On a recent visit to Zambia, a Peace Parks team gets invited to join a lion collaring operation in Sioma Ngwezi National Park. A young female that was collared a while ago has grown and her collar needs adjusting. After tracking her pride by vehicle over 30km of rough terrain, they find the lioness and quickly move to dart her.
The collaring is successful, and the crew settles in to wait until she is fully awake to ensure she does not get attacked by other predators while sedated and unable to protect herself. Just before sunrise the meds are out of her system and the lioness heads off to pick up with her pride.
From here, it appears to be a straightforward exercise, return to base camp. However, as we have seen many a time in these wilderness landscapes, things do not always go according to plan.
A short distance from where they left the lioness, the rough terrain claims another three tyres, which means everyone needs to travel in the one remaining vehicle. To make it lighter, they take turns walking beside the truck. They push on through the bush in a method affectionately called bundu bashing. This is an old African term meaning heading out into the middle of nowhere, in the bush, far from anyone else. The bashing part links to the necessary cutting back of vegetation in order to make headway where there is no road or easily marked pathway.
After managing another 6km the familiar sound of air escaping from a punctured tyre announces that the last truck is going no further.
Luckily, the Peace Parks team is rarely deterred. Gordon and Shadrack decide to walk the last 18km back to camp to get help for the others. Spirits are high, despite having very little water, and the teams settles to wait in the shade. Temperatures at this time of year are high during the daytime, with thermometers reaching as high as 40 degrees Celsius.
A few hours later, scouts arrive to save the crew. They had been following their tracks since early morning when they realised something might be wrong when no-one showed up for breakfast. The happy crew all squeezed onto the back of the scouts’ truck and moved to catch up with Gordon and Shadrack. When they eventually did, the duo was in dire need of water as they had walked nearly 12km through thick sand! Peace Parks Foundation is full of passionate professionals who dedicate their careers to protecting and restoring the fragile ecosystem of Africa. This requires trips to remote areas where they sometimes get into sticky situations like this one. However, a bit of sunburn, a few scratches and small bruises are a small price to pay for big conservation wins and unforgettable adventures.
