Don’t give me that lion
Nairobi National Park is on the outskirts of the capital of Kenya, where lions are known to roam. This year, less than a kilometer from where I live, a girl named Peace Mwende was killed by a lion. The news hit me hard: She was 14, the same age as my youngest daughter, and the lioness responsible may have been one of the animals we see in our neighborhood almost weekly. Our children are growing up in a part of Nairobi where lions roam free. We see them while taking our kids to school. We’ve lost pets and livestock. Neighborhood WhatsApp groups share warnings when big cats come close — and feature CCTV footage of lions hunting family pets. It’s a conservation headache for the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), which is tasked with keeping people who share space with wildlife safe, while protecting the wildlife as well — especially endangered species. KWS estimates that “just over 2,000” lions remain in Kenya.
What’s missing is greater awareness on how to behave around predators, especially among increasingly urban communities who are coming into contact with them. My children never learned this in school. Their closest encounter with a lion was in 2020, when we took advantage of a post-COVID bookings slump to show them the Maasai Mara National Reserve. An incredibly knowledgeable local guide led us through the southern reserve in a completely open safari vehicle, surrounded by surging wildebeest. On one outing, our guide stopped the car for a passing trio of hunting lionesses. The first strode by, ignoring us. The second looked as if she was going to pass behind the car, but was distracted by the glint of a seatbelt buckle, which my daughter was absentmindedly playing with. The lioness stopped, turned to stare, then wandered up to us. Stretching her head up toward my child, she sniffed the buckle before taking it between her teeth. My daughter sat stiff, perhaps ten inches from the lioness’s head, which suddenly seemed impossibly huge. “Keep still,” the guide murmured under his breath. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.” Her curiosity satisfied, the lioness ducked under the car and moved on.
Although human-wildlife conflict has existed for as long as humans have, predator attacks are likely to rise as space for Kenya’s lions shrinks and their hunting opportunities diminish. This can only spell doom for Nairobi’s world-famous national park, which some already want to see turned into housing developments. I mourn Simon like the friends and colleagues who died on assignment in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. Every lion sighting also still fills me with joy and wonder, in spite of the horrors of that day in 2019. I hope solutions can be found to keep both people and lion populations safe, and that this remarkable wilderness that makes Nairobi such a unique capital city survives for the joy and wonder of many others.
Coexistence comedy
To save money California is combining the Dept of Fish and Wildlife and the Highway Patrol.
The new department is called the Department of Fish and Chips.
A family of lions was watching the tourist come through the African Lion Safari park. The next car had two mother’s and about 8 kids all crammed into a van all wiggling. The papa lion turned to the mother lion and said, “Isn’t it a shame to keep them caged up like that.”
A wildlife biologist walks into a bar and orders a beer. “Did you know that bats actually aren’t blind?” he asks the bartender. “Well that makes sense,” the bartender agrees. “That must be why they are so good at hitting baseballs.”
A dyslexic terrorist has stormed into the London Zoo making random demands.
He has taken six ostriches.
October 9th Birthdays
1970 – Anika Sorenstam, 1994 – Jodelle Ferland, 1952 – Sharon Osbourne, 1987 – Melissa Villaseñor
1953 – Tony Shaloub, 1940 – John Lennon, 1973 – Simon Sinek, 1997 – Jacob Batalon