In February 2018, I was on safari in Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, a desert simultaneously so harsh and beautiful that it never ceases to impress me. The wildlife here roams vast distances in search of vegetation and water. Some species such as oryx (gemsbok) and springbok are so well adapted that they can survive without drinking, by getting enough water from digging up bulbs and desert melons and feeding at dawn and dusk when there is due on the grass!
Two sand rivers that follow drainage lines from an inland escarpment westward to the Atlantic Ocean are the main source of resources for the animals in this area. The rivers are dry most of the time, but sporadically flood when rare thunderstorms rage inland. They are lined with ancient Ana trees whose deep roots tap into underground water reserves. Desert elephants, sensing the water deep below, dig wells to quench their thirst. Several other species including zebras, giraffes and baboons depend on the wells to survive.
During our three-day sojourn, we got to know and tracked two lionesses: an adult (Xpl-69) and her niece (Xpl-114, nicknamed Charly). Charly had two sisters (Xpl-106 “Alpha” and Xpl-109 “Bravo”) and the three were known as the “Orphans”. The sisters had been abandoned by their aunt and were left struggling to survive in a distant desert oasis. Perhaps she felt that there simply was not enough food to feed two more starving cubs!
We watched the aunt and niece stalk and try to hunt a couple of times, but each attempt failed when young Charly’s inexperience and desperation betrayed her. Emaciated and impatient, she would inadvertently alert potential prey. On our final day I wrote – “We finally watched them leave the riverbed and head out into the desert. I had an overwhelming sense of how precarious and fragile their existence is.”
I was able to follow up on my interest in these lions (known as the Orphans) when I returned the following year. We were told that the cub´s two sisters were still eking out an existence by the oasis in the middle of the desert, and after initially catching waterfowl they ventured to the barren coast (It is not called the Skeleton Coast for nothing!) and began scavenging dead fur seals– a dramatic shift from their original diet and habitat. Eventually, they successfully hunted a live seal (watch this video on the story but be warned that it is a little gruesome), becoming adept at surviving in this barren wasteland.
I continue to follow their story on the Desert Lion website, and amazingly they are doing well.
Alpha is raising a cub of her own (Xpl-151 nicknamed Gamma) and here is a recent video of a 75 kilometre trek they did crossing the “desert” from one sand river to the other.
Back in 2018 I would have bet that I would never see them again, and they would be dead within a year. How wrong I was!
Justin
