Lynn and Tyler are Mother and Son. They volunteered at the Lion project in Gweru, Zimbabwe together. Lynn wrote an email diary of her time there. Here is an extract:
We made it to the project in Gweru, Zimbabwe yesterday at noon. We have done so many exciting things I don’t even know where to begin!
We got to go on our first lion walk Monday afternoon with two lions that are 15 months old. Well people, I thought 15 month old lions were babies. Not so. We were walking with lions. I mean the male lion had a full main. It was a little scary at first but the handlers definitely know what they are doing. The 15 month old lions are D’mici and Dakia. D’mici is the male. He is a little temperamental. We were taught how to approach them. We did pet them. Dakia is a female. She is passive. She chased a Diker (very small deer) on our walk. The purpose of the walk to encourage their natural instinct to hunt.
This morning we went to elephant training. There are four elephants here that were rescued during a drought about 20 years ago. Three females and one male. We will ride them through the bush during our stay here. We were able to get on their backs etc. during the training.
We also went on boundary patrol around the park (300,000 acres with nonpredator animals). It took us three hours to check the fences on our part of the park. We had to patch holes, etc.
There are three little baby lions, all about 2 weeks old. We suspect we’ll have the opportunity to bottle feed them before we leave. There are also horses here and we’ll get a chance to ride them to spot game (zebra, giraffe, and all the antelope species).
Today, one of the staff walked in with a baby Wilderbeast. He still had his umbilical cord handing down. They were out on a safari in the park with guests and found him wandering around with no herd in sight. He was so cute. They will raise him and release him back into the park. The place here is beautiful. Green grasses, palm trees, a big lake. It is breathtaking.
The way this program works is that there are breeding lions here…about 15. Their babies are taken away at 3 weeks. The mother mourns for about a day but then is OK. In the wild only 30% of the babies live so mother lions are used to losing their offspring. The reason the babies are taken away is that their mothers are unable to train them to live free since they live in fences. The babies are bottle fed by humans for a while and then switch to meat. During their first two years they are taken on 1.5 hour walks two times a day by handlers, volunteers, and guests. They are trying to build their natural instinct to hunt. After about 15 months they are taken on night walks where they usually will make their first kills. At 2 years old a pride is created using information that has been gathered about each lion over the 2 years. There is usually 4-6 females and one male. There is usually one to two really good hunters, one who is a good protector, and one who is protective of food. They let the females pick the male they like. They are then released into a different park and monitored for success as a pride. It is during this time that they are distanced from their reliance on humans. Once they are successful for a few years, they then take the pride and release them into one of the national parks (like Krueger) to be free. It is an incredible program. I can’t figure out how they are going to replenish the 170,000 lions that have died in the last 40 years. In 1975 there were 200,000 lions and now there are about 30,000. It is really interesting what they are doing. Currently they have one group that will be released as a pride. They are ready to go when the fencing is complete on the property next door.
The volunteers here are of many different ages. Ralph from Seattle was 60 and he just left. There is Michael from Holland, he is 20+, Peter from Philadelphia and he is 20+. There is Rachel who is probably late 30’s from Australia. There is Beccie from the UK, she is right about 30. Liz from the UK is about 24 and Sophie from Sweden is about 24. There are three ladies arriving tomorrow, one in her 20’s, one in her 30’s, and one in her 40’s. Another lady arrives on Monday and she is 45 from the UK. It is an interesting mix of people and makes for a lot of fun. Everyone sits by the fire every night and eats marshmellows and laughs.
We are having the time of our lives!! I’ll send another update in a day or two if the electricity holds out. It went off yesterday afternoon right after we arrived and didn’t come on until this afternoon. They have a generator that powers the lights and a few other things but the computers are not powered. The showers are warm….heated by wood. Thank god!
If you would like to find out more about our projects in Zimbabwe, click HERE
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One clear advantage of the Victoria Falls project were all the other activities that you could do whilst there. In the 2 short weeks that I was at Victoria Falls I managed to fit in a day trip to Chobe National Park in Botswana where we saw lots of game from our boat on the river and then drove through the park in the afternoon; a full day’s white water rafting; an adrenaline-packed morning of bungee-jumping and bridge-swinging on the Zambian border; and an overnight trip to the project-owned private island of Chundu where we stayed in luxury tents, swam in the Zambezi river and played beach volleyball. I would also have enjoyed a day-trip to the sister-project in Zambia but there were some difficulties arranging the transport for that day. Of course, visiting the Falls themselves was also an experience not easily forgotten.
