Media Centre for Volunteer in Ghana

Will Steel - November 2006

Awoken at 4:00am, which is normal in a land of searing hot long days, but not by my alarm clock but by a 10 year old male lion called Zero roaring to Mpho, his 2 year old son! Stumbling out of bed, I tried to piece together whether it was my mind still slightly inebriated from a night celebrating New Zealand’s yet again victory over England in the rugby, or in fact was it a lion at my dorm window. Finding five other volunteers and Mazza (expedition team leader) all looking precariously out the kitchen window, we then watched as Zero walked right through our front yard across the volleyball court calling out to see if his son had caught them any breakfast. Buzzing from our amazing sighting we quickly shoveled down breakfast and jumped onto the research bakkie (South African for pick up truck) to follow the boys on their morning patrol. After half an hour of cruising with the big boys we diverted off to try and locate Giggles the matriarch spotted hyena as we knew she recently gave birth to cubs and had her den close by. We tried to locate her by telemetry (basically a TV like aerial that picks up a signal transmitted by a collar worn by the research animal) but could not get a visual of her, so returned to base. Luckily our timing was perfect as Constant (Karongwe Game Reserve’s manager) had arrived wanting some okes (South African for blokes) to help him lift a cage that he had caught a male spotted hyena in for translocation to another reserve. So off I went with a couple of other okes. I was amazed to see how big the hyenas are when you are eyeballing them as you lift them onto the bakkie. We then transported him to the boma (holding pen) where he and 4 other hyenas are going to be sent to another reserve as Karongwe is currently over-populated with hyena. It was now about 10:30am time to head home for a well earned cuppa and relax before heading out again around 3:30pm for what is never a normal afternoon’s work.