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Published: April 30th 2008
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The Blankest Stare
A sobering look at the face of death. Minutes past 0100, the night hangs heavily over the wilds of East Africa; the bewitching hour begins. A full moon bathes the bush in a dramatic glow, giving it an eerie personality, for it is the dead of the night yet shadows are strewn across the monochrome landscape like lost souls. Save for the confused chirp of a diurnal bird, all is quiet; all is calm.
A female waterbuck relaxes in the stillness, sitting, with legs tucked under her, in the same patch of the Kenyan highlands she occupies most nights. Her shaggy pelage bears the hue of the bush in the dry season - a washed khaki, on the verge of a warm brownish-grey through her midsection - and, despite her moderate size, she cryptically melds with her surroundings such that, even during the day, she goes unnoticed in her place of hiding until she is stumbled upon.
She feels safe here, emerging from her daytime concealment to graze or chew her cud languidly in the open, for here she has rarely, if ever, come into contact with the thirsting teeth and eager claws of the bush which, on a moonlit night such as tonight, would surely glint
Ribs
An impressive rack of ribs . . . but not very tasty, so I hear. Waterbuck is supposedly quite oily and foul-tasting. and flash in their avarice and zeal. No, those dangers do not lurk here.
Or do they? For she is suddenly startled; she senses something amiss, awry. Perhaps it was the snap of a fallen acacia twig, or the hint of a shadow where it had not been before . . . but she is unexpectedly ill at ease. The feeling that no creature wants to experience in the nocturnal African bush rapidly descends upon her; it is a sense of grave apprehension, a sense of impending doom. It is the sense that hungry eyes fall upon her . . .
I awoke to an excitement in the bush not far from where I slept - the anxious whoops of hyenas followed by a suggestion of their giddy laughter. I was intrigued, but also groggy and discombobulated, and fell back to rest on my pillow.
But then, again, more commotion - the sound of something bounding through the bush, maybe several animals, the noise muffled as it made its way through the trees and thick brush and past my banda walls. Then, the noise that sends shivers down the spine, no matter who or where
A lion's-eye-view
Viewing the carcass from a lion's or hyena's perspective. you are: a distinct groaning, a guttural wail like a dying creature pleading for death to come quickly.
Next, multiple pairs of heavy footsteps tearing past by banda, just on the opposite side of my front door. I scrambled out of bed and to the window in time to see the backside of an
askari, flashlight in hand, rushing towards the noise. But I was sure I’d heard more than a single pair of footsteps - was he chasing something? I looked around the moonlit landscape, impressed by how light it was, hoping to catch a glimpse of something that might provide a better clue of what was going on. All I saw were the bouncing flashlights of more night watchmen hurrying in the same direction. As they disappeared, the night appeared to return to normal, and I wondered if the past few whirlwind minutes hadn’t been imagined.
Perplexed, I closed the shades and returned to bed, exploring the possible explanations as I drifted back to sleep. Could there really have been a kill that close by? What had died? And what had killed? I dreamt of glinting teeth and flashing claws . . .
Flies
A fractional representation of the multitude of flies swarming about the carcass. A first light later that morning, the research center seemed abuzz. Jake greeted me with a wide grin and a “What the hell
was that last night?!” We told and retold our versions of the mystery and discussed the probable explanations over a Sunday breakfast, excitedly picking apart each possible scenario. Patrick, the head
askari, informed us a waterbuck had been killed and it’s carcass lay on the ring road near the guesthouse.
Throughout the rest of the day, bits and pieces of the puzzle fell into place as we garnered additional information from a number of sources. While we can only speculate on the details, we have a pretty good idea of what went down:
Two lions caught and killed a female waterbuck in the bush near Kayna’s banda. Shortly thereafter, a pack of hyenas mounted an attack and drove the lions off their kill after a brief skirmish between these two formidable forces (a great example of the bush’s most eminent and ancient rivalry). The hyenas then feasted and dragged the carcass to where it now lies at the edge of the ring road, a couple hundred meters from my banda.
Investigating the carcass later
Waterbuck Carcass
The carcass in full. in the day, I found the macabre scene to be morbidly personified, the ungulate’s hind legs reaching behind it to suggest a bipedal form of locomotion. Clouds of red-eyed, steely-green and -blue flies erupted with each step I took - amazing how quickly decay follows death in the African bush. While plenty of scrap meat remained for scavengers to pick and tease off in the day and night to come, I was stunned at how much of this large creature had already vanished in the several hours of darkness since it had met its end. Most of it, in fact, was gone.
Jake and I decided to revisit the scene that evening after dinner, hoping to find an assortment of scavengers fighting for the last tasty morsels. We could not, however, relocate the carcass of the waterbuck - she had completely disappeared. Not a trace, nothing - in the short time since the sun had set and dusk had given way to night, no evidence remained of the early morning’s drama. Had the ordeal not occurred so close to home, had we not heard it and seen the aftermath, it might as well have never happened; the female waterbuck
Close to home
Just to give you an idea of where the carcass was relative to the ring road - the carcass is on the far right. I, and many of the other researchers, live not far off the picture to the left. might as well have never existed. A sobering thought as I make my way through the dark back to my banda tonight . . .
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The Deadly Night
Yikes! The picture of the ribs looks like Sockeye Salmon! But it's amazing to think of all the animals in the bush you cannot see but who can devour a waterbuck with no trace in hours. Please do not visit the outhouse at night.....M