Coexisting With the Lions of Botswana | National Geographic
[Music] Lions are an iconic species of Africa, and to have the opportunity to work in a wild place like this and to actually be able to make a difference, it's hard to describe how important it is to me.
In northern Botswana, lions move out of the delta because all the territories are occupied. So, as they move out, they get into these high conflict zones around these villages where livestock are often the only food that the lions can find.
[Music] That was really the genesis of Pride in Our Prides. We knew we had to do something. We're working with communities to help people coexist with these cats. If livestock are killed, people are going to be more motivated to go after the lions. So, it's really about helping people protect their livestock and, in the end, protect lions.
The early warning system is based on the satellite tracking collars that we put on the cats so we can warn the village that a particular lion is approaching at a particular time. We make sure that your livestock are protected.
We're closing in on one of our lionesses, which we hope to collar tonight. Myenga is one of the lions that we started the program with about a year and a half ago when we put out our first satellite collars. She was one of our target animals because we know she's one of the individuals that likely moves into this floodplain where that conflict interface happens.
Well, the footage we're collecting is to learn some more about lion behaviors, particularly things that interactions with cattle are coming into community properties. The collar will go on the lion, and the collar is meant to stay for a couple of years. This is the critter cam. The critter cam is a short-term tool; it's only meant to stay for a few days, and as the animal walks around, the camera hangs below the battery pack.
Myenga mated back in July. One of the things that we had in mind is that she's likely with cubs that are about three to four weeks old, and she's not. She's not. She's feeling close.
Yeah, I'm looking at this, you know, these trees, but I would like to go this size and just maybe we can get him behind him. I think I… the vet didn't hesitate. We had a bit of an operation to try to make sure that she was safe, that the cubs were safe, and that we were able to swap the collars quickly.
The animals wake up like that during anesthesias; different animals mean their impulses to get away. She's obviously has some adrenaline to try to fight the drug. She's big; she's got a big belly. I think she's down, but listen, when she wakes up, she's not going to eat us, but not that quickly.
Let me put it away and look. It explains why she doesn't want to go down. It may be that she's heavily pregnant because they tend to then fight the drug tremendously. Since we hadn't seen the cubs in that moment and she had a full belly, you know, we're starting to second-guess ourselves. What's going on? Is she actually still pregnant?
You may actually see something in the critical. [Music] And so, as we're watching this footage, she's doing what lions do, basically rest; and then there's the cubs. Oh my god, you gotta be kidding me!
We see this little fuzzball in the corner, and this small cub starts moving towards her. Later in the footage, we start to see two cubs come out. The cub is at least three weeks old, so then it means that she has. So, we had the date right; a few weeks old, just as we had previously predicted, and then they start to play and tumble on each other.
It doesn't get better than this! This is exactly what we were looking for. Oh man, we were so surprised and happy to have that confirmation of the cubs, to see them so healthy, and to get that inside view at that early stage is hugely valuable.
We've already started using this footage, and it's been edited down. It's the villages that actually name the individual lions in our study, and we've gone to some of these communities to be able to show them, "Oh, you know Myenga? She actually has cubs."
When there's a trigger of our early warning system, when she starts approaching the village, we'll be able to send messages using that name. The critter cams help us personalize and individualize these cats.
People who live in these villages close to the lions have just basically a negative association—lions mean dead cattle. They get this window into the lives of these lions, and they get to see them in a different context.
We hope that this helps drastically reduce the killing of livestock, drastically reduce the killing of lions, and create greater tolerance and to create greater connection. Then we hope that that helps us get closer to coexistence.
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