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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (July 29, 2020)
18 Wednesday, July 29, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Commentary... Intimate is the African night By Chris Morin Columnist The young British woman sitting next to me in the dark was on her hon- eymoon and wouldn9t leave me alone. Clutching my arm and groaning, she was abso- lutely ruining the moment. I felt anger rising within and turned to confront her, breaking my absolute focus on the three lionesses begin- ning to probe and test the young adult hippopotamus they9d happened upon in the open. Impala and puku also watched those proceedings 40 yards away. I snapped my head around, looked straight into her eyes, opened my mouth to admonish her and found her eyes looking back into mine, delirious. I hesitated. She opened her mouth, forc- ing out UMPFF! DWAQ! ZHHNN! & ? Her eyes somehow growing ever big- ger, she began frantically pointing to the side, behind us. Swiveling my head in that direction, another of the lionesses from The Pride of Nine sauntered toward us, less than seven feet away, closing the remaining space. Kathleen sat in the middle, her new husband, Tony, to her right, I was on her left in the last row of tiered benches for this open-air safari jeep. It was so <open air= that the jeep9s sides merely came up to hip level. We were the only ones out of 11 people in the jeep who were aware of this par- ticular lioness. Our guide- driver, Tuke, along with his spotter, Henry, were up front and six more tourists occupied the other two rows of bench seats. All of them intently watched the lion- esses testing the resolve of the young hippo forward of the vehicle. This lioness ambled closer and sauntered within two feet of our parked jeep, the only vehicle out here. Kathleen and I didn9t dare make a sound. This placed the feline no more than five to six feet from us. Except for my eyes track- ing her, I sat completely still. Tony had catatonically frozen in place while look- ing down into his lap, appar- ently unwilling to watch if the pounce were launched. This lioness only threw us a fleeting glance, however, and kept moving 4 past the jeep9s rear, and then off into the diminishing gloom of red tail parking lights. I rotated my head back to Kathleen, now on the verge of tears, still unable to speak coherently. She shrank by a third while letting out a quiet but massive sigh. The past six days had been completely lion-free in South Luangwa National Park located in Eastern Zambia. It9s quite rare to go that long without seeing them in this place. The Park9s rules require the various safari camps to keep the jeeps 10 yards from any sleeping or feeding lion during the day and 25 yards from any moving lion at night, both for respect towards the great cats and for the safety of the tourists. South Luangwa National Park carries the reputation of being a veteran safari connoisseur9s park because it offers walks as well as drives during the day and night drives 4 rare for big- game African parks. This park also holds the greatest concentration of leopards in the world. Although the most challenging-to-reach of the Great 5 safari parks of Africa, which also makes it the least crowded, we only chose this one because it was by far the most afford- able during the shoulder sea- son in June. Minutes earlier, Tuke and Henry had caught a glimpse of the moonlit lions from 200 yards away through the open 8bush9 of the Mopane forest just as one stood up PHOTO BY CHRIS MORIN Lioness hunting in the South Luangwa National Park, Zambia in the cooling air of the eve- ning to begin the night9s hunt. Each of them had let out a muffled whoop of relief, pointed the lions out to us, and quickly plotted how to reach the pride. A significant stream sep- arated the lions from us, and it took a crazed and careen- ing three-minute drive away from the pride to access a crossing location. By the time we splashed through and got back to them, they were up, moving, spread out. Hunting had commenced. We parked and silently began observing, only later realizing we had arrived in the middle of the pride rather than to one side of it. The night spotter not only carried a single hand- held floodlight he constantly switched on and off in his search for animals, he also had a .50-caliber bolt action rifle next to him, just in case an elephant went bonkers. As a former Alaskan wil- derness guide, I will testify that the guides of Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana are the best trained, highest skilled, most knowledge- able 4 quite simply the best 4 in the world. But anyone, including the best, can make the rare mistake. When we arrived in the midst of the lionesses, we didn9t actually know the current count; over the past five days, some of its mem- bers might have wandered away. It had become the mating season for some. Adult male lions, not part of a pride, form coalitions, and they often have territo- ries overlapping two or three prides. There were no males present tonight. Just as Kathleen and I began to compose our- selves and Tony managed to swivel his head our way all glassy-eyed, a second lion- ess appeared at the farthest limits of the reddish glare. She followed the exact path of the previous one, moving right for us. Part II next week. Portraits OF SISTERS Mel Elder is a member of the shrinking greatest generation. Filled with a sense of duty in the early ’40s Mel enlisted in the Navy during World War II. He spent time on aircraft car- riers and various naval ships. When American troops landed on Iwo Jima, he watched from afar and saw the first casualties arrive within an hour. And when the flag was raised over Mount Suribachi, he observed the his- toric moment through his bin- oculars at sea. On the shores of Okinawa, his ship, the USS Hinsdale, survived a kamikaze attack. Mel proudly calls Sisters home where he spends time with family. PHOTO AND STORY BY Cody Rheault This week’s “Portraits of Sisters” presented by The Nugget Newspaper. Future portraits are available for sponsorship, call 541-549-9941 or email ads@nuggetnews.com for information.