So, I told you that I had a few adventures left to keep things interesting here during the last part of my exams. Well, Wednesday, I went with Gillian and Jill to the Born Free Centre, which is a world-wide organization that was started in the UK to rescue and take care of wild animals that for some reason can’t be released into the wild. Usually, this is because they have been raised in captivity and don’t know how to hunt or survive in the wild if they were released. The centre that we went to was in one corner of Shamwari, which is the oldest and largest private game reserve in the Eastern Cape. Basically, the company came in and bought a ton of farmland (aka 20,000 hectares) during a period when farming was not profitable (Its hard to farm much in the soil here in the Eastern Cape) and before any other companies got in on the game. Shamwari is now surrounded by other, smaller game reserves (no farms to be seen), but it is easily the biggest, with enough land to support two separate lion prides at opposite ends of the reserve. The cool thing is that the bigger the reserve, the more “natural” the conditions, hence the autonomous lion prides that are free to range and hunt like they normally would.
However, the lions that I got to see were not free to range and hunt… then again, they probably wouldn’t be able to survive if they were. That didn’t stop them from being big, intimidating hunters at heart, though. The first lion we saw, Shada, was super excited by the herd of impala that were in the hills to the west of her enclosure, despite the fact that she has never hunted live game in her life. She was rescued, along with her sister and a male lion, from a circus in France, where all three were kept in a single circus wagon, the stereotypical type that’s like a big cage on wheels. It was divided into three small sections, where they were kept for breeding purposes and were declawed so that they would be ‘easier to handle’. Luckily, they were eventually rescued and sent to Born Free, where Shada got over being skittish and afraid of humans, and now appears to be quite content (other than the impala taunting her with their scent on the other side of her fenced enclosure). The other two lions didn’t live at Born Free very long; the other lioness had a kidney disease when she came and the male lion actually dies of a snakebite, because apparently living in captivity doesn’t teach you to avoid snakes. The Born Free centre now does snake training with their lions… crazy, I know. They basically connect a rubber snake to the current in the electrical fence, then put it in the middle of the lion’s enclosure and make it wiggle convincingly. The shock is strong enough to teach the lions to leave snakes alone if a real one with venom gets in their enclosures (Behavioral Therapy!).
The next pair of lions included an older male and younger female who had come to Born Free around the same time (they were not actually a mating pair; they don’t breed the lions at the centre because they wouldn’t be able to teach their young to survive in the wild, and apparently there are enough lions in the world that they don’t need to breed them in captivity). Anyway, the male, Brutus, was much older, and was also rescued from a French circus, where he was kept in sad a little cage. Apparently, it freaked him out when he got to Born Free and they put him out in an enclosure, because he could feel grass and see the sky (but he seemed perfectly happy when we saw him). He is much slower than the lioness, which I think had to do with being in a cage for so long, so when they feed the lions, they had to separate them, because she would eat super fast, and then eat his food, too. The lioness was younger, and was apparently found in a box… literally, imagine someone finding a box (I don’t remember where this was) and assuming that it was a cat, but then opening it and finding a lion cub. She was really active, and when Gillian crouched down to get a better look, she got up and came over to the edge of the fence so fast it was incredible. It would have been a bit terrifying, except that I totally trusted the fence… and I also wasn’t the one she was rushing at. Once we got her attention, she pretty much tracked our every move the whole time, and when we started walking, she trotted right next to us, looking altogether just a bit too interested…
After that, we got to see my first leopard! After my lifelong love of leopard print, it was like a dream come true. Also, it completed my big five! (Technically I don’t know if I saw black or white rhinos at the Sibuya reserve, but if I fudge that just assume a bit, I have completed my big five) Anyway, the leopards were beautiful. An Italian who was in the Ivory Coast met a man who was selling two cubs and a leopard skin (probably the mother) and he bought both of the cubs and house trained them. Eventually, they got older and more unpredictable (you know, like big, wild cats), and he wanted to give them to Born Free, but the Ivory Coast wouldn’t give him export papers, and required the leopards be taken to the Ivory Coast zoo, which apparently has really terrible conditions. After the female leopard escaped the zoo and was shot, the Italian government put pressure on the Ivory Coast, and eventually they agreed to give the export papers for the male leopard to come to Born Free. We also saw a mother and daughter leopard, although they were both a bit harder to see, because they weren’t chilling right by the edge of the fence (we got really lucky with the male leopard). The daughter was actually hanging out on top of one of the shelters that were built in each of the enclosures for when it rains, and the mother was hiding in the bush… I couldn’t find her until she came out of wherever she was hiding in the bush to be fed.
The last lion pair were a mother and son, although the son was old enough to have a full mane, more or less. Both of those lions were underfed when they got here, which had prevented the mane from growing in fully around his shoulder areas. They were both really active and ready to eat by the time we went over to look at them, since the truck had gotten there to feed all of the cats (they feed them every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). These two were the only cats that could be fed together, because the male lion respected the lioness and let his mother eat her fill first. Good manners :) All of the cats basically got chunks of beef thrown over the fence (4kg for a lion, 2kg for a leopard), which they picked up like they weighed nothing and wandered off to eat with that snug look cats get.
Anyway, the whole thing was really cool, and I loved being able to get so close the cats, even if there were fences that may have made some of the pictures less cool (while keeping me from getting eaten). We watched while they fed the mother and son pair and the mother and daughter leopards, and then we had a lovely picnic lunch of our own while the fed the rest of the cats. It worked out really well, because the weather started to get kind of ominous, and when it rains the cats all hide in the bush or under the shelters, but they were all out and active when we were there because it was almost feeding time. I am so glad that I got the opportunity to go see them (even if I didn’t ever get to hold cubs like Jon Kentner did this summer… just another thing to add to the list of “next time I am in Africa) and it was a lovely way to take a break from exams.
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