More of the Kalahari

The tents we put are "lion proof". The tents are made of heavy duty canvas that is cross weaved so if they do put a claw in, it only goes an inch or so. Apparently this makes it "lion proof". We were under strict instruction that if we had to go out at night, we were to go in groups or call Tim and he would go with us. We had hyenas in our camp the first night (never heard them, but the tracks were there in the morning). We heard the lions talking to each other at about 3am. I thought they sounded far away (which helped me sleep), it wasn't until the morning I found out they were only 500m away. The next morning at sunrise (530am augugh), we went on another game drive to find the lions. We finally found them a couple of kilometers down the road. They commonly follow the road to travel (its easier). There was one male and 2 females. Becca got some great close up shots as they were only 25 feet or so from the car. There are 5 prides of lion that live in the Kalahari, and the researchers are doing a lot of stuff with them. Apparently 6 years ago they stopped breeding for 3 years. No one is really sure why, and then 3 years ago, they started breeding again, but this time all of the cubs survived (usual death rate ~95%). They are trying to find out why. We returned to camp and sat in the heat for a few hours. I tried to sleep, but it was too hot in the tent. We went out again in the afternoon. Becca and I were riding on top of the land rover and got quite a sunburn (even using sunscreen). Once we finally stopped, we saw rain coming in. I thought it was actually kinda fun to see the rain roll in across the desert. (btw, the desert is covered with grass that is about 2 feet high and looks like johnson grass. there are a lot of scrub bushes except on the pans, and a few small trees. under everything is only sand). It wasn't as much fun when we went to camp and had to fix our tents and collect the things that had blown away/gotten wet. That night we all went to bed a little early we were so tired. I learned a lot of things however from quizzing Tim incessantly. He showed me some basics of tracking (what the prints looked like, how to tell how old it is). And I just learned a lot of random facts about the animals. Kodo can tolerate raises in their core body temp, they dont sweat, and they can stop urinating to conserve water. They excrete a concentrated uric acid pellet instead. They are the most adapted of the desert antelope. Lions travel in prides which consist of the lioness, a dominate male and perhap a couple others (if there is more than one male, they are usually related), and the cubs. Males come and go and they are only there to breed and protect the lionesses from other male lions. The lioness hunts and protects the territory. Once a male is 1-2 years old, he is kicked out of the pride and spends some time in solitary until he can take over a new pride. Once he does, he kills all the cubs of the previous male (unless the lioness can hide them). Male lions often only live to be about 5 years old in the wild and are usually killed by other lions (if not by humans). The government prohibts the killing of lions and reimburses you for the loss of an animal if it is killed by a lion. what else.... ostrich's share the responsibility of sitting on the nest. Giraffes live to be about 15 years old. Rhinos and hippos stomp out fires if they see them. Elephants are very aware of their surroundings and are actually amazingly quiet. There are a number of lion prides in northern botswana that have learned to hunt elephants. I'll think of other stuff later. Gotta get back to clinic.