The Lions Roar and Other Stories

By Ron Jolley

the autobiography of a game warden in nairobi national park in kenya where he has to keep a daily watch on all the lions in the park as well as other animals. contingency plans have to be made when a lion or group of lions escape the boundaries of the park and become a danger to humans in nearby residential areas

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rose Slater
• Release date: May 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301213535

Book preview

THE LIONS ROAR AND OTHER STORIES

By Ron Jolley

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Published by:

Rose Slater at Smashwords

Copyright (c) 1991-2013 by Ron Jolley

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Thank you for downloading this book. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in the complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com. Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated

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Table of Contents




Chapter one: lions

Chapter two: Blondie and Brunette

Chapter three: the Spivs

Chapter four: snared lions

Chapter five: Greta Garbo

Chapter six: Jacky

Chapter seven: Prince

Chapter eight: visitors

Chapter nine: lions hunting

Chapter ten: lions at play

Chapter eleven: lions and rangers

Chapter twelve: lions’ habits

Chapter thirteen: Segenge

Chapter fourteen: Blondie

Chapter fifteen: Brunette

Chapter sixteen: Blondie, Brunette and the Spivs again

Chapter seventeen: Segenge again

Chapter eighteen: lion rumpus

Chapter nineteen: the scarlet pimpernel

Chapter twenty: V.I.P.’s

Chapter twenty one: the last of Segenge

Chapter twenty two: in retrospect

Chapter twenty three: leopard

Chapter twenty four: Chui

Chapter twenty five: the boy and the elephant

Chapter twenty six: fear in the night

Chapter twenty seven: the swimming lioness

Chapter twenty eight: the battling oryx

Chapter twenty nine: escape to death

Chapter thirty: why should I die?

Chapter thirty one: Nick Carter – rhino capture

Chapter thirty two: Queen Mother’s visit

About the author

CHAPTER ONE: LIONS

Driving to Nairobi, one evening recently, with the sun setting behind the clenched fist of the Ngong Hills on my left and the twinkling lights of the City in front, I was reminded of my years spent in the Nairobi National Park as one of its Wardens.

This Park is unique in that it is only four miles from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, East Africa. It was the first Park opened by the Trustees in 1946, and has an area of 44 square miles. The Park is bounded on the south-west by the Mbagathi River and an area known as the Masai National Reserve, over which large numbers of wild animals roam, converging on to the Park in the dry season, in search of water which is amply provided in the form of dams and natural water holes. For such a small area, an astonishing variety of wild life can be found within the Park’s boundaries, ranging from lion and rhino to duiker and dik dik, plus some four hundred or more species of bird life.

To anyone privileged to live in a National Park one of the greatest joys or real thrills must surely be hearing the different animal noises at night and knowing that, in a small way, one is part of it all. The mournful howl of a hyena, the yip of a jackal interspersed with the toot of a distant train or a jet aircraft flying overhead, a bushbuck calls in his whistling way going down the scale, the zebra start their sharp barking, indicating that there are lion about. Then it comes – the most significant sound of all, the roar of a lion.

Why do lions have such an attraction for visitors, who will spend all day searching for them and then when they are found, just sit and gaze at the place where the pride is sleeping, gasping in amazement when one gets up and stretches, but let out a moan when the animal lies down and goes to sleep again? Why do so many people gather round a pride in the evening or follow lions across country, very much to the detriment of their cars, yet spend so little time watching a cheetah or leopard? They just take a few photographs and then move on again looking for lion. On occasions, people have just sat and stared towards the bottom of a ravine, or at a clump of bushes where lion were seen the previous day, hoping they will reappear, and eventually only dusk drives them away.

I think a classic example was one Sunday afternoon, when an elderly lady, who was a regular visitor to the Park, was driven in by her African chauffeur and they parked under some acacia trees near a track which ran along a dry river bed. The chauffeur snoozed while the old lady either read or tried her hand at knitting, obviously enjoying the peace and quiet. Across the other side of the river bed, there was an assortment of animals grazing, with a couple of Secretary birds busily strutting in the grass searching for food. The lions had been seen in the vicinity in the morning, but had moved unnoticed about two miles further down the river bed, so as the afternoon wore on, and the number of visitor’s cars increased, they were naturally attracted by the lone car down under the trees. One or two went down to enquire whether the lions were there, whilst a number of others just parked and either stared or used binoculars to search beneath the trees.

The old lady, most likely annoyed at the intrusion on her privacy, ordered her driver to move away, her place being taken by another car. The number of vehicles in the area had by now increased to over fifty, the occupants all staring at the trees and bushes that lined the river bed, and whispers and gesticulations began to be heard and seen as people pointed out to one another what they thought was a lion’s head, its tail or a leg. In the meantime, the lions seen in the morning had moved out to the plains about two miles further on. I went round the cars and informed the occupants of this and managed to persuade some of them to move along, but incoming visitors, surmising that several cars parked in the spot indicated the presence of lions, preferred to remain where they were. Towards dusk some eighty cars were congregated there looking at nothing, whilst the few who had moved on, were able to have a good look at the lions. By evening, as the cars departed, most of their occupants were quite certain they had seen something of the non-existent lions.

Admittedly, lions soon become used to vehicles and noise and take little notice of them Lion cubs are a great attraction, just like kittens, always awake before their parents, so start annoying them. They will pounce on any tail that flicks for a fly, chase each other and generally cause great amusement. I have seen a cub pick up a bone or a bit of discarded paper and defy any of the others to take it from him. The treasure will be carried from place to place, eventually being abandoned for a more interesting article which, on one occasion, was an unfortunate hedgehog. One cub very gingerly picked it up in his teeth, whereupon the others tried to snatch it and it ended up being rolled about like a football.

When the cubs tired of the game, they lay down but kept an inquisitive eye open and were rewarded by seeing the hedgehog slowly unroll and begin to crawl away, whereupon a large paw descended on it, and the little animal became a prickly ball again. What happened to it eventually, I do not know, but it was still being carried about by one of the cubs when I returned in the evening.

Lionesses do not breed before they are two years old and will produce a litter roughly every two and a half years. The lioness is in season for up to three weeks, during which time she will mate many times a day with one or more males, but usually with the ruling male of that particular area. They normally move away from the rest of the pride, and take little time off for eating or sleeping. The gestation period is from one hundred and five to one hundred and thirteen days and the cubs are born in thickets or deep gullies, the litter usually consisting of one to five cubs. They are blind at birth and the mother will not move them before they are three weeks old. After that she will bring them to her kill, though it will be some weeks before they take an interest in it. Often two lionesses will team up, one hunting while the other acts as nursemaid. One morning, a lioness with three small clubs killed a wildebeest on the plains. She brought the cubs to the kill but, as the sun was hot, the only shade the cubs could find was in the empty rib cage of the carcass. While mother continued her dinner from the outside, the three little cubs curled up inside, much to the amusement of several visitors watching.

Lions are mostly gregarious and move about in prides of two and three or up to sixty or more. I believe this is a common sight in the Serengeti.

In 1961, the whole of Kenya suffered the worst drought since the Park was inaugurated, game died in hundreds from starvation and thirst. I have reserved a separate chapter on this subject, and so will only deal here with the position as it affected the lions.

They, of course, never had it better and thrived on the misfortune of the herbivore. During the latter six months of the drought, I witnessed about fifty separate kills made by the lions in Nairobi Park, in fact, the position was so fantastic that I never expect, nor wish, to see the incidents repeated. Grazing in the Park at this time, was just about non-existent, and many of the animals used to forage around in the thick bush trying to find anything edible that might be hidden below the branches.

Blondie and Brunette and their five cubs came across about twenty wildebeest feeding in this manner along a ridge – the bush, of course, offering wonderful cover for the lions. One of the lions went up above the ridge, showed itself to the wildebeest who immediately fled through the bush downhill, straight into the other lions waiting for them. Five wildebeest died. Catching an animal was all too easy for the lions; fresh meat was theirs whenever they wanted it. I then saw them kill a zebra, leave it untouched, go about a mile further and find an animal that had died sometime during the day. The cubs started to play with it, and in doing so, burst the stomach open - in no time at all the lions proceeded to eat meat that was already putrefying.

Early one morning I saw the lions do this, after they had pulled it down they left it and walked away. I thought it was dead, but a few minutes later, the animal got up and after a few shaky steps whilst trying to get its balance, it ambled off showing no signs that a few moments before it was being man-handled by two lions. The Rangers and I came to the conclusion that the lions had decided it was such a poor specimen that it wasn’t worth blunting their teeth on and let it go.

Another day, Don Dennis, an Honorary Warden, and I were down at the lower end of Rocky Valley where there was a passable track for cars to use. Here we found Blondie and Brunette and their five cubs with two kills, a kongoni and a zebra. I was down with the lions, and Don was up at the top just keeping an eye on things. His attention was attracted to a scraggy looking young eland bull, who completely oblivious of the cars moving up and down the track to the lions, was itself walking down literally into the lions’ jaws. Don drove his Land Rover up to the animal and tried to chase it away, but without success, and in fact, all he succeeded in doing was to drive it from one side of the track to the other and to quicken its pace. My attention was eventually drawn to this strange cavalcade coming down the hill. By this time, all the cars driving away, seeing what they hoped would be a kill made by the lions, had turned back and were following Don and the eland. I went to Don’s assistance, but we just could not turn the eland away from its suicidal walk. Blondie and Brunette soon spotted the animal, and awaited in ambush for it; mercifully its death was quick.

It was around this time that the public began to complain about the way the lions were torturing the animals they caught, but what could we do? We normally did not interfere in any way, and let the lions kill however they wished as they had to eat. Normally a lioness on her own would kill once in three or four days, depending on the size of the animal she killed, and how often she was successful in her hunting. If game was plentiful, she would kill, often taking the choicest pieces before going off on another hunt. If game was scarce, she would probably only kill twice in ten days. But these were abnormal times, the animals were in poor condition, were listless, not alert, and their sole aim was to find enough food and water with which to survive. There was nowhere else to go, the Masai Reserve was in an even worse condition, and when one realises that the normal population of the Park of five thousand animals had now increased to something like twelve thousand, one can realise why so many animals were dying and why the lions were having such an easy life.

One evening, I was taking the Chief Secretary of Aden, Mr and Mrs Charles Johnson, round the Park. I had been showing them the devastation the drought was causing among the animals. On the way back I intended showing them some lions, and found Blondie and Brunette taking a stroll down the road I was following. The cubs were some distance behind, well fed and fat, and life was wonderful. Both lionesses had seen a wildebeest not far away, so splitting up and not taking the normal precautions that they did in a hunt, Blondie walked up to the animal which was standing listlessly, taking no notice of what was going on around it. It suddenly woke up to the fact that Blondie was there in front of it, and instead of running away, it charged. She had evidently expected this and retreated, but Brunette was by now right behind, and as Blondie kept the animal’s attention to the front, Brunette took a mouthful of leg, Blondie closed in, and that was another meal on the table.

It was Steve Ellis, who first witnessed a new method Blondie and Brunette had of killing the animals they caught. This was, in fact, what all the complaints were about. They would walk up to the unsuspecting animal, grab it by its muzzle, and start to suffocate it. The animal’s stomach would swell and shrink in a most startling manner, but just as it was about to die, the lioness would release it, whereupon it would breathe in great gasps of air, but as soon as it showed any attempt to struggle to its feet, it would again be suffocated, this time by one of the cubs. Wildebeest were the main target of these lions, but I did see them treat a kongoni and zebra in the same way.

On one occasion they had a young wildebeest which was given the suffocation treatment three times. On recovering from this cold blooded action the final time. it stood trembling on its feet, completely surrounded by the seven lion, all keeping watch like a cat with a mouse. The wildebeest was frozen to the ground in terror, and when one of the cubs began to edge up to it, it just stood and watched its new tormentor. This was too much for me, and I intervened by driving among the lions, scattering them and screening the wildebeest from them, then gently eased it away.

Don Dennis did the same thing for a young gazelle that was being tormented by the cubs. He rescued it and then released it on the plains, and as far as he could ascertain it had suffered no injury.

Blondie and Brunette’s pride were not the only ones to take advantage of the situation caused by the drought. Greta Garbo and family were doing the same thing in the area they covered, though to a lesser extent. Most of the plains animals normally kept away from the river, which by now had stopped running, though there were still large pools of water along its reaches. However, great herds of animals did come down to drink because there was no water in the dams. At the Magadi Road end of the Park, Segenge and his pride moved in and out, making innumerable kills and in fact, as the drought became worse, this pride moved into the Karen and Langata residential areas, giving us all many sleepless nights, but that is another story.

Segenge and his harem were also a nuisance walking around our house in the early evening, and twice they made a kill in the garden. Another night, they killed an eland twenty one paces from Steve’s guest house and not far from the bedroom occupied by our daughters. Most of us spent a sleepless night, as the noise they created would have disturbed the soundest sleeper. At this time too, the lions began to be a particular nuisance around the park camp. They also seemed to be acting abnormally, moving around very much earlier in the afternoon, so instructions had to be issued to the staff not to wander far from the camp as they often did during the day light hours.

One evening, just before dark, Steve’s dog, Thunder, had a narrow escape. He was chased by a lioness into the Ellis’ kitchen, and only when the cook started throwing things at the lioness did it stop her from carrying on the chase, right through the house.

Another afternoon, this same cook was on a bicycle riding past the bottom of our garden. We had just seen two lionesses come down past the end of the garden and they were lying up close to the road on which the cook was now riding. We shouted and waved at him trying to draw his attention to the lions, but he just waved back and rode on. Suddenly he saw the lionesses, who, by now, were standing on the road right in front of him. It was the funniest sight to see him leave his bicycle in mid air, and without seeming to touch the ground, disappear in a cloud of dust. The next day this cook had the biggest story ever told, of how the lions chased him right into his hut into which he locked himself, and never left until the next morning.

It was during the same period that the lions took to killing warthogs. On the first occasion,