13:29, Thursday, 7 June, 2012

Life has settled down into the old happy routine I remember from last summer.  It is a routine full of animals; what could be better?  Get up at 5, hit the snooze button four times, roll out of bed at 5:16, arrive at the lab tent at 5:27, leave at 5:30 for obs.  See tons of crazy cool things on obs – work hard to id hyenas and record everything.  Get very excited with each familiar face.  Good morning Monopoly!  How’s it going Twister?  Oh hey, there’s a baby giraffe with the most ridiculous tufts that look like brown sea anemones coming out of its horns.  And try your best not to hit the guinea fowl while in third gear.  Maybe get a darting, return and do bloodwork around 9:30.  Finish at 10:30.  Delicious breakfast from Joseph.  Type of notes, camp maintenance (which sometimes takes up most to all of the afternoon), free time to watch the plethora of camp life or read or write or attempt to learn how to use your awesome new camera or play the harmonica, cold shower after exercise every third day, nap every other day, obs again at 5.  Lots of interactions as the sun begins to set, cubs playful at the car side.  Keep an eye out for elephants on the return trip at 8:30 – they’re huge but hide amazingly well after dark.  So hungry by dinnertime when we get back.  Share half my plate with Kelsey and the bushbabies.  Sit around for a bit after dinner talking.  Head to the tent at 9:20-9:30ish, watch out for hippos on your way there, and for heaven’s sakes don’t use the actual choo.  Read for a bit, lights out at 10, fall asleep to the music of a sawing leopard or roaring lions or hippo burps or elephant rumbles or the crazy starling above your tent and always whooping hyenas.  Coolest job ever. 

But things are never too routine.  For instance, lately we have tried a whole new experiment.  Michelle has gone to Nairobi to help Dave and Julia pick up the IRES students, and in her place for a few days we got Steph and a lion researcher from the Serengeti named Ali.  Ali brought some lions with her.  Finally, lions you can cuddle!  A little oversized, however, and very fond of standing in one place.  Transvestites too, with Velcro where a mane can be attached if desired.  A few places where some stuffing is popping out, but very realistic eyes.  Enough to fool the hyenas, at least for a bit.

The point of our experiment has been to record lion-hyena interactions for later study.  So, for the last three or four days, we’ve used a good chunk of evening obs to get a feel for where the actual lions are hanging out; that way we can pick a spot far away to set up ole Lethario and Fabio (don’t want to give them any more holes, or unnecessarily cause hyena injuries). Then, just before dawn, we would set them so they poked out of some bushes.  Kay attached rope to some dead goat from Talek (RANK!), dragging it around – hilarious – the lions and across the nearby grass to spread the smell.  Next, we positioned our cars in order to tape from two different angles, and played recordings of lions roaring and hyenas whooping at a kill.  This is a useful tactic Steph used during her dissertation research to draw hyenas to the supposed action.  Eli and Benson recorded the going-ons into DVRs, Ali and I taped, Steph played the recording and then she and Kay sat back to take in the gestalt of combined behaviors.

Our trial in Talek East the first morning was a bit of a bust; only about five hyenas showed, and they were too nervous with such a small number to approach the fake lions.  But that’s just as well, seeing as it enabled me to retain my head after somehow getting the pause and record buttons on the camera confused. The second morning we drew in at least 30 of our Talek West hyenas, giggling and bristle-tailing and whooping to draw in more troops.  However, they figured that something was fishy before forming any of the desired coalitions.  It was funny watching them approach the lions, waiting for a roar or a swat, only to make off with some meat unchallenged.  Some stared from 3-5 meters away for prolonged periods, clearly confused but too nervous to approach.  Eventually their bristle-tails relaxed some, and Loki actually came up from behind and sniffed Lethario and Fabio.  Our cover was blown, and the hyenas began to disperse and have side squabbles over the meat chunks.  We hastily picked up the lions before the hyenas could decide fluff tastes good. 

One of my favorite things about this second run was the jackals – they never cease to amaze me with their boldness!  Such tiny little carnivores, but among the very first to arrive when the roars and whoops were played, as though they enjoy eating at a table with carnivores many times their weight who might easily add them as a side dish.  But they, unlike the hyenas, never hesitated.  Not five minutes passed before a jackal was trotting off, head in the air with a chunk of meat half its size.  Some of the hyenas decided this just wasn’t fair, but that jackal was up for the chase and kept its prize.

Well, we were going to try to fool our friends one last time.  But this time we tried harder to elicit coalitions.  Eli got some lion roars from the internet so that we could play them once the hyenas started feeling comfortable, which would hopefully keep the situation more realistic.  We also bought a fresh sheep from Lasingo.  I made sure not to set eyes on that sheep, and to be absent from camp when the guys slaughtered it.  Much of it went to meals (Kay made a delicious mutton dish!), but the things that are impossible to stomach (head, bones, intestines and other organs) plus a few cuts of meat were run about the savanna two days later (we took a day off due to a lion sighting in our spot the previous morning) by Eli in front some bushes near Fig Tree Territory.  We had to stifle our gag reflexes with all our might, it was so horribly fowl.  Then, not two seconds after alighting at our posts, what should come out of the very bushes Eli had just been running about with meat attached but six lionesses!  That probably could have been bad.  No time to think about that though – time to rescue Fabio and Lethario!  The cruiser blocked the lions, and we jumped out to heave the fakes into the back of Kay’s new pickup and drive off, leaving the ladies with a stench-ridden meal.  Well, in came 15-20 hyenas, and we had ourselves a real lion/hyena interaction to record!  The lionesses chased off and roared at the hyenas, but eventually the hyenas banded together enough so that they retreated.  Although the hyenas won, it was after the lions had a good share, and Kay is inclined to think that lions don’t care for old meat so much.  But I must not sour the victory of my friends!  They were heroic.  And of course, there were a couple of jackals trot-trot-trotting around in the mix, as well as a lone obnoxious guinea fowl that belted on the sidelines during the entire escapade.  A good end to our latest adventure.