Lions and humans are in conflict in the wild parks of Uganda
Last October, I gazed out at the expanse of Queen Elizabeth Park, in Uganda, close to the comfy Mweya Safari Lodge where we were staying. The landscape was beautiful, peaceful…and kind of empty. Though we had seen a large and lovely herd of elephants the evening before, on this fine, clear morning, the habitat was clearly missing one of the most important parts of the eco-system: predators. All we could find were tracks.
We gazed down at the enormous cat foot prints, still clearly cut into the mud, and looked to Dr. Ludwig Siefert, a Makerere University lecturer, lion ecologist and our guide for the day. He explained the situation to us: The footprints belonged to a lovely female lioness who was clearly recently here, and tragically was no longer. This lioness, like many other predators in the area, had met a painful death by poison.
Later that day, we came across 3 juvenile lions, scruffy and likely to be hungry; they had lost their chief bread winner.
Our night drive also proved surprisingly empty. Dr. Siefert and his team sent hyena calls into the starry night, only to receive a quiet response. Eventually we saw four hyenas. Great news, except that our teen trip in July had observed thirty of them. It seemed likely that many hyenas were killed in the three months that had passed since then. This is not what we expected when we came to Uganda.