My name is Bonginkosi but everyone calls me Bongi. I work as a tracker and have been doing this since 2016. I really enjoy working as a tracker because I have always loved animals and when you track them they give you different reactions each time that you find them. I have been tracking since the age of 9 when I was looking after my father’s goats at home. Being a tracker is something that is in my blood. I used to track goats after I lost them in the bush. And I was able to tell which goat it is by looking at its tracks. Today I am going to tell you about a day when I was tracking lions.
It was early in the morning, the sun was rising and it was quiet in the bush, we were just starting our morning game drive. We had been driving for a short while when suddenly in front of us we saw impala running very fast across the road, we were excited and looking for what had made the impala run because we know that if impala are running they might be terrified of something (maybe lion, leopard or any of their predators).
We decided to drive to where the impala were running from and soon we found tracks for lion, very fresh! The tracks were on top of the vehicle tracks that had driven early that morning showing us that the lion tracks were very fresh. We stopped to tell the guests about the tracks and then we heard a monkey shouting about 200m away from us. Monkeys will usually shout if they see predators! We could not see what the monkeys were shouting at because it was very thick.
My guide drove around and I tracked the lions on foot, neither of us could see the lions and we met up again where the tracks crossed the road. We know that the lions have specific places where they love to spend time so I got back onto the vehicle and we went to check where we thought they were heading to.
When we got there we stopped the vehicle and we could hear the lions growling a lot! From the way that they were growling we knew that they must be feeding on a kill and that probably their prey is something small because of how much they are growling at each other, they won’t growl so much over a larger kill.
We drove in to where we could hear them growling and saw that they were feeding on an impala. It was so amazing the way they were growling to each other when they are all family and usually have such close bonds with each other. It was interesting to see the oldest female just holding onto the neck of the impala, not feeding but holding until the rest of the body had been finished by the other lions and then she took the neck to feed on it. I loved seeing how they had been growling so much at each other over the meat and once it was finished they were friendly with each other like they have never fought before, grooming and bonding with each other again.
The moment the food is finished apologies are made and the social bonds are reinforced ©Sophie Barrett
I couldn’t wait to go out on the afternoon drive and see what surprises the bush would have in store for us!
