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| This is Lekero Ole Lyaso. He is a Maasai of indeterminate age. Maasai do not track birthdays, but my guess is he is in his 50s. He is a very stately and proud man - as Maasai are. In his youth he has undoubtedly speared lions, as this was a rite of manhood. Later in his life he was employed by LEWA as a cattle herder. There is no one better with cattle than the Maasai. Now he has been trained by LEWA as the head of the lion tracker team, and he takes his job very, very seriously. We saw him all over the property walking, walking with his radio antenna, always very early every morning. Many times we gave him a lift to another part of the conservancy. He speaks no English but the pride in his work is evident in his eyes. |
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| Lekero looking for lion tracks in the soft sand as we go with him one morning lion tracking. |
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| Here James and I are with the head of lion research - Mary Mwololo and Lekero on a ridgeline honing in on the radio signal of a female lion. There are 14 resident lions on the property - 4 males and the rest females and cubs. Two lions have radio telemetry devices - one lioness has a collar and one male has a subdermal (under the skin) transmitter. They put the subdermal on the male so that tourists visiting the property could photograph this magnificent lion without a radio collar ruining the photo. Tourism is a major revenue resource for LEWA, and they were very sensitive to the needs of visiting guests, so they went to the extra major expense of doing the subdermal receiver on the male. |
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| We located the radio collared lioness up on the side of a hill. We watched her using binoculars. Here is a far off photo of her. But then Lekero told Benjamin (our driver) "Here is her sister", and coming towards our vehicle was a lioness, cubs and a beautiful male. Here is the lioness as she stopped in the shadows to check out our vehicle. |
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| Back in the lab - Mary is explaining that her job is to dissect the scat of predators - primarily lion and hyena to see what they are eating. Most importantly it is to document Grevy Zebra predation since they are so extremely rare. She keeps meticulous records that the scientists back at headquarters then record and review. |
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| Here Mary is showing me how she rehydrates Hyena "poop" (her scientific term) and then meticulously pulls out each individual hair. The hair will then be put on slides to be analyzed. |
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| Here is an "aerial" view (James standing on a chair) of Mary and me working on the Hyena poop. I was absolutely amazed how hard it was to see each individual hair and to pull them out. I vowed that when I return I am going to bring Mary a lighted magnifying lamp |
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| Here I am taking a look through the microscope. Mary has explained that Grevy zebra hair and Burchell's (common) zebra hair - which are also on the property - look completely different under magnification |
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| Here is a sketch I did in my journal after Mary explained the difference. The Grevy's has a V shape in the core of the hair whereas the Burchell's has dashes. These animals, although similar to our eye are completely different creatures as evidenced by their hair. |
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| I was fascinated by the fact that this dik dik skull top and horns had passed completely through a hyena's digestive track. Hyenas are much reviled but I find them very fascinating. Their white scat is evidence of the powers of their jaws. They can eat bones, horns and other matter that most other animals can't - effectively helping to "clean up" carcasses. But they are not just scavengers - they are fine tuned predators as well. |
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| LEWA was a cattle ranch for many, many years, and lions there were exterminated. Now through conservation efforts the ranch is a working ecosystem again. Here is a sunset shot I took our first day at LEWA of the male lion with the subdermal radio transmitter and his beautiful consort. We took some really incredible photos of lions, and I am looking forward to painting them soon! |
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fine Wildlife art and photography  |
