An Elephant Bull Called Elizabeth and Other Short Stories from Africa

Trying to Save Spurwing's Buffalo

No longer able to hold its nerve the genet dropped out of the tree and made a run for it.  The noise overhead was shattering and closing in by the second, obviously it was time to leave its leafy lair in the scrubby bush opposite, Sekuru, as the directors cottage on Lake Kariba's Spurwing Island was called.  The clatter of the helicopter hovering and then darting right or left before moving slowly forward once more was rather noisy and, on the ground, we were glad of it.  Nick and I were hoping that with the helicopter on our side the job would be simple and, hopefully, safe.

This was the later half of the 90's and Lake Kariba was nearing its highest level in many years.  Through the 80's and early 90's the waters of Lake Kariba had gradually retreated from the official high-water mark.  Years of below average rainfall and the ever increasing demand on the turbines at the damn wall for electricity meant that, rather than rising to full then dropping two meters over the course of a year, as it was designed to do, the lake was slowly emptying.  

For us on Spurwing Island, on the edges of Matusadona National Park, this had been a boon.  The 'littoral' zone between high and low water was covered in Panicum repens, a floodplain grass that was nutritious and supported a large number of animals.  In the normal run of things this grass would survive underwater during the annual inundation as the flood waters from the upper reaches of the Zambezi arrived in April and May filling the lake.  Thereafter, as the waters receded, through the dry season, the edge of the retreating water would be rich grazing as the Panicum  flourished.  The fact that the lakes 'high water' mark was effectively a little lower each successive season meant that the exposed area, covered in this fine grass, grew in extent year on year.

Off the back of this the buffalo population exploded.  It was not long before the Kemurara herd was around seven hundred, Fothergill must have had three hundred or so, Spurwing's herd was about two hundred, the Palm Bay herd was not small and that was only the herds in the area that we typically game viewed; there were many other herds along the lake shore.

There is nothing a Matusadona lion likes more than dining on buffalo, they have read the literature, 'lions live on the largest common herbivore in an area'.  It makes sense, you work as a team to bring down one of these beasts, then you can lie back and relax with a full belly for a couple of days or more before needing to go to work again.  Thus the lion population grew exponentially.  It was not uncommon for three cubs out of a litter of three to survive rather than the more usual figure of one.  

Soon large lion prides roamed the shoreline.  When I arrived in May of 1993 the Kemurara pride was about thirty strong.  Unfortunately for me, and her, the matriarch had just died; an autopsy would confirm the cause of death to be cancer.  For the first three months of my guiding career these thirty lions were impossible to see.  The turmoil of losing the matriarch and the dynamics of such a large pride led to a split.  As the pride split in two there was a redefining of territory and great unrest.  This turmoil manifested itself feverish night time activity with the prides patrolling the roads and roaring threateningly at each other through the hours of darkness, only to disappear into deep cover by dawn and so avoid any actual confrontation.  It was most frustrating.  The morning of my last day, before my first time off, we saw the Kemurara pride; just up past the third road down as you turn into the Kemurara from the lakeshore side.  I remember it even now, over twenty years on.

From that moment on the lions were, once more, easy to find.  Typically they would rest up just inside the tree line overlooking the shoreline.  In the evening they would rouse themselves and lift their heads to see where the buffalo had got to.  If they were hungry they would generally wait till after dark and then the game was on.  The aim of this particular game was to panic the herd, get it to split and, in the process, pick off a straggler.  It did not particularly matter if the straggler was a large healthy animal, an ailing specimen or a calf; as long as it went left when everyone else went right, or visa versa, the pride would bring it down.