I saw them bigger. And they killed a warthog which we watched them eat for a long time.
I was very happy after these 2 days and if I had a goat to eat at that time, I would have celebrated by eating one.
Nanai, Sipen, and Nabulo on the warthog carcass.