Predators I Have Known (13 page)

Five minutes passed. Ten. A couple of humongous potato cod arrived and proceeded to check out the unusual activity as somberly as a pair of undertakers methodically taking the measurements of a new client. Having examined the bubble-blowing interlopers and found them unremarkable, these impressive fish then took their leave, utterly unperturbed by the human intrusion. Shards of shattered rainbow, small reef fish darted in and out of the chum cloud, glorying in the unexpected source of fresh food.

Fifteen minutes. Still nothing. Not even a resident whitetip shark.

After twenty minutes of this, a visibly disappointed Brent gave the signal to wrap things up. Rodney ditched what remained of the baitfish, and the cameramen started upward with their underutilized gear. Running as low on air as everyone else, I prepared to follow the others up to the waiting
Nordon
. As I did so, I happened to glance over my right shoulder.

Directly behind me was a full-grown tiger shark. It was maybe a dozen feet away. It was also maybe a dozen feet long.

I would not be surprised if the bubble I released subsequent to encountering this wholly unexpected sight registered on seismic detection equipment hundreds of miles away in Perth. I might have verbalized something short and pungent—I honestly don’t remember. Not that it would have mattered. Remember the advertising slogan for the classic science-fiction film
Alien
? To paraphrase it, underwater no one can hear you scream “Holy . . . !”

Whether it was the bubble, my sudden exclamation, the goggle-eyed look on my face, or the incredible velocity with which I began kicking backward, something startled the tiger. In a flash, it was gone; a blur of fins and teeth and tail. Collecting myself (just as on land, panic underwater uses air at an accelerated rate), I hovered there, up against the reef. The image of the tiger staring back at me remained imprinted on my retinas, like the colors you see when you squeeze your eyes very tightly shut.

For all I knew, the shark had been there the entire time, watching me watch the film crew watching Rodney. The perfect Gary Larson cartoon come to life.

Nobody else saw it. As soon as I made my turn and reacted, the shark took off. I’m not sure all of them believed me when, back on the boat, I related the story of my brief encounter. But some of them did. I think, for sure, Rodney did.

Maybe it was the look in my eyes.

Tanzania, July 1984

I COULD EASILY HAVE BEGUN
this book with several stories about lions. When one thinks of predators,
Panthera leo
is often the first animal that comes to mind. Humans have been dealing with lions for a long time—usually to the lions’ detriment—but our admiration for them has never flagged. There are heavier tigers, but little in nature is as impressive as a healthy male lion in full framing mane or a pride of sleek, muscular females focused on a hunt.

Years ago, my wife and I were fortunate to encounter the latter activity during a visit to Ngorongoro Crater National Park in Tanzania. Ignoring the flanking safari vehicles, the females were wholly intent on stalking a herd of placid wildebeests. As the pride members padded forward, eyes locked on their intended prey, they spread out in a horizontal line. Occasionally, each would pause to look down the line and check on the position of her sisters. In the end, the alerted wildebeests wandered out of easy hunting range and the lions, seemingly unperturbed by this development, nonchalantly settled down for an afternoon snooze. Those of us fortunate enough to have witnessed this demonstration of leonine tactics will never forget it.

Breaking off a stalk to take a nap is not unusual behavior for lions. They habitually sleep eighteen out of every twenty-four hours. This penchant for dozing can allow careful sightseers to approach a somnolent pride quite closely. Nothing looks more like a housecat than a female lion sleeping on her back, rear legs akimbo and moving lazily back and forth in her sleep while one front leg rests on her chest. It’s the ultimate catnap.

The apparent lassitude is deceiving. Decades of acclimation to and acquaintance with tourist-packed safari 4x4s has led lions, with rare exceptions, to view driver, passengers, and vehicle as a whole. That’s why during close approaches they may seem to ignore the car in which you are riding.

Step out of the car, however . . .

* * *

South Africa, May 2002

WHEN I WAS IN NAMIBIA
in 1993, a deadly incident was reported over the wire services that originated from Kruger National Park in South Africa. Coming upon a pride of sleeping lions in the middle of the day, three male tourists from Taiwan got out of their car. (Kruger is liberally peppered with signs advising visitors in no-nonsense terms to
STAY IN YOUR CAR.
) Believing perhaps that Kruger operates as some sort of open-air subset of Disney World, two of them walked over to the slumbering group and turned around to have their photo taken with the picturesque pride. The lions, not unexpectedly, promptly woke up and ate them both. This outcome was shakily related to the press by the only survivor: the traumatized third visitor. Nominated by his friends to take the proposed picture, he had been close enough to the car to escape back into it. Once he was back inside the vehicle, the lions were no longer interested in him.

I had a chance to personally investigate this principle during my own exploration of Kruger. Though my visit took place years after the aforementioned incident, for all I know one of the same hulking felines that had exhibited a prior interest in Chinese food could have been the same one that ended up testing my friend and me.

Africa is home to many great national parks, from Ivindo and Loango in Gabon, to Etosha in Namibia, to the glorious but little-visited Ruaha in southwestern Tanzania. Along with the Serengeti, perhaps the most famous is Kruger. Previously the size of Switzerland, through the inclusion of congruent parks on its Zimbabwean and Mozambiquean borders, Kruger has been greatly expanded. Now known as the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, it is possibly the best place in all of Africa to easily see a vast variety of wildlife in a comparatively natural habitat.

I say easily because Kruger’s immense size allows it to offer the visiting wildlife enthusiast a wide variety of inside-the-park accommodations. Good roads permit tourist buses to maintain regular sightseeing schedules. But if you really want to see Kruger, and spend some time listening to and observing wildlife as opposed to chattering primates from other countries, you need to get out on your own. Since for self-evident reasons setting out on a casual stroll through the park is absolutely forbidden (the rationale being one and the same with signs that say
DON’T FEED THE ANIMALS
), the best way to do this is to rent your own vehicle. While all visitors must be back in the numerous fenced camps by a specified early evening time, during the day you are free to drive where you will along the park’s many miles of roads and linger wherever you wish.

I was traveling with a friend, the late fantasy artist Ron Walotsky. Ron had never been anywhere outside the States save for a brief trip to Europe. Kruger was our first stop after driving east from Johannesburg, and every bird, shrub, and creature we encountered was apt to elicit an excited request from him to stop the car so he could take pictures. I cheerfully obliged, keen to reacquaint myself with the marvels of the African bush.

We began our visit by staying two nights at Skukusa Rest Camp, the largest and most highly developed of the facilities inside the park. I have mentioned that every visitor and vehicle has to be back inside their respective camp boundaries by a designated time. The same strictures apply to departure. No one is allowed out of the camp until five-thirty in the morning. Hoping to be first out, vehicles start lining up in the dark around a quarter to five. We were sixth in line.

Two roads lead out of Skukusa: one that heads due south, where nursing hyenas had earlier been spotted, and the other east. A couple of miles outside the camp gate, a turnoff leads to a crossing of the Sabi River and shortly thereafter, to another that crosses the Sand River. Seeing that everyone else was staying on the main tracks, we opted for the lesser-used twin-river crossing. As soon as we made the necessary northward turn, we lost sight of any other vehicle. There was no car ahead of us and none behind. Nurtured by proximity to the two rivers, trees and brush closed in around us. I was driving.

Ten minutes out of camp, with Ron avidly studying the map of the park and riding copilot, I saw something on the road ahead. Gradually, our car drew a little closer. The dappled early morning light falling through the trees revealed the hind end of an animal and a long tail switching back and forth. Despite my rising sense of excitement, I looked at it for a long time before I felt confident in saying what I was thinking. There was a reason for this: I had been skunked before.

On my first trip to Amazonian Peru, I wanted more than anything else to see an anaconda. Motoring up the Manú River, I thought I spotted one, and excitedly yelled out, “Anaconda, anaconda!” while gesturing vigorously in the slender shape’s direction. The boat driver quickly turned in the direction I was indicating, motoring slowly toward the left bank. It was soon apparent that my anaconda was nothing more than a twisted log bobbing against the riverbank. Thereafter, whenever we passed a suitably serpentine branch, either the guide or boatman would point and chortle loudly, “Anaconda!” It was a useful lesson. From then on, whenever and wherever I thought I had made an interesting animal “spot,” I waited until I was sure of my identification.

So despite my initial disbelief at what I was seeing, this time I was sure.

Not in deep bush, not hiding among riverfront trees, but pacing methodically up the road ahead of us was a black leopard.

Still sleepy from rising early to park in line at the Skukusa gate, I blurted out to Ron, “I think that’s a black leopard!” And then I just stared. Held the wheel and stared. Dimly, a voice at the back of my mind was screaming in a desperate attempt to get my attention. “Camera! Get the
camera
!”

Eventually, the notion drifted to the forefront of my stunned mind, and I finally began fumbling with my gear. By the time I had the battery mounted and the camera turned on, the leopard had cast a single contemptuous glance in our direction, turned sharply to its left, and disappeared into the undergrowth. We drew up alongside the place where it had entered the brush. There was no sign it had ever existed. One of the rarest sightings I have ever experienced, and I was late with the camera again. This is why professional photographers
always
have a camera loaded, ready, activated, and at hand, and battery conservation be damned. In my personal litany of missed shots, the black leopard of Kruger ranks right up there with the Kanha tiger looking down at me from atop the dry riverbank.

On our third night, we transferred our base of operations to Olifants Rest Camp. Located much deeper inside the park than Skukusa, Olifants is too far away to be reached by day-trippers. Perched atop a high bluff overlooking the Olifants River (where did you think Tolkien got the name?), the individual
bomas
(round cabins built in traditional local style) were charming and comfortable. We relaxed, Ron sketching the landscape with his portable artist’s watercolor set, and determined to pursue our routine of being up and about out as early as possible the next morning.

Retracing our route along Kruger’s main north-south road the following day, we encountered a quartet of trotting rhinos, a second (normal-hued) leopard, and the usual cornucopia of wildlife for which Kruger is justly famous. Parked before a small pond, we watched as zebras and giraffes arrived to drink their morning fill.

It was south of the Ngotso Weir waterhole that we were forced to slow when we unexpectedly found the road ahead blocked by half a dozen parked cars. None of them were tour buses or park vehicles. All were private transport like our own. Seeing that everyone was looking in the same direction, we turned our attention toward the source of all the interest. It didn’t take much searching to locate it.

A pride had made an impala kill close to the road and was tearing into the morning meal with typical predatory gusto. Deep-throated roars and domineering growls filled the air. One by one, too soon jaded by the sight or too locked into a predetermined travel schedule, the other vehicles moved off and continued on their way. Eventually, only ours and one other car were left.

A male lion attempted to approach the carcass, on which a pair of cubs was now feeding. Their mother drove him off with a furious charge, ferocious snarl, and flurry of flailing paws that set the male up on his hind legs and would have had any professional wildlife documentarian’s camera running full-out. I managed to record a little of the explosive action, albeit while having to shoot over Ron’s shoulder. When things settled down again, the other remaining car started up and came toward us. Stopping on my side, the driver rolled his window down halfway, nodded toward the front of our vehicle, and spoke with some concern in his voice.