I’m gonna take you on a journey with the
two most reviled creatures in Africa
lions and elephants for me it’s about
them being so rooted to the earth but
being so spiritual at the same time but
they’re disappearing they’re collapsed
this is genocide
we brought you here to talk about wild
things to creatures we really love lions
and elephants but if you’re in Africa
and you have an elephant in your garden
it’s pretty problematic but we want to
help Africa save these creatures the
central part of this evening is this
book that we’re just coming out with
here and earth the sky you’ll see what
I’m getting at with that title as we go
in 1991 I went to Central African
Republic and I was hooked up by the
National Geographic with a man named
Mike Fay and we would go to this
clearing it’s called the zanga by and
it’s a it’s the mecca for forest
elephants in forest elephants are hunted
throughout there rains they always have
been they are still hunted so all of my
experiences were with elephants for the
next 15 years our elephants that are
afraid of it that’s the clearing and the
operative thing here is this is the
mecca for forest elephants well what’s
going to happen in this story is here in
2013 that is an ivory dump and the
rebels that just invaded kill 50 of
those elephants because you can now fund
your insurgency with ivory that is so
valuable so mike says look Nick I’ve
found a place in Chad where there’s
herds of a thousand elephants so we go
to a place called zaqqum ah it’s in
southern Chad what we’re after though is
an ecosystem story we don’t even know
there’s an ivory crisis but all we find
while we’re there is dead elephant after
dead elephant these guys are doing an
investigation and we switch our story to
the different kind of story there were
4,000 elephants when I was there in 2005
it dropped to 400 these lions are
killing young elephants because the
structures broke normally elephants
would defend themselves against lions
and that’s the heard of a thousand that
became our signature photograph but what
I saw that evening is that there was one
old matriarch leading all those families
and we realized this is not a natural
history saying this is fear they’ve got
the wisest old lady to lead them out of
the park where they can find forage and
she’s you know she’s supposed to be
taking them to a safe place where there
could be water but there were machine
guns waiting that night when they left
the park so 20 of these elephants were
killed at night what I want to make
clear though the habitat is still
perfectly intact so there’s not very
many people out there so it’s not an
elephant human conflict over land this
is purely about ivory and it’s the
ginger we doing the killing in this part
of Africa and they’re really good on
horseback so what came of this story we
raised a lot of money we got an airplane
for the park guards got better equipped
but still these guys were just they’re
just too good but right now that it’s
turned around and they’ve had the first
babies born in the last few years in ins
a coma you know Park guards are
generally not soldiers they’re Park
guards but here they’ve had to become
really incredible soldiers
the color this one elephant who we named
any on the 23rd of May
she’s given up information that Sun blue
but she tells us that when she leaves
the park
she had straight for this certain area
of good vegetation she also got out
there and realized these rains are faked
rains that came too early so she went
back to the park and waited till the
real rains had come
she runs all night she gets within a
kilometer of a road and she waits all
day till nightfall and she crosses the
road and she goes on up so she’s telling
us hey I’m thinking about this whole
thing I know where I’m going I know what
trees I’m looking forward to eat and I
know where the roads are so over about a
three month period and he traveled over
a thousand miles that’s an amazing
statistic
but caller stopped and we think oh no
and she’s been shot
when Mike went out to localize where
she’d been shut out they shot at his
airplane now these elephants are
essentially escorted when they leave but
African parks it’s an organization that
takes over war-torn parks and runs them
like a business carefully so this is the
bull that was shot with an ear shot of
us and probably 2030 bullets were put
into this bull and they got the ivory
back but you know we lost the elephant
and the bizarre thing is I would say 80%
of the killing that’s happening now the
tusks might be that big they’re babies
you know they’re putting it in suitcases
if you’re a Chinese worker in Africa you
get paid 300 bucks a month you can turn
it into 3,000 that’s you can’t mark gold
up like that there’s nothing else you
can mark up like that but these men are
heroes they risk their life every day
the bull elephants that live in zakhmi
they knew where to stay they stayed at
Park headquarters while this is going on
but as I was going along I had still
never seen an elephant you know except
that we’re afraid everybody said you
need to go to with the in Douglas
Hamilton and save the elephants and go
to Samburu where you can see safe happy
elephants and their families so I spent
a good bit of time over two years in
Kenya with elephants where I had a
translator a young Samburu man that was
the research assistant who didn’t
identify six hundred different elephants
on site so I’m no longer running away
he’s probably 15 years old and just have
a fun lunch Kim okay and so you can you
know they I start seeing things and what
we would do we wear the same clothing
every day same car we don’t approach
them and they come to us all the
barriers and all the decisions are made
by the elephants and I got started
thinking about elephants in a very
different way this is a young male that
wants to follow the winds and harass the
girls and they’re standing guards and no
you’re not going to follow us across
this river
that’s Babylon of the biblical towns
that’s her the big one with her daughter
her daughter’s daughter and her
daughter’s daughter’s daughter all three
newborns so she’s about sixty the twelve
hours of daylight of these days was just
unbelievable and you just get into their
world and I started seeing the thing
know it’s gonna rain three days before
it’s gonna rain they they could think to
mourn the dead they oh this is Saturn of
the planets and only two of those kids
are hurt the others she’s adopted and
she’s a doting mother she’s this
planet’s her off somewhere else and
she’s doting over these kids she’s
taking care of she’s guarding them while
they play Navajo of the American Indians
4:00 in the morning
elephants lay down in moonlight this is
a young boy that’s taken over the mud
hole and kicked the family out male
elephants have to leave the family when
they become sexually mature so they end
up kind of walk in the earth alone
trying to find a buddy or somebody they
played with when they were young one of
the things that I saw at Samburu that
didn’t become clear until recently in
Tanzania not only have their family
group there’s clans and so when I would
see Babylon leave the
park to head for rain clouds and she’d
have these four other families with her
that was the clan and they were going
out to the forage Boone is 65 years old
and that’s Maya Angelou and the poet’s
just loving up on him and there’s no sex
involved he’s just been away for a long
time he’s he’s 65 years old so they’re
telling how much they love him so we
just became very emotional and I knew
then that I had to do this book so I
started thinking about earth the sky for
me it’s about the elephant being so
rooted to the earth but being so
spiritual at the same time and I feel
this intensely as she can walk away but
she’s playing so there’s an elderly
woman in Kenya she’s fifth-generation
Kenyan and Daphne Sheldrick probably 40
years ago she adopted her first orphan
elephant and today Daphne has this
orphanage in Nairobi and they once they
get bigger they can go back to the wild
and sob oh these guys are 2 years old
and they should still be infants but
they’re going to be the matriarch so
these 6 months old and that’s so when
the orphans come in they’re immediately
socialized with the the other elephants
who say to them I know you’ve had a
rough go but these people are ok don’t
think that this is some kind of
incredible success it is successful
because they become ambassadors but most
of the babies die they’re just too
traumatized they’ve got to have all this
love and if they if they’ve had much
time with wild elephants they just going
to give up and die but what I was amazed
at is you know all of these would have
been under their mothers out there in
Samburu but they’re taking care of this
little babies the men sleep with them
but they don’t sleep with the same
orphan every night so they don’t get
imprinted so they don’t have this
tragedy of getting homesick when some
guy goes home on his vacation
it’s an incredible process and the
blanket is the mother
they’re almost blind they can’t really
control things they’re wobbly and
they’re touching that blanket and this
one died and these guys get upset with
everyone these deston have incredible
emotional investment and that’s a two
and a half year old takes 11 men to pick
up a two and a half year old elephant
and it died the next day but the cool
part about when they go back to the wild
and this is where this comes full-circle
is northern Tsavo got shot out a long
time ago and the vegetation started to
change because elephants weren’t there
anymore it closed up it got hard
herbivores all disappeared because the
veg wasn’t right elephants play an
incredible role in the ecosystem so they
put the orphans back in northern Tsavo
and the wild elephants are out there in
their life he it’s safe up north again
and they go north murca was found in a
thicket her mother dead with that spear
in her head up to that hand and they
thought this elephant is never going to
be able to deal with humans again well
she’s been there about a year at this
point and we decided well we’ll just
show her the spear see but we’ll do it
very quietly in the hole
maybe five minutes that I was making
these pictures she’s touching that spear
and touching that place where it came
out of and touching it and she didn’t
get upset we were very respectful but
well the amazing thing is that she is
knows the difference between good humans
and bad humans or however you want to
put it it’s not that simple but because
the men that killed her mother we’re mad
at the park because of some elephant
issue in their gardens Africans are
generally afraid of elephants not the
pastoralist but the Janina the the
agriculturalists these kids come from a
town village that completely has
elephant problems and these are Tsavo
elephants
and these kids work incredibly
frightened just shaking after they got
out of the bus and then massima came
over and just disarmed them
she just play so they get milk every day
and they’re going to stay dependent as
long as they need milk and then they
eventually just go off and don’t come
back but they form orphan groups they’re
not going out and joining wild groups
they form their own herds and then they
go out so back to northern Sava these
are adult orphans that have babies that
come visit when they get poison arrows
in them the vet puts them down they take
the arrow out and they go back out they
come in to have their babies because
they feel safe back at the stockades
that’s where the wild elephants come to
drink and he stays inside the electric
fence in northern Sava so when the
orphans came they literally opened up
the veg the herbivores came back and now
the Predators are coming back this is
not some pie-in-the-sky theme these
orphans have recolonized northern Tsavo
and another interesting thing about is
when the the babies are going to leave
Nairobi they put them on a truck it’s
about a six-hour drive so that’s early
in the morning early in the morning at
the release that stockades in northern
Sava the or ex orphans they call them
come and wait for the babies to get
there and they just go whack over I’m
trying to steal them and they’ll they’ll
take them and they go off and have them
for a few days they’re like oh we can’t
give them milk and they bring them back
and get them back to the orphanage so
you know stuff that’s unexplainable so
we for five years we’ve planned a story
about lions I wanted to go to the mecca
of Wildlife Serengeti we needed to do a
lion story Lions are disappearing
they’re they’re collapsing the star of
our story became this black mane male
lion who’s called sea boy in the study
and female lions favor the black mane
over the blonde mane are the slightly
yellow Mane or the different colors that
this is one badass
the science says that they can count so
if they hear three roars and there’s
five of them they know they’ve got the
other guys outnumbered and they go after
him now he’s not happy with the car this
is the in this case it’s our first night
with him we’re following him on his
escapades and we’re learning about lion
mating and what this is is usually about
two weeks every seven minutes think
about that it’s you and you get bitten
after every every time it’s our first
day with our pride the vumbi pride first
day and they’re starving it’s the dry
season the Cubs are mangy everybody’s
starting but at sunset they all laid in
a wheel they saw what hard is going to a
home
I don’t know if you even saw it when I’m
jumped over the Collard lady they got
this one out and the Collard lady just
kept digging and she got something to
eat the second but that’s how big they
are when we first get to know them
there’s 14 cubs were born five females
by the time we see them there’s nine
surviving Cubs and eight got all the way
to two years old and that’s what we’re
going to follow and we just saw this
incredible cooperation in care and we
didn’t know who was mother of who and so
this is about day three of them seeing
our little robot car
they never ever jumped at us growled at
us they were just curious some of our
night follows we followed them all night
with night vision and infrared and they
text back to our camp where they destroy
things in front in front of our I pitch
dizzi didn’t tell us about this
I thought the male lion was the king of
the beasts well see boy started showing
up they knew he’s the father and he’ll
door his partner they’re both the
fathers of these Cubs so not a threat to
kill them but there was enough food to
go around and see boy kept growling at
the Cubs and that was the last time he
grabbed the Cubs these five females are
really and we just fell you know
completely in love with them whenever
you see it really close it’s not me
holding the camera I assure you this is
a old female that’s got worn-out teeth
she’s in the barafu pride we know that
she’s made it we know she’s going to
have these Cubs so I started visiting
the bush where she’s at that’s the old
lady’s daughter with her first litter
she’s a little bit further down the
creek bed with her new cook her first
lip
she’s just nervous that the Cubs are
getting too close to us but this doesn’t
happen overnight her mother had the
collar on so we kept I kept checking the
bush because we’ve done the math of when
her Cubs should be born and just in our
roots of going there all the time we run
upon the daughter with tiny new fluff
balls and her mom had fluff balls but as
we’re going through this we know there’s
a set of males that are out there called
the killers two sets of brothers from
the st. pride that’s the prior bumbu is
their barafu is there and vumbi is over
there and this is where the killers are
based so when the killers took over Cuba
where they killed those tin cups over
days and months it killed them and then
the next day the Cuban blue females were
mating with these guys so they’re now
partnered up this is the part about lion
stuff that gets pretty weird and then
the key bumbu females took the killers
over the barafu pride and had them kill
one of those females basically a hit
contract hit and that’s what’s playing
out but meanwhile vumbi is out and
nobody wants their territory it’s not a
valuable territory this the key boom
boom and barafu prides are in a riverbed
that’s exactly what the science says
that lion cooperation comes from real
estate but I was scared when I
photographed the killers there were no
difference in see boy and this is just
our only moment where we could ever see
all four of them they rarely all four
together where they were together when
they’ve been out on a raid
see boy appropriated that zebra carcass
that gone when we found him and it’s
guarded it all day in the hot Sun
evening at dusk he started eating it we
last saw him dragging this toward a rock
outcropping with 14 lines of 20 hyenas
follow he’s calling for his friend he’ll
do as scene healed or Noir I think he’ll
door had a good night a lion can be
exploding with meat like that and the
next day look like he hasn’t eaten in a
year
so they’re partners that’s one of the
vumbi Cubs females just harassing Hilde
or they they kept him on his toes so
we’re in our last trip of three long
trips and we think we’re going to see
the Cubs grow up and then disburse and
that’s the story keeps going well the
females start going into estrus all of
our bum be females except for one the
elderly one one after another went into
estrus and so we had two months of lion
sex that’s hild or you know with the
cigarette that’s why they sleep all the
time now we did learn a lot they do hunt
with the dark moon the full moon is
virtually useless too and that’s why the
way we followed them is so important we
knew every meal that had so we knew okay
tonight it’s dark they’re hungry they’re
going to work tonight but we never
caused them to miss a meal I just want
you to understand we were reverential
about this business so we could watch
with thermal which is a anything that’s
warm-blooded glows and we had night
vision to move the car we would never
turn the lights on and we would try to
get there as fast as we could that was
our idea and so my dream is to go back
and work longer in the Serengeti we had
a little electric helicopter it’s quiet
it’s not dangerous
so at night with dark moon we would do
this kind of work in the light uses
infrared spotlight that we have on our
car
all of these stuff the cameras mounted
on the bumper of our Land Rover
this is night that they killed this
Eiland which is well over a thousand
pounds and see boy immediately
appropriated it came out of nowhere he
opened it up
he ate the backhand out opened up the
insides roared stood up and gave it to
them and twenty minutes later it was
gone again how close are we
I’m sitting like this and they’re
underneath me their tails and stuff are
underneath me and that night I think I’m
holding the flashes the infrared flashes
with my feet and one of the Cubs had
gotten all they wanted to eat came and
reached inside and took the strobe off
my foot and ran off with it and we never
saw it again
thank you
you
two most reviled creatures in Africa
lions and elephants for me it’s about
them being so rooted to the earth but
being so spiritual at the same time but
they’re disappearing they’re collapsed
this is genocide
we brought you here to talk about wild
things to creatures we really love lions
and elephants but if you’re in Africa
and you have an elephant in your garden
it’s pretty problematic but we want to
help Africa save these creatures the
central part of this evening is this
book that we’re just coming out with
here and earth the sky you’ll see what
I’m getting at with that title as we go
in 1991 I went to Central African
Republic and I was hooked up by the
National Geographic with a man named
Mike Fay and we would go to this
clearing it’s called the zanga by and
it’s a it’s the mecca for forest
elephants in forest elephants are hunted
throughout there rains they always have
been they are still hunted so all of my
experiences were with elephants for the
next 15 years our elephants that are
afraid of it that’s the clearing and the
operative thing here is this is the
mecca for forest elephants well what’s
going to happen in this story is here in
2013 that is an ivory dump and the
rebels that just invaded kill 50 of
those elephants because you can now fund
your insurgency with ivory that is so
valuable so mike says look Nick I’ve
found a place in Chad where there’s
herds of a thousand elephants so we go
to a place called zaqqum ah it’s in
southern Chad what we’re after though is
an ecosystem story we don’t even know
there’s an ivory crisis but all we find
while we’re there is dead elephant after
dead elephant these guys are doing an
investigation and we switch our story to
the different kind of story there were
4,000 elephants when I was there in 2005
it dropped to 400 these lions are
killing young elephants because the
structures broke normally elephants
would defend themselves against lions
and that’s the heard of a thousand that
became our signature photograph but what
I saw that evening is that there was one
old matriarch leading all those families
and we realized this is not a natural
history saying this is fear they’ve got
the wisest old lady to lead them out of
the park where they can find forage and
she’s you know she’s supposed to be
taking them to a safe place where there
could be water but there were machine
guns waiting that night when they left
the park so 20 of these elephants were
killed at night what I want to make
clear though the habitat is still
perfectly intact so there’s not very
many people out there so it’s not an
elephant human conflict over land this
is purely about ivory and it’s the
ginger we doing the killing in this part
of Africa and they’re really good on
horseback so what came of this story we
raised a lot of money we got an airplane
for the park guards got better equipped
but still these guys were just they’re
just too good but right now that it’s
turned around and they’ve had the first
babies born in the last few years in ins
a coma you know Park guards are
generally not soldiers they’re Park
guards but here they’ve had to become
really incredible soldiers
the color this one elephant who we named
any on the 23rd of May
she’s given up information that Sun blue
but she tells us that when she leaves
the park
she had straight for this certain area
of good vegetation she also got out
there and realized these rains are faked
rains that came too early so she went
back to the park and waited till the
real rains had come
she runs all night she gets within a
kilometer of a road and she waits all
day till nightfall and she crosses the
road and she goes on up so she’s telling
us hey I’m thinking about this whole
thing I know where I’m going I know what
trees I’m looking forward to eat and I
know where the roads are so over about a
three month period and he traveled over
a thousand miles that’s an amazing
statistic
but caller stopped and we think oh no
and she’s been shot
when Mike went out to localize where
she’d been shut out they shot at his
airplane now these elephants are
essentially escorted when they leave but
African parks it’s an organization that
takes over war-torn parks and runs them
like a business carefully so this is the
bull that was shot with an ear shot of
us and probably 2030 bullets were put
into this bull and they got the ivory
back but you know we lost the elephant
and the bizarre thing is I would say 80%
of the killing that’s happening now the
tusks might be that big they’re babies
you know they’re putting it in suitcases
if you’re a Chinese worker in Africa you
get paid 300 bucks a month you can turn
it into 3,000 that’s you can’t mark gold
up like that there’s nothing else you
can mark up like that but these men are
heroes they risk their life every day
the bull elephants that live in zakhmi
they knew where to stay they stayed at
Park headquarters while this is going on
but as I was going along I had still
never seen an elephant you know except
that we’re afraid everybody said you
need to go to with the in Douglas
Hamilton and save the elephants and go
to Samburu where you can see safe happy
elephants and their families so I spent
a good bit of time over two years in
Kenya with elephants where I had a
translator a young Samburu man that was
the research assistant who didn’t
identify six hundred different elephants
on site so I’m no longer running away
he’s probably 15 years old and just have
a fun lunch Kim okay and so you can you
know they I start seeing things and what
we would do we wear the same clothing
every day same car we don’t approach
them and they come to us all the
barriers and all the decisions are made
by the elephants and I got started
thinking about elephants in a very
different way this is a young male that
wants to follow the winds and harass the
girls and they’re standing guards and no
you’re not going to follow us across
this river
that’s Babylon of the biblical towns
that’s her the big one with her daughter
her daughter’s daughter and her
daughter’s daughter’s daughter all three
newborns so she’s about sixty the twelve
hours of daylight of these days was just
unbelievable and you just get into their
world and I started seeing the thing
know it’s gonna rain three days before
it’s gonna rain they they could think to
mourn the dead they oh this is Saturn of
the planets and only two of those kids
are hurt the others she’s adopted and
she’s a doting mother she’s this
planet’s her off somewhere else and
she’s doting over these kids she’s
taking care of she’s guarding them while
they play Navajo of the American Indians
4:00 in the morning
elephants lay down in moonlight this is
a young boy that’s taken over the mud
hole and kicked the family out male
elephants have to leave the family when
they become sexually mature so they end
up kind of walk in the earth alone
trying to find a buddy or somebody they
played with when they were young one of
the things that I saw at Samburu that
didn’t become clear until recently in
Tanzania not only have their family
group there’s clans and so when I would
see Babylon leave the
park to head for rain clouds and she’d
have these four other families with her
that was the clan and they were going
out to the forage Boone is 65 years old
and that’s Maya Angelou and the poet’s
just loving up on him and there’s no sex
involved he’s just been away for a long
time he’s he’s 65 years old so they’re
telling how much they love him so we
just became very emotional and I knew
then that I had to do this book so I
started thinking about earth the sky for
me it’s about the elephant being so
rooted to the earth but being so
spiritual at the same time and I feel
this intensely as she can walk away but
she’s playing so there’s an elderly
woman in Kenya she’s fifth-generation
Kenyan and Daphne Sheldrick probably 40
years ago she adopted her first orphan
elephant and today Daphne has this
orphanage in Nairobi and they once they
get bigger they can go back to the wild
and sob oh these guys are 2 years old
and they should still be infants but
they’re going to be the matriarch so
these 6 months old and that’s so when
the orphans come in they’re immediately
socialized with the the other elephants
who say to them I know you’ve had a
rough go but these people are ok don’t
think that this is some kind of
incredible success it is successful
because they become ambassadors but most
of the babies die they’re just too
traumatized they’ve got to have all this
love and if they if they’ve had much
time with wild elephants they just going
to give up and die but what I was amazed
at is you know all of these would have
been under their mothers out there in
Samburu but they’re taking care of this
little babies the men sleep with them
but they don’t sleep with the same
orphan every night so they don’t get
imprinted so they don’t have this
tragedy of getting homesick when some
guy goes home on his vacation
it’s an incredible process and the
blanket is the mother
they’re almost blind they can’t really
control things they’re wobbly and
they’re touching that blanket and this
one died and these guys get upset with
everyone these deston have incredible
emotional investment and that’s a two
and a half year old takes 11 men to pick
up a two and a half year old elephant
and it died the next day but the cool
part about when they go back to the wild
and this is where this comes full-circle
is northern Tsavo got shot out a long
time ago and the vegetation started to
change because elephants weren’t there
anymore it closed up it got hard
herbivores all disappeared because the
veg wasn’t right elephants play an
incredible role in the ecosystem so they
put the orphans back in northern Tsavo
and the wild elephants are out there in
their life he it’s safe up north again
and they go north murca was found in a
thicket her mother dead with that spear
in her head up to that hand and they
thought this elephant is never going to
be able to deal with humans again well
she’s been there about a year at this
point and we decided well we’ll just
show her the spear see but we’ll do it
very quietly in the hole
maybe five minutes that I was making
these pictures she’s touching that spear
and touching that place where it came
out of and touching it and she didn’t
get upset we were very respectful but
well the amazing thing is that she is
knows the difference between good humans
and bad humans or however you want to
put it it’s not that simple but because
the men that killed her mother we’re mad
at the park because of some elephant
issue in their gardens Africans are
generally afraid of elephants not the
pastoralist but the Janina the the
agriculturalists these kids come from a
town village that completely has
elephant problems and these are Tsavo
elephants
and these kids work incredibly
frightened just shaking after they got
out of the bus and then massima came
over and just disarmed them
she just play so they get milk every day
and they’re going to stay dependent as
long as they need milk and then they
eventually just go off and don’t come
back but they form orphan groups they’re
not going out and joining wild groups
they form their own herds and then they
go out so back to northern Sava these
are adult orphans that have babies that
come visit when they get poison arrows
in them the vet puts them down they take
the arrow out and they go back out they
come in to have their babies because
they feel safe back at the stockades
that’s where the wild elephants come to
drink and he stays inside the electric
fence in northern Sava so when the
orphans came they literally opened up
the veg the herbivores came back and now
the Predators are coming back this is
not some pie-in-the-sky theme these
orphans have recolonized northern Tsavo
and another interesting thing about is
when the the babies are going to leave
Nairobi they put them on a truck it’s
about a six-hour drive so that’s early
in the morning early in the morning at
the release that stockades in northern
Sava the or ex orphans they call them
come and wait for the babies to get
there and they just go whack over I’m
trying to steal them and they’ll they’ll
take them and they go off and have them
for a few days they’re like oh we can’t
give them milk and they bring them back
and get them back to the orphanage so
you know stuff that’s unexplainable so
we for five years we’ve planned a story
about lions I wanted to go to the mecca
of Wildlife Serengeti we needed to do a
lion story Lions are disappearing
they’re they’re collapsing the star of
our story became this black mane male
lion who’s called sea boy in the study
and female lions favor the black mane
over the blonde mane are the slightly
yellow Mane or the different colors that
this is one badass
the science says that they can count so
if they hear three roars and there’s
five of them they know they’ve got the
other guys outnumbered and they go after
him now he’s not happy with the car this
is the in this case it’s our first night
with him we’re following him on his
escapades and we’re learning about lion
mating and what this is is usually about
two weeks every seven minutes think
about that it’s you and you get bitten
after every every time it’s our first
day with our pride the vumbi pride first
day and they’re starving it’s the dry
season the Cubs are mangy everybody’s
starting but at sunset they all laid in
a wheel they saw what hard is going to a
home
I don’t know if you even saw it when I’m
jumped over the Collard lady they got
this one out and the Collard lady just
kept digging and she got something to
eat the second but that’s how big they
are when we first get to know them
there’s 14 cubs were born five females
by the time we see them there’s nine
surviving Cubs and eight got all the way
to two years old and that’s what we’re
going to follow and we just saw this
incredible cooperation in care and we
didn’t know who was mother of who and so
this is about day three of them seeing
our little robot car
they never ever jumped at us growled at
us they were just curious some of our
night follows we followed them all night
with night vision and infrared and they
text back to our camp where they destroy
things in front in front of our I pitch
dizzi didn’t tell us about this
I thought the male lion was the king of
the beasts well see boy started showing
up they knew he’s the father and he’ll
door his partner they’re both the
fathers of these Cubs so not a threat to
kill them but there was enough food to
go around and see boy kept growling at
the Cubs and that was the last time he
grabbed the Cubs these five females are
really and we just fell you know
completely in love with them whenever
you see it really close it’s not me
holding the camera I assure you this is
a old female that’s got worn-out teeth
she’s in the barafu pride we know that
she’s made it we know she’s going to
have these Cubs so I started visiting
the bush where she’s at that’s the old
lady’s daughter with her first litter
she’s a little bit further down the
creek bed with her new cook her first
lip
she’s just nervous that the Cubs are
getting too close to us but this doesn’t
happen overnight her mother had the
collar on so we kept I kept checking the
bush because we’ve done the math of when
her Cubs should be born and just in our
roots of going there all the time we run
upon the daughter with tiny new fluff
balls and her mom had fluff balls but as
we’re going through this we know there’s
a set of males that are out there called
the killers two sets of brothers from
the st. pride that’s the prior bumbu is
their barafu is there and vumbi is over
there and this is where the killers are
based so when the killers took over Cuba
where they killed those tin cups over
days and months it killed them and then
the next day the Cuban blue females were
mating with these guys so they’re now
partnered up this is the part about lion
stuff that gets pretty weird and then
the key bumbu females took the killers
over the barafu pride and had them kill
one of those females basically a hit
contract hit and that’s what’s playing
out but meanwhile vumbi is out and
nobody wants their territory it’s not a
valuable territory this the key boom
boom and barafu prides are in a riverbed
that’s exactly what the science says
that lion cooperation comes from real
estate but I was scared when I
photographed the killers there were no
difference in see boy and this is just
our only moment where we could ever see
all four of them they rarely all four
together where they were together when
they’ve been out on a raid
see boy appropriated that zebra carcass
that gone when we found him and it’s
guarded it all day in the hot Sun
evening at dusk he started eating it we
last saw him dragging this toward a rock
outcropping with 14 lines of 20 hyenas
follow he’s calling for his friend he’ll
do as scene healed or Noir I think he’ll
door had a good night a lion can be
exploding with meat like that and the
next day look like he hasn’t eaten in a
year
so they’re partners that’s one of the
vumbi Cubs females just harassing Hilde
or they they kept him on his toes so
we’re in our last trip of three long
trips and we think we’re going to see
the Cubs grow up and then disburse and
that’s the story keeps going well the
females start going into estrus all of
our bum be females except for one the
elderly one one after another went into
estrus and so we had two months of lion
sex that’s hild or you know with the
cigarette that’s why they sleep all the
time now we did learn a lot they do hunt
with the dark moon the full moon is
virtually useless too and that’s why the
way we followed them is so important we
knew every meal that had so we knew okay
tonight it’s dark they’re hungry they’re
going to work tonight but we never
caused them to miss a meal I just want
you to understand we were reverential
about this business so we could watch
with thermal which is a anything that’s
warm-blooded glows and we had night
vision to move the car we would never
turn the lights on and we would try to
get there as fast as we could that was
our idea and so my dream is to go back
and work longer in the Serengeti we had
a little electric helicopter it’s quiet
it’s not dangerous
so at night with dark moon we would do
this kind of work in the light uses
infrared spotlight that we have on our
car
all of these stuff the cameras mounted
on the bumper of our Land Rover
this is night that they killed this
Eiland which is well over a thousand
pounds and see boy immediately
appropriated it came out of nowhere he
opened it up
he ate the backhand out opened up the
insides roared stood up and gave it to
them and twenty minutes later it was
gone again how close are we
I’m sitting like this and they’re
underneath me their tails and stuff are
underneath me and that night I think I’m
holding the flashes the infrared flashes
with my feet and one of the Cubs had
gotten all they wanted to eat came and
reached inside and took the strobe off
my foot and ran off with it and we never
saw it again
thank you
you
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