In this series of blog posts, we want to give you an in depth and personal look at some of the work of our Simba Scouts that work in the field, tracking and protecting the lions of Kuku Group Ranch.
HOW READING TRACKS CAN TELL A FULL STORY:
Our Maasai warrior and Simba Scouts Co-ordinator, David Kanai shares his experience of an afternoon in the field on Oct 17th, 2017 while on his regular patrols of tracking lions on KGR.
“I was doing normal lion monitoring and tracking and on my way to Oltiasika, I saw some fresh tracks while walking along Ormanie road. After some time I noticed from the tracks that the lions were hunting. I could tell this because the tracks were in a certain pattern, there was a pride of 5, one male, one female with a small cub and two other adult females. They were moving in one group and at a certain point they divided, one female looped over to the right and another female looped over to the left, closing in a circle, the female with a small cub was moving along the road slowly and got to a point when all 4 met with a group of zebras. I can tell from the tracks that the zebras got away, the 3 females and cub then joined together and started moving forward on the road. I could see that they also decided to rest here for a while. After about a 1km down the road, they started looping again trying to close in on a group of giraffes where they were able to chase one giraffe for a few meters and were successful. At this point, the male came out of the lava and joined them on the hunt and further close in on their pursuit.”
Below is a diagram to illustrate his afternoon, following the tracks of this pride:
Below are photos to show the aftermath of the hunt upon his arrival in the field:
