Towards the end of June, everyone was hearing lions at night; the nearby lodge staff to our South, the community headquarters staff to our North and the Sasaab village people a few kilometers away. However, for some reason all of us at the Echo Lima camp were not hearing anything! Every morning, people would walk by the camp and ask us “Did you guys hear the lions last night?” and our answer every morning was “No!” I think we are all very deep sleepers and we would sleep through anything.
Finally on the 2nd of July, at 5 am, Joseph heard lions calling out and came rushing out of his tent and woke us all up. We jumped in the car and headed into the Conservation Area. However just as I came to the Ewaso Nyiro River Gypsy got a flat tyre on a very steep rocky hill. It took a while to change the tyre and it was getting light by the time we proceeded.
I continued to the interior of the Conservation Area in West Gate. Lekuraiyo who was standing out of the roof hatch said “Ninaona nyayo” meaning “I can see tracks”. I slowed down and he began to track what turned out to be tracks of 3 lions. They had clearly walked on the road a few hours ago but had now wandered into the thick Salvadora bushes. Lekuraiyo told me which way to go and we managed to find an opening heading to the river. He told me the lions were definitely within a 50 metres radius of us in some very very thick bush. We sat at the river for a while and then decided to leave that spot and try going around the area.
As I was turning Gypsy, I suddenly heard Lekuraiyo say “Shivani! Simba!”. I turned off the engine quickly and froze as Lekuraiyo came down from the hatch slowly. And then I saw her. A female popped her head out of the Salvadora bushes and was in a narrow opening. She saw us and froze. No one moved – neither us nor the lioness. I knew that any movement on our part would make her disappear. She stared at us for about 10 seconds…frozen. And then she was gone. She vanished so quickly that I barely knew what had happened.
She was a young female and still had spots on her. She was clearly very nervous and Gypsy may have been the first car she had ever seen. I drove to where she had stood and measured and took a photo of her tracks (see below). She had disappeared into the thick bushes along the river and I knew it would be impossible to see her again. Most likely she had joined the other 2 lions we had been tracking.
Tracks of the first “Real Lion”
Lions in community areas are very nervous of people, vehicles, sound and generally spend most of their time hiding in thick bushy areas. West Gate Community Conservancy is such a place where wildlife, people and their livestock live together in the same area. Within this conservancy, there is a Conservation Area which is situated about 1km away from the Echo Lima camp. There are no villages here and livestock is excluded from the Conservation Area. I spend most mornings driving here along the main road near the river. The bush is very thick and it is hard to see much however wildlife is increasing here which is great to see. The main habitat is Salvadora which is a thick evergreen bush, also known as the “toothbrush tree”.
A view of the Conservation Area in West Gate Community Conservancy
Anyway, back to “Real Lions”. Less than a month in West Gate and I had seen my first lion outside of a protected area. I really couldn’t and still cannot believe it. The first words that came out of my mouth a few moments after seeing the female, were “Now this is a real lion”. I couldn’t wait to find more and hoped that I would see either this young female again or others.
And the good news is that I have! Stay tuned to this week’s blog for part 2 of “Real Lions”.