It has been hectic around here especially since we are starting with collaring part of the project. Nancy needs to collar nine lions and eight hyenas for her project and I am helping her, after all I am her intern. Nancy had explained to me how to collar and what I should do while collaring and she had warned me of the risks and dangers that are possibilities while collaring. I know that I am taking a huge risk of collaring in middle of the bush in the dark but it hasn’t prepared me for my first collaring experience.

Nancy had decided which lion she wanted to collar first and it is a lioness. We found her in her pride of 10 lions surrounding a giraffe carcass. I freaked out right there when Nancy decided to drive closer to the pride to look that specific lioness. The pride was not even that far from us, maybe a couple of feet away. One leap, lions can come through the window and eat me. Luckily, they some of them are full and others were too busy focusing on the giraffe. I was already leaning away from the window because my side was facing the entire pride and they were watching our every movement. 

After driving around the pride, Nancy found her target and Frans the vet did all darting. Frans missed the first time so he had to assemble the dart all over, so we sat front of pride and waited for Frans to finish with his dart. I kept a watchful eye on the pride but they just got up and walked around to find a better place to lay down and sleep. That was all they did while we watched them from a couple of feet away. I still kept imagining them changing their mind and in a swift leap, they would be in the truck and eating me. We were not in the safe distance. 

Finally, the second dart went into the lioness and it took her a while to pass out, now remember, the drug last only an hour or so. We called the back up (Shyane and his men) and they drove all lions away from the carcass and created a circle around us so we can get out of the truck and start to work on the lioness. Nancy told me to hurry up to get out of the truck, I kept thinking that my heart probably cannot take it any longer, working in the middle of the pride’s territory. I suck up my fear and helped Nancy to filling out measurements that she was throwing at me at high speed. At the one point, she told me to hold up the paw, I grabbed the paw and held. IT WAS HEAVY. 

Of course, like I said, we were working in the middle of the territory, beside the carcass, the pride was naturally pissed at us. Nine lions came back but they spread around our circle. We could see their eyes shining in bush all around us. Our back up told us that we had to go, they were snarling and weaving in and out of our sight all over the places. We cannot know where they are exactly in the dark. We took lioness to another place, away from the carcass and the territory. It took five people to lift and carry the lioness to the truck bed and it was estimated that she weighed around 150 kg (300 lbs) That took some time to reach a safe distance and put lioness back on the ground. 

We dove back into work and finishing up measurements and sampling. Nancy asked me to take pictures while she worked, so my hands became full with clipboard, blood samples and a camera (the fancy kind of Canon camera). I felt clumsy walking around, taking in measurements and snapping pictures with my hands full. I kept my eyes out of the circle for shining eyes in the dark. 

I heard growling. I thought the pride followed us and surrounded us again but closer this time. 

Wrong.

It was lioness growling on the ground. She was waking up. We were not finished, Nancy was on her last part; putting on the collar. I stood by lioness’ head but I was not sure what to do. Growling got louder and louder, her eyes started to blinking, ears twitching and tail swishing. Lioness lifted her head off the ground, I took a step back and started to calculate if I can run and reach Nancy’s truck at the time. Nope, I don’t have time.

Then, the lioness was on her paws. That was it. I started running with my hands full of stuff and saw people climbing the Shyane’s truck. I ran toward the truck and realized that I can’t climb with my hands full. I don’t want to put down anything because we cannot afford to lose all measurements and samples we just collected. Nancy saw me and took some stuff away so I can climb up the truck. 

I was shaking all over on top of the truck. Some people are giggling nervously, couldn’t believe that they were near lioness when she got up. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t piss my pants. The third dart went into a lioness and she passed out. We waited a while before coming down the truck. We finished our work on lioness and took some pictures. I was tired and hungry by the end of collaring. We figured out that carrying lioness to the other place took up too much of time and drug wore off in the middle of the collaring. 

I thought to myself, this is my dream, I want to work with wild animals and taking risks. This experience went over my head and could I handle more? I didn’t know. It was too much and I was really impressed that my bladder held on.

We collared a lion a few days later and it was much easier and simpler. There was no carcass nearby and rest of lions just left and slept while we worked on that lion. We were faster too because we worked with each other before and know what to expect now. I felt more calm even though I got really nervous when they couldn’t find blood vessel to collect blood sampling. That took a while and I panicked that the lion would wake up in the middle of work, just like last time. The lion stayed passed out the entire time.  We finished our work in 54 minutes, plenty time of drug left in the lion’s system. 
Frans the vet preparing the dart for the male lion.


Ok, that was better. I like it - the thrill of working with lion and putting on a collar. The collar is going to be awesome since we can watch the movements of lions and record their activities. We would know what those lions (and hyenas when we collar them) are up to.
We use red light to find animals in the dark. They're afraid of white light (it means man) and white light can hurt their eyes. The red light won't hurt their eyes since many animals can't see red. 
The male lion waking up after the collaring. We have to stay near the lion to make sure he is alright.

You can see the collar on the male lion.

Our lives revolve around lions and hyenas. We can’t prepare the day without expecting unexpected. Animals are not waiting for us or taking a weekend off. We barely have a day off, it is a 24/7 job working in the bush. If we have to wait for hours and hours, we will. If we have to drive into the bush, we will. The job is tough, we cannot expect lions and hyenas to leave us alone since we are studying them in hopes to help them in the future. They don’t give any shits, we are fresh meat to them regardless we are helping them.