Part of the Pride (12 page)

This was a high-ranking woman, and she knew how to fight. The trouble was that Geena was not in the enclosure at the time we released Uno, and we knew that when the girls got together the fur was most definitely going to fly. We ended up putting Geena and Uno in an enclosure together—just the two of them—to let them sort things out. The two girls took one look at each other and battle commenced. They tore at each other's ears and jostled and rolled and charged at each other as each tried to get the better of her opponent. They were whooping and giggling and biting and pawing. Geena went down a few times, but she just would not submit to Uno. Their thick necks were covered in a froth of saliva, and blood poured from their ears. There were puncture marks everywhere, but they kept on going ballistic. At times we thought we might have
to intervene, but I knew that if Uno was ever going to join the larger clan then this fight had to happen. Slowly, Uno gained the better of Geena, but our original female would not back down easily.

Eventually we decided to release the rest of the clan, to take some of the heat off Geena, and maybe give her a chance to muster support. It didn't help. Uno not only kept the pressure on Geena, she also sorted out every single one of the other hyenas and still had energy and attitude to spare. At that point, Numero Uno took over the clan.

Having introduced Uno to the clan, I wanted to see how she would react to me. I didn't want to lose contact with the rest of the clan simply because there was a new hyena in charge, so I went into the enclosure, just as I always had.

Uno stared at me, but kept her distance. It seemed that she tolerated this weird two-legged creature interacting with the rest of what was by now her clan—just. I didn't chase her or even walk up to her, but as the months went by she started approaching me, and came a little closer each time. She would sit and watch the way I tickled and played with the others and I think she made a decision that I was not a threat to them—or her—and that she might like some attention. If I did stray too close to her, she would circle me and the hairs on her back would rise as she displayed her aggression, and let me know that if I came closer she would have a piece of me. That was fine, and I kept a respectful distance of about five meters from her.

I will never forget the day that Uno came up to me and offered me her nose, stretching it toward my hand. She had come close a few times, standing just out of reach and bobbing her head up and down. This time, I extended my hand and she came right up to me and sniffed it. She had broken the barrier that she had imposed up to that time. It was her decision.

She sniffed my hand a second time. I held my breath, not knowing what would happen next. Then Uno gave my hand a lick. She
was trusting me, big time, and I was trusting her right back. After that, when I approached Uno I did so on all fours, down at her level. In time, I was able to scratch her under the chin and behind the ear, but I knew I would never be able to pick her up under the arms and carry her around like I do with some of the others.

My experience with Uno got me thinking about the intelligence of a hyena. I could never have done what I did with her with a wild lion that had been captured by humans. This wild hyena, however, had the ability to sit there and rationalize the situation. For my part, I learned that I could form a bond with Uno—a relationship that allowed me to interact with the rest of her clan without threatening her. I did not seek to break her or dominate her, although I was dominant to the other clan members. Uno had had a terrible experience at the hands of the humans who had taken her from the wild and placed her in captivity, yet she could learn to trust me.

I have heard of a guy making contact with a clan of hyenas in the wild, but that was done over a long period of time. My experience with Uno happened in a compressed timeframe and I think it highlights how intelligent these animals are—intelligent, but naughty.

As the guy in charge of animals, I pushed for the clan, which was growing all the time, to be moved to one of the much larger fenced camps in the park, where tourists could drive their cars through, simulating the experience of a big game park. I thought it would be cool for people to see a clan operating in its element.

Ian and Rodney Fuhr approved the idea and we set to building a hyena den. We dug a pit and roofed it with a half-moon of concrete pipe, some tin, and some wooden poles. In the wild hyenas make dens in disused termite mounds, and in some of South Africa's national parks they take up residence in concrete drainage culverts under the roads, so this new home was perfect for them. They loved it.

Everything was going well and the hyenas loved the additional space. Also, the tourists were enjoying seeing the clan interacting with each other and I felt good about striking a blow for hyenas,
and giving people a chance to see what interesting animals they really were. What happened next, however, was that the hyenas started interacting with the tourists' cars.

First it was a fender, then a rearview mirror, then a door handle, and finally a tire. They loved eating tires. The hyenas became better than a Johannesburg chop shop at dismantling cars, even while they were moving. People were driving around in circles, in panic, with the clan, led by Uno, chasing them around trying to tear pieces off the cars. Maybe Uno saw this as a chance to get some payback against the humans who had taken her out of the wild, or maybe she just liked the taste of car parts. Sadly, the cost of repairing damage to visitors' cars signaled the end of that experiment, but the hyenas had enjoyed themselves immensely.

FIVE
 
Tsavo the Teacher

 

 

 

People sometimes ask me if I think I have been born with a gift for working with so-called dangerous animals. If I have a gift, I think it is knowing when and how far to push barriers.

I believe I know instinctively when a situation is bad or otherwise. I know, for example, if I walk up to a parrot in a pet shop whether it is going to bite me or not. Of course, a lot of what I do has been learned, but I also believe that animals pick up on your intent, your fear, and your innocence. They can tell, instinctively, if you intend to harm them. They can tell if you are weak or strong, or arrogant or genuine. Too often, people have an agenda when they enter an animal's space. They may wish to control it, probably by asserting their dominance, or they may need to get an animal to behave in a certain way for their own ends.

What I do has taken me ten years to understand and learn. I'm amazed when, as often happens, people contact me or come to visit me and my animals and say they want to go into an enclosure and have their picture taken with an adult male lion. They want to use this animal, who is a friend of mine, for a photo opportunity. They
don't care about it or understand it or know its moods or its feelings, but they see me rolling around on the ground with it and think, therefore, the animal must be as tame as a pet.

There was a lion researcher who had worked for Rodney Fuhr, and her dream was to have her picture taken with an adult lion. In the past, I was more blasé about letting people have contact with the animals in my care. There were two very good lions at the park, Thunder, a male, and Rain, a lioness. Thunder was so friendly that at Rodney Fuhr's step-daughter's twenty-first birthday, which was held at the Lion Park, all the party guests were allowed to pat him. This big-maned lion was like a pussycat. About six months later the researcher contacted Rodney and I said I thought it would probably be okay if she had her picture taken with Thunder. As I've said, I was more cooperative in the past.

It was a cold winter's day, which turned out to be fortunate. To be safe there were three of us with the researcher and we all went into the enclosure, which Thunder shared with Rain. The woman's husband, who had also researched wild lions, said he preferred to stay outside.

“Hello, Thunder, my boy,” I said, pleased that he had trotted up to us, as friendly as usual. The woman was already loving it, getting up close to the lion.

I looked around the enclosure for Rain and I saw her. Lions usually have golden colored eyes but Rain's are the most amazing red-brown. They're quite eerie at the best of times but when she fixed me with them I knew something was wrong. Her tail started to swish.

“We'd better get out,” I said to one of the other guys.

“What?”

“Get her out!”

Rain charged and went straight for the researcher. Because of the weather the woman was wearing a big bulky jumper and a pair of jeans. Her clothes may have saved her life. Rain bit down but only succeeded in grabbing the folds of the woman's jumper. The
lioness clawed her around her waist and shredded the jeans, but the thickness of the denim prevented the injuries from being worse than they might have been.

I reached for my pepper spray and gave Rain a blast. I hated doing it, but it caused Rain to let go and take three steps back. She sniffled and then wheeled and came straight back again for another attack, but by that time we had bustled the woman out of the enclosure and just managed to shut the gate in time.

Rain was in the two-to-three-year-old age group, which I've learned the hard way is when a lion is at its most dangerous, in my opinion. They're big enough to kill and young enough to want to try. Rain didn't like us being in her territory. She gave me a warning—not quite enough for me to get the woman out before the attack—but long enough for us to be ready to react. I didn't blame Rain for acting the way she did. If a strange lion had come into that enclosure, Thunder and Rain would have killed it in a heartbeat. The woman who entered the enclosure was not part of their pride. That was the last time we let a stranger in an enclosure with an almost adult lion.

My guiding concern in the way I do my work is that I care about the animals I live with. It started with two little lion cubs, Tau and Napoleon, and before I knew it I was responsible for an entire family of extreme creatures. They are not my pets or my employees, they are my companions. If I was doing what I do with dogs, no one would find it unusual, yet a dog can kill a person.

Lions are perceived as killers, and they certainly have the ability to take a human's life in a heartbeat, but so can another human. A lot of what I do is based on respect. The way I work with my animals is to get down to their level. I'm not the tallest of guys and that helps me. If I stand with my feet quite far apart I'm basically at an adult lion's eye line. I don't walk in carrying a stick or a gun and then expect them to love me or relate to me because I have the means to hurt them.

To use a human analogy, if I go to Japan and walk into someone's house, I take my shoes off. I don't take my shoes off at home,
but I do it in Japan because I can see the world through their eyes and I want to show some respect and be accepted on their terms. Like I say, it's all about respect.

I hadn't shown Rain the respect she deserved when I brought the researcher in, and I didn't show Tsavo respect when my family came to visit the Lion Park.

The rear edges of a lion's canine teeth are serrated. I don't think this little known fact saved my life, but it probably had something to do with the story that starts this book.

When Tsavo hooked one of his fangs under my belt and lifted me off the ground, I was only suspended for a couple of seconds. Even as he hoisted me, with my family watching and screaming for help, the serrations had begun sawing through the leather. My belt snapped and I landed on my back in a cloud of dust. My step-nephew, Nicholas, still has the two pieces of my belt as a reminder of a birthday he could hardly forget.

What did save me from worse injury that day was the fact that Tsavo had been declawed. If he hadn't been then that first mighty swipe of his arm might have ripped me to shreds. So much of a lion's power is in his claws, and when they attack their prey they fillet them with the sharpness of their claws and the power of their blows.

My family's screams alerted Alex, the lion trainer who had come to us from England. He was at the far end of the Lion Park, but when he heard the commotion he came running, with two sticks in hand. Alex ran in through the gate in the inner fence of the enclosure just as my belt snapped.

Alex charged fearlessly at the lion. Tsavo left me and turned on the other man, as if to say, “Right, I'm going to have a piece of you now.” Alex squared off against Tsavo and started banging the sticks together and beating the ground in front of the lion. I later learned that by this stage my brother-in-law, Trevor, was at the fence
whistling to try and distract Tsavo. Needless to say, Tsavo wasn't one to respond to whistling. I was on my feet and moving and was out of that enclosure in quick time while Alex kept Tsavo at bay.

My clothes were covered in blood and my nose was bleeding.

When I got outside the enclosure I was thinking, oh no, my arm is probably half hanging off, but when I checked I found that Tsavo's two canines had actually passed either side of my arm. I'd been lacerated and my shirt was torn, but Tsavo hadn't bitten into the skin of my arm. When I checked my leg I found that while he had punctured me, it was nothing fatal. If he had bitten down harder he might have severed the femoral artery and I could have bled to death.