A Rugged Ranger Remembers

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A lioness called Scar-neck and her two sub-adult cubs

I saw the lion tracks and knew this particular lion by her spoor.  As soon as I had identified them I said to Richard my tracker that I would like to track them.  I wanted him to go down to the next road and check if they had crossed over.  While I was asking him to do this I called over the radio to ask which other rangers had seen the tracks.  I knew that someone had driven past them already, so I asked who it was.  Turned out to be Gary, and I laughed when he replied over the radio that it was him.
I was still laughing to myself when I started tracking and was not concentrating on the job at hand.

Unbeknown to me I was walking straight in the lions direction and did not hear the first warning from them. Richard had heard the warning from the lions and he was laughing at me because he just knew what was going to happen. At this stage I was only about 100m from the vehicle and my guests had heard the lions too.  I carried on walking and suddenly three lions charged at me.  I got such a fright I took a step backwards and I brought up my rifle to just above my head.  And I was stuck !!!  I had impaled myself on an acacia tree.  The thorns were caught in my uniform and my skin.  I was well and truly stuck in the tree. 

I looked at the three lions in front of me and they charged.  I tried to pull my arm forward and by doing that moved a tree branch.  The lions saw the branch move and moved closer to me growling all the time.  Each time I moved, so did the tree, and so did the lions !!! 

Eventually with a lot of patience I freed my arm and was able to cock my rifle.  It was only then that I knew that I was going to get out of this mess.  My adrenelin was pumping by now and I slowly moved around the tree one step at a time.  The lions were glaring at me and each time I took a step backwards they would growl.  At last I was far enough away from them to walk normally back to my vehicle.

Richard was still laughing hysterically at the pickle I had got myself into.  When the shocked guests asked why he was laughing, he just broke down laughing even harder.  I learned a very valuable lesson that day – Pay attention at all times in the bush!!!

The End.

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