Mayhem in the Mara

The matriarch charges forward claiming the land on which she will make her stand.  She stares directly into the windshield of the small, white van like a prize fighter.  Ears flared, trunk reaching forward in warning, eyes angry, massive bulk ready to charge…this elephant means business.  Needing no interpreter, she clearly communicates, “Back, the FUCK, off!” Our van is behind the nearest, offending vehicle, but I’m wishing I could ease our Toyota Hi-Ace into reverse and give this pissed off pachyderm some more space.  Shari fires the shutter release of her Canon at 5 frames per second, hoping upon hope that any might be in focus.  Ahead of us, the driver keeps his cool and we all hold our breath waiting to see if Big Mama will back down.  A few tense moments go by until she’s satisfied that the van isn’t coming any closer; they’ve gotten the message.  She lowers her long snout and with one satisfyingly low rumble, an elephantish “harrumph,” saunters off into the bushes to munch on leaves and lead her family toward the river. 

This moment, worth the price of admission in and of itself, is just one of the dozen “National Geographic” moments during our three days in the Maasai Mara National Game Preserve.  What should we expect when half a dozen safari vehicles swoop in along the maze of bumpy, double track to close in around her small herd?  Such a reaction, while inadvertently provoked, is congruent with any mammalian mother who feels like something, or someone, is getting too close to her babies.  Within the Mara, elephant sightings are frequent enough; but, seeing a clustered herd of females and their offspring close-up as they march as one unit from the open grassland savannah toward the thick bush is both truly majestic and inspirational.  In the rush to catch this moment, all safari vehicles within a kilometer or two come rushing in from all directions upon this group as soon as they hear it announced over the radio.  The vehicle drivers all help each other out with wildlife sightings, and openly report what they see to all within the area.  It is a game drive, after all, our driver reminds us – sometimes you win the game sometimes you don’t.

This interaction is the only time I truly feel like we’ve crossed a line between observing wildlife and interfering with their lives.  How could I forget this moment, the fire in her eyes, the fierceness in her intention, her unequivocal message?  For the rest of the drive, we observe wildebeests grazing and nursing their newborns, 

Thomson’s gazelles, impalas and every kind of antelope within the greater Mara-Serengeti ecosystem – allowing us a glimpse into their life.  We see zebras and giraffes with their own young grazing and frolicking in groups, large and small.  The predators reveal themselves as well, though we must show patience as their day-time napping areas become known across the network of naturalists and game drivers.  As we watch, lions, cheetahs, and hyenas tolerate our presence, keeping a cautious eye on the vehicles but otherwise going about their normal routine.  But the brief stare-down we witness with the elephant matriarch has me questioning why we are here at all. 

Has our presence, money enough to travel vast distances, and desire to observe, reduced these amazing creatures to a mere tourist attraction?  The Mara is an open wilderness encompassing millions of hectares where these animals, by the millions, follow the flow of precipitation, vegetation, and prey in an annual cyclical migration toward better resources.  There are no fences apart from the gradual transition to more developed areas of human habitation; they are free to move as their instincts, territories and needs drive them.  So why at this moment, do I feel like my presence puts these animals at greater risk?  Are we loving them to death? 

Ridiculous, right?  I’m just one small western tourist on safari, trying to see the amazing wildlife of East Africa.  I’ve watched them on television my whole life, and I’ve never seen them in their own home.  My intrusion on this moment is the fulfillment of a life-long dream, and I don’t want to miss a single sighting.  From the moment we get in the van and the roof goes up, I am on my feet scanning in all directions at once trying to catch any movement.  My persistence pays off more than once, but the coup de grace is a pre-dawn woodland sighting of three male elephants eating breakfast just off the road.  Even our ever-keen driver missed this one.

  

The park is here because someone convinced the Kenyan and Tanzanian governments that the value of these animals and the ecosystem which supports them are more valuable than what they could be as pasture land for cattle and sheep.  They also believed that thousands of people, like me, would dream about coming on safari and that there just might be some money in it. 

Protection, though, is a complicated job and simply establishing a boundary and a set of rules doesn’t ensure compliance.  People ignore rules here as well as in the US for a variety of reasons:  ignorance, ideology, heritage, greed, or in the case of some poachers, desperation or cultural tradition.  While in the park, we witnessed Maasai herdsman bringing their huge herds into the park illegally, simply because there was no other reliable food for their livestock.  For these semi-nomadic people, these animals are their livelihood, bank account, and food source. 

For all the challenges that these places face, for all the moral conflict, for all the disagreement between local resource needs and a distant federal agency “managing things,” that small herd of elephants is still alive and ready to raise righteous indignation to our proximity.  We are reminded who truly owns the Mara.  I am as grateful for that fact as I am awestruck by the fierceness of her display.  Perhaps, it is because I’m here wanting to take pictures that she and her family can remain here and not be decimated for their ivory.

The ways in which we’ve already screwed up so many wild places are too numerous to count, but we need only look at our extirpation of the American Bison from its historic range within the great plains to see western culpability.  Their migration was certainly no less impressive than the wildebeest of the Serengeti, which now are alive only within the boundary fences of a few national parks.  At least in the Mara, for now anyway, there’s still enough for those animals who have traditionally dwelt here. 

Though this ecosystem isn’t how Dr. Livingston might have seen it, I presume, there is still plenty of magic.  As we finish our second day within the park, we chance upon a cheetah who has just taken down a Thomson’s gazelle.  She’s drug her meal to a small bit of shade by the side of the track and quickly worked through the back half and choicest meat of this antelope.  She’s nervous, and eats hastily, continually scanning the horizon for other predators.  She hasn’t even had time to catch her breath from the chase, panting in between ripping flesh and tearing sinew.  At any moment, a lion, leopard, or even a small band of hyenas could steal her prize away. 

This prize, this experience, this wildlife-dense wilderness could also be taken away from us, if we fail in our stewardship of these last remaining sanctuaries.  Threats swarm around them like so many vehicles of well-intentioned tourists on safari.  Within this context, the warning of the matriarch takes on greater import.  What could become of this place is reflected in the lifeless eyes of the cheetah’s gazelle, which stare through us toward an endless horizon as the cycle of predator and prey continue in this remarkable landscape.  Within their black depths, nothing remains but the reminder of what was. 

Note:  Many photos from this blog post are available for sale on Shari's Redbubble site in the form of prints, tote bags, journals, duvets, clothing, phone cases, and more. galiardisl.redbubble.com.