By Kate Turkington
Johannesburg - I’ve swum with dolphins in Cuba, trotted on camels in India’s Thar desert up against its borders with Pakistan, ridden spavined old mountain ponies in the Himalayas and eyeballed blue-footed boobies in the Galapagos, but I’ve never walked with lions.
Not until a couple of weeks ago, that is.
When Willi and Gillian Jacobs, passionate conservationists who own and run Ukutula Lion Park & Lodge in North West asked me if I would be interested in a Saturday afternoon stroll with three kings of the beasts, I jumped at the chance.
Then I began to get a bit twitchy – not about the walking with lions bit, but about a reserve that breeds lions. Would I be visiting a place that was involved in canned lion hunting? What happens to these lions? Where are they going and why are they being bred?
These were my first questions to Willi and Gillian when I arrived at Ukutula, just the other side of Brits, about an hour-and-a-half’s drive from Joburg.
However, my mind was quickly put to rest. I found that Ukutula is a genuine research establishment working with two South African universities (including Onderspoort) and three European ones.
I met volunteers from all over the world – Elaine, a fifty-something woman from near Glasgow who had adopted her “own” lion; Selem, a lecturer from Yale, on her fourth trip to Ukutula; and several young Norwegian students. Willi proudly told me that Ukutula has one of the most successful volunteer programmes in South Africa.
Willi and his staff keep detailed notes of every lion cub born in the reserve and its progress. Some lions are released into the wild, some go to game lodges, others to reserves.
The guided afternoon walk with lions starts just outside the main boma where up to 50 lions are being kept. The “walking” lions have been habituated to humans and know every inch of their walk from the moment they are released to when they return.
Our group of seven visitors strolls a short way into the natural bush where earlier we’ve seen zebra and antelope grazing, and heard scores of bush birds calling. We are briefed about the do’s and don’ts of walking with lions.
Suddenly, three young male lions come bounding past us accompanied by their Zimbabwean handler, Nyasha, who has worked with lions in similar circumstances at the Vic Falls and is an expert at his job.
We follow Nyasha and the lions – Michael, the white lion, and two younger tawny ones, Sesame and Coa – as they make their way down the sand road further into the bush.
Nyasha is feeding them dead chicks as we go and the “boys” are not a bit interested in us. They spring off into the bush, lie in wait behind mounds and tufts of grass to pounce on one another, wrestle and play.
“Just concentrate,” warns Sparkling, the other guide, who stays with the human members of the group. “Make sure you always know where the lions are.”
We stroll, stop, stroll and stop (and concentrate), marvelling at the antics of the lions as we go.
Michael decides to rest in a tree, Sesame rolls on to his back with all four paws in the air and Coa determinedly bounds on. The dam is waiting.
Once at the dam, the lions rush into the water. A young crocodile eyes them warily, hoping it might grab one of the chick titbits as a prize, but the lions are wary and hang on to their prey.
We walked, watched and wondered for nearly two hours, with Willi giving me a running commentary on the work that goes on at Ukutula. That night my friends, Debbie, Chirene and I, dine under the stars before bedding down in the fully equipped, luxury self-catering cottages on the property. At 4am I’m wakened by lions roaring, and have to remind myself where I am.
Later that morning it’s time for the lion interaction programme.
Three tiny two-week-old cubs are brought out on to the grass and we watch them being bottle-fed.
Next, we are introduced to slightly older cubs – including a couple of tiger cubs that make short work of my shoelaces. Although the tiger cubs are the same age – roughly two months – as the lion cubs, they are stronger and more powerful.
They play and pounce, pounce and play, before suddenly running out of feline steam and falling fast asleep on the spot. Then it’s off to the appropriately named “devils”.
The “devils” are lions between three and six months (no small children allowed here), and again we are advised to keep an eye on them and “concentrate”. Seven or eight young lions play around our feet, try to grab our camera bags, have an occasional nip of an adjacent leg or thigh, and are bursting with energy and mischief.
I felt as if I was being whirled round in an eggbeater with me as the egg. Time to relax a little as we are off to visit the adult lions, a couple of adult tigers, some hyenas and three cheetahs.
As we circle the different compounds, something starts the whole of Ukutula off, and a cacophony of lion roars fills the air. The earth practically trembles.
Ukutula is well known to researchers and to schools. Before Christmas, 15 researchers from Germany came to visit, and school groups come all the time. A specially built dormitory can sleep up to 120 carefully watched pupils who undertake school projects and learn about wildlife.
If walking with lions is not your thing, then go horse riding, quad biking, birding or on a game drive, or just chill out in the inviting swimming pool. Come for the day, bring the children (their lion interactions are strictly monitored) or stay the night. It’s a memorable experience and I even have a certificate to prove I’ve done it.
(I also have a multicoloured scratch and bruise on my back to remind me, not of walking with lions but of the fact that I didn’t concentrate fiercely enough when I was interacting with the “devils”. But it looks worse than it is.) - Sunday Independent
FACT BOX
Ukutula Lion Park & Lodge
Tel: 012 254 4780