Cry of the Kalahari

by Mark James Owens

  Muffin and Moffet did not always stay with the females, and they were neither as old nor as wise as Chary.

  We were answering a lot of the questions about Kalahari lion conservation: They could survive at least eight months with no drinking water, and instead of migrating in a single direction, they dispersed into huge ranges to find enough dry-season prey. They left the protection of the reserve not to find water, as we once suspected, but to get enough to eat. In all, the nine females of the Blue Pride increased their range by 450 percent, from 270 square miles in the wet season to over 1500 square miles in the dry months; the Springbok Pan Pride increased their pride area by 650 percent. These tremendous increases in range inevitably took the prides into areas where they were in danger of being shot.

  With this expansion of range, the territories that they had defended so vigorously—even to the death—only weeks before, appeared to break down. The overlap in pride areas, which had existed to a minor degree, increased tremendously, and now it was Diablo who padded down Leopard Trail through the Blue Pride’s old territory. Meanwhile, Muffin and Moffet roamed far into the range of the East Side Pride, often more than twenty miles outside their wet-season territory on Deception Valley, for more than two months at a stretch. When they did come back near their wet-season home range, they only stayed for two or three days at most before heading off again.

  A dry-season silence fell over Deception. The lion roars and jackal calls no longer drifted down the valley at dawn. It wasn’t just that the lions were too far away to be heard; even when they were close to the valley they did not call. From our camp on the valley floor we neither saw nor heard any signs of the lions. No wonder that for years we had accepted the common belief that they migrated to some unknown place for the dry months. Without the airplane and radio-telemetry equipment, we would never have known that some of them still prowled within the reserve, at times less than a mile from camp.

  In the hot-dry season, the prides broke up into even smaller groups than in the short winter of June, July, and August. Two lionesses, at most, shared the kills they were able to make together, and they were often on their own. Muffin and Moffet were with the females only twenty percent of the time, compared to fifty-seven percent in the wet season. By contrast, Serengeti pride males are with females seventy to ninety percent of the time throughout the year.2 Muffin and Moffet were often as far as forty miles from their Blue Pride lionesses.

  The social organization of Kalahari lions under these extreme environmental conditions was turning out to be very different from that of East African lions. The most significant difference was the behavior of the females. We soon learned that Kalahari lionesses switched prides and pride areas frequently during dry seasons, as Happy had done on a number of occasions.

  As Chary, Sassy, and their cubs traveled in and out of the game reserve, they occasionally met and socialized with members of the East End Pride, the Blue Pride, and other prides, and with some females we did not recognize. It didn’t seem to matter which pride the lions had belonged to before the drought, they appeared to develop these new social affinities easily. These associations between individuals of different prides were usually temporary, unless the local concentration of large antelope prey was dense enough to allow the group to stay together and still find enough for all to eat. This happened on occasions when antelope concentrated on a flush of new grass after a fire.

  We could hardly wait for the results of each new day’s aerial locations. Every observation was a new bit of insight into the flexible social behavior of the lions under the environmental pressures of the Kalahari dry season. The flow of social and asocial events—who associated with whom, how many were in the group, and the nature of these relationships—was very dynamic.

  Some of the lionesses transferred between groups more often than others: Happy associated temporarily with lions of four different prides eighteen times in nineteen months, and she eventually ended up roaming with Spicy of the Blue Pride. We were even more amazed one morning when Kabe, an ear-tagged female from the Orange Pride, strolled out onto North Pan. We had not seen her for three years, and she was traveling with a young male and two young females from the Springbok Pan Pride. A few days later she abandoned her young companions and joined Dixie of the Springbok Pan Pride—but inside the Blue Pride’s old wet-season territory. If all this seems somewhat confusing to read about, imagine how we felt observing it at first hand, after seeing these lions grow up, hunt, sleep, and play together in their own prides for years. The whole lion social system, which we had spent years figuring out, seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

  Without exception, all the lionesses we monitored associated with members of different prides. The cohesion and pride structure that were so permanent and fundamental to the social organization of Serengeti lions had temporarily disintegrated in the Kalahari population. It was a startling example of how a species can adjust its social system to extreme environments.

  We could no longer be certain that the females of a pride were related; it was impossible to know the family origins of the older ones, whom we had not observed from birth. We had always assumed that Chary, the oldest, had grown up in the Blue Pride, but she may have been born and raised in the East Side Pride. And we could not ascertain the paternity of cubs born under these conditions, for the females of the Blue Pride mated with males from four different prides.

  Chary, Sassy, their cubs, Muffin, Moffet, and many of the other lions continued to prowl outside the game reserve boundary. Perhaps when the rains came again, some of them would return to their original pride areas. Perhaps—but for now there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

  19

  The Dust of My Friend

  Delia

  In a rising wind

  the manic dust of my friends,

  those who fell along the way,

  bitterly stings my face.

  —Stanley Kunitz

  THE DRY SEASON of 1978, like all the others, had a few good points, in spite of the dust and flies: The grass had died down, so it was easier to follow research subjects; we didn’t have to worry about preparing camp for rain; and the animals in our tree island, attracted to the water and mealie-meal, had become more numerous and tame.

  One of the new arrivals in camp was a grey-backed bush warbler we called Pinkie, a tiny fellow who could fit in the palm of your hand. With pink legs like toothpicks, a plump posterior, and an up-tumed tail, he looked homemade.

  Nearly every day Pinkie hopped around inside our sleeping tent, pecking under the trunks and boxes and behind folds in the canvas, in search of insects. A clutter of books, journals, and papers stacked at the head of our bed was Pinkie’s favorite hunting ground for flies and beetles.

  One afternoon when we were resting, Pinkie hopped from a book onto Mark’s bare shoulder, then skipped across his chest and down his belly to his navel. He stood on tiptoes for a moment, craning his head this way and that and peering inside. Mark’s stomach began to shake with laughter, but staring benignly, Pinkie rode it out. Then suddenly he sent his sharp little beak down, true as an arrow, right into Marie’s navel. I don’t know what he was after, or if he was rewarded, but he seemed quite satisfied as he hopped across the floor and out the door of the tent.

  By now, there were seven Marico flycatchers in camp, including Marique, and on cold nights they slept all in a row, snuggled together on an acacia branch. The ones in the middle stayed warm and cozy, but after a while, those on the end would get chilly. In what looked like a scene from Disney, the outsiders would jump up, their eyes still half closed, hop along the feathered backs of their buddies, and wiggle their way into the better-insulated center spot. Soon they would be fast asleep again. A little later, the birds at the end of the row would find themselves cold, and they would repeat the performance; and so this continued all night long.

  By far the fastest-moving character in camp was William, the shrew. He had Mickey Mouse ears, frizzy whiskers, and a long, incredibly dext
erous rubber-hose nose. William, never still, was always darting along his own private paths with quick, herky-jerky starts and stops, like someone driving with one foot on the accelerator, the other on the brake. His nose constantly twitching, he zoomed in and out of the bushes, competing with the hornbills and flycatchers for mealie-meal.

  One of William’s routes through camp took him under our chairs in the ziziphus tree “tearoom.” Since shrews have a high metabolic rate, they have to eat a tremendous amount every day. For this reason William was always in a hurry; still, he paused now and then to tickle our toes with his elephantile nose as he passed by. He was one of camp’s main attractions.

  At times we had a number of mice in camp, but the population plummeted after Dr. Rolin Baker of Michigan State University requested that we make a collection of Kalahari rodents for the university’s museum. We didn’t have the time to spend on such a project, so we taught Mox how to live-trap mice, sacrifice them humanely, and make study mounts of them. We agreed to pay him for each specimen, plus an extra tip for every new species he collected.

  Mox set about his new responsibility with a great deal of enthusiasm and pride; at last he was involved in the science of the project. He hid traps in the corners of the tent and behind the tea crate. Every morning, after he had finished his other duties, he took a pair of pliers from the toolbox in the truck, and stalked from one trap to the next, gathering his specimens. He would take all morning to stuff three or four mice, but when he had finished, they would be perfectly shaped and very natural in appearance.

  At noon one day we were reading under the ziziphus tree, when I heard Mox clear his throat behind us. He was standing at attention, proudly displaying his latest collection of rats and mice. They were all precisely arranged along a board, their feet tucked under them, their tails hanging down. These were his best yet; except for their cotton-filled eyes, they might have been sleeping. I started to tell Mox what an excellent job he had done, when I noticed a nose jutting out from the row. In the middle, his long snout stretched across the board in front of him—forever for Michigan State—was William.

  Since the Frankfurt Zoological Society had provided us with an airplane, we hoped they would continue to fund our project, but as 1978 drew to a close and the new year began, we were out of money once again. Richard Flattery, the Standard Bank manager, kindly arranged a temporary loan with no collateral; he knew full well we had nothing to offer and he never raised the issue. To save money, we grounded Echo Whisky Golf and waited until January to go to Maun, when surely there would be word of a grant waiting for us in our mail.

  Long before we were packed, Mox stood waiting at the plane, ready for the flight to Maun. He was dressed in his best, which had improved considerably since he first came to work with us. A big black comb crowned the back of his head, and he wore dark sunglasses with wide blue-and-red rims. Mark’s jeans, plastered with patches, covered his spindly legs, and he wore the tennis shoes that Mark had retired after the wild dog tried to bury them. He was going to the village for the first time in more than three months and he was as excited as that territorial springbok watching his females return after a long dry season alone.

  After landing at the airstrip in Maun, we took Mox to the Standard Bank, where we paid him his usual wage, plus the money for his rodent collection. The total was something over 200 pula—about $250. This was more cash than he had ever seen before. Together with Richard Flattery, we did our best to encourage him to open a savings account, but he seemed to have an inherent distrust of banks. When we insisted that this was the safest place for his money, he turned and hurried outside into the yard, where some goats and donkeys were grazing.

  We caught up with him. “Mox, what’s wrong?” I asked him gently. He kept his eyes on the ground for some time. Then he slowly looked up at me.

  “Cowboys.”

  “Cowboys?”

  “Ee, cowboys.” He held out his right hand, its index finger and thumb like a six-shooter, his face in a frown. In broken English he explained.

  Some months before, he had apparently seen a cheap cowboy movie, shown at the village center by one of the Peace Corps volunteers. In the film, the bank had been robbed. And although Botswana had yet to have its first bank robbery, nothing we could say would change Mox’s mind. He was convinced that at any moment, masked men could ride up to the Maun bank on thundering horses and, in a cloud of dust, make off with all the money inside. He was sure his savings would be safer hidden in his mother’s rondavel.

  We borrowed Richard’s Land Rover and drove Mox to his clay-and-thatch home. All the young children rushed to greet him, admiring his sunglasses and dancing around him. He patted each on the head. We arranged to meet him at the same place in two days’ time and drove away.

  Anxious about news of a grant, we hurried to collect the mail from our box at Safari South. In a stack of two-month-old Christmas cards was a cable from Frankfurt Zoological Society. We walked to a quiet corner of the yard, where I tore open the envelope. The message had been badly scrambled by the wire operator at the post office, but the gist of it was that we had been saved again: The society intended to fund us fully for the next two years.

  Mark swung me high above his head. “You know what?” he asked. “Get yourself all fixed up—I’m taking you out to dinner.”

  And so we celebrated Christmas (a month late), our sixth wedding anniversary, and our grant, by dining at Island Safari Lodge on the banks of the Thamalakane River. The innkeepers, Yoyi and Tony Graham, gave us a free bottle of champagne and a cottage for the night. It was hard to believe—a tablecloth, wine glasses, waiters, a real shower, a real bed. We were more in love with each other, and with our work, than we had been when we first stepped off of that train in Gaborone, so many years before.

  After two days of letter writing and shopping, we stopped in front of Mox’s mother’s rondavel, ready to head for the airstrip and Deception Pan again. A young girl was stirring a pot of steaming mealie-meal next to a fire, while several other children played in the sand. They all stood quietly watching as we walked to the hut. No one spoke, and when we asked about Mox they looked at us blankly.

  An older teen-age girl I recognized came out of the house. No, she knew no one named Mox, she told us flatly, as if bored with the question. Several neighbors gathered around our truck. They all shrugged their shoulders—no one had ever heard of Moxen Maraffe.

  For two days we drove around looking for him. Twice more we stopped by his mother’s hut, and although there was no sign of him, we had the feeling that he was hiding inside. Mox had simply decided to disappear, and his clan was helping him. We finally gave up and drove away for the last time.

  At first we were hurt and angry. We could well understand if Mox wanted to quit his job. Living in the desert far from his family was not a lively life for a young bachelor. But he had meant a lot to us, and we had thought he felt the same way. At least he could have told us he was quitting, instead of just disappearing. One of the hunters in Maun, though, told us that the fact that he could not face us with bad news was, in a way, his parting sign of affection.

  Mox had acquired considerable recognition among the villagers. Not only did he fly in an airplane, but he was the kgosi—the chief—who worked with the people who shot lions and then brought them to life again. He was no longer the village buffoon. Respect and a new identity—these were the most important things he had brought back from the Kalahari, but they were of no use to him as long as he remained isolated.

  Although we always asked about him when we were in Maun, we never saw Mox again.

  After receiving the grant from the Frankfurt Zoological Society, we flew to Johannesburg in January 1979 to buy new tents and supplies and to have the plane inspected. On our first night we decided to go to town, perhaps to see a show.

  Lofty towers, spires, and slowly spinning restaurants soared high above the city’s nightlife. There were so many glaring lights, the stars were lost. Homs, engines, shou
ts, and sirens. Fumes and crowds.

  Mark took my arm and pulled me away from a dark alleyway. I stepped on the remains of a greasy bag of fish and chips. Until I had lived on the desert sands I had never noticed how filthy city sidewalks were.

  We stayed close together, stopping, dodging, turning to avoid bumping into people on the sidewalk. Suddenly, as we neared the movie theater, we recognized a face. I grabbed Mark’s arm and we ducked into a small bookstore and peered over a shelf; one of the few people we knew in Johannesburg passed by. Then we looked at each other.

  “Why did we do that?” Mark asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  We kept much too much distance between us and the person ahead of us when we stood in line to buy our tickets. Once inside we found two seats alone in a corner of the theater. The space around soon filled up with talking, laughing moviegoers, and when the movie began, the laughing and talking didn’t stop.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Back on the street, we found a small café with sidewalk tables nestled among potted trees—real trees. We ordered two glasses of white South African wine and sat in silence, watching the city’s nightlife.

  The next morning we went into a gift shop to buy some small presents for the people in Maun who had helped us so much over the years. Shelves sparkled with rows of fine china, lead crystal, and silver. An attractive green-eyed woman in her thirties offered to help us. We declined the various items she suggested as not appropriate for Maun or for our budget.

  “Are you from Botswana?” she asked.

  I explained that we had been living in the Kalahari for six years, studying lions and brown hyenas.