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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.