African Wildlife & Environment Issue 84 2023

WILDLIFE CHRONICALS

LISA AND HER CUBS

Ian Whyte

One of the objectives of my Master’s degree research was to estimate the impact that lions were having on the wildebeest population of the Kruger National Park. At that time the wildebeest population was undergoing an ongoing decline, and the causes were rather obscure. It was believed that lions were partly or wholly to blame. In order to quantify their impact, I had fitted radio collars to an adult male and a female in each of ten neighbouring prides in the Sweni River area between Satara and N’wanetsi. Today, this is the area where the Sweni Trails operate.

Those were the good old days when, to get your data, you had to go and find your collared animals using a radio receiver and directional antenna which pointed out the direction of the collar. I will be forever grateful that I was able to do this work at that time, and that I had to get into the bush instead of sitting in an air-conditioned office, with my data delivered to my computer screen via satellite!

I tried to visit each of these collared lions each day to try to locate their kills. While these prides were initially very skittish and wary of me, they soon became completely habituated to my vehicle and to me, and would scarcely raise their heads to acknowledge my arrival. Gradually I was able to recognise all of the members of each pride, and I would keep a log of who was present or absent at

One of Lisa’s four cubs. Fierce at an early age!

17 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 84 (2023)