A Park Reborn: Saving Lions
Working to restore the lion population in Gorongosa National Park, Emmy Award-winning cinematographer Bob Poole and a team of scientists discover an injured lion cub and intervene to save its life. But when a male lion from outside the pride takes over, all of the cubs in the pack are threatened, and Poole finds himself face-to-face with the new pride leader.
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Transcript
The icon for Gorongosa is a lion. There used to be more than
500 lions in the Gorongosa ecosystem. But when all their prey was killed the
lions disappeared and... at the time when I first came to Gorongosa there was
thought maybe to be 30 lions left. But they were hard to find and not doing
very well at all. Nothing would symbolize the rebirth of Gorongosa more than
the return of lions. And so, in 2012 Paola Bouley arrived in Gorongosa to start
a five-year long study. The first thing she had to do was to put some satellite
collars on these lions so she could track where they go and figure out what they
were doing and why they weren't recovering. And so, by filming lions I was
going to help her. Literally, on my first day back in Gorongosa on this new
project we put a satellite collar on the very first lion in Gorongosa. This
guy. Paola named him M02. M for male and 02 because he was the second male lion
that she saw in the park.
This is exactly what I was hoping for. That I would be able to
get the coordinates from the satellite collar of the big male. And plug them
into my GPS and be able to drive right to them. The Sungue Pride is a brand new
family. M02 is only about four years old. With his mohawk he reminds me of Mr.
T. The two mothers, they're a year younger. And the five cubs they're just a
few months old.
Those cubs are so adorable, and when I spent time with them then
I really got attached. And one day we came across the tiniest of the cubs and
she had this terrible wound. Because she was a female she was a really
important member of the pride. Because she would grow up one day to have her
own cubs. And so, a decision was made that we should intervene and try to save
this little cub's life. And so, the vet, Rui Branco, was called in and... to
try to fix her up.
But now we have to find her. We decided to split teams to
cover more ground. Tonga today has given her a name. What do you call her,
Tonga?
Mkombozi.
It's a Swahili word that means the redeemer. Yeah, we're
going to find these cubs whatever it takes. Day three. Now we're getting
desperate.
Other colleagues that were busy doing other things were
called in. Only that big. Let's go.
Jeff and Tginga are expert lion trackers. If anyone can find
Mkombozi, it's them.
We tracked and we tracked. We would find fresh tracks but we
would never get her. And that was hard.
Hold on. Oh, shoot! Got another puncture. I have no idea
where I'm going. I'm just following the GPS. Five days. Six days now. They were
here. The search is still on and it's exhausting. Ah! I just hope we find her
soon.
Where are you? Rui and Jeff just found two of the cubs. Rui,
what do you see?
Rui: Well, I see that she is doing pretty, pretty well and
she's great.
Hey! Oh, my god! I'm digging it. Finally we found them. Rui
says that the cut's healing really well and he's not going to have to operate.
Rui: No infection, nothing. And she's the tiniest of the
cubs. She recovered perfectly. I'm proud of them because of their resilience. It
was one of the best moments in my life.
I would have been crushed if she would've died because you
know, spending that much time with a little cub like that but I really, really got
to like her after she survived that one. But one day this guy showed up in
M02's territory. He was like nothing I'd ever seen before. We had no idea where
he came from but he was wild. You can tell a lot about a lion when you look in
its face. What's its life been like. The first time I filmed him is something
I'll never forget. I'd recently built this low-angle camera mount for my Land
Rover that attached to the side. And I made it for filming lions because with
lions, you know you want to get down on their level. You see them in the eye. You
don't want to look down on them. If anything you want to look up. But, you
know... I'd never met a lion like this guy before. And when I-- One day Rui
gave me his coordinates. He was out with the lion. And I was so excited, I came
in way too fast. And I came in too close. And the next thing I knew I was in a
stare down with this lion. And he was so close I felt like I could touch him. But
all I could see was the scars on his face and his eyes staring straight down my
lens. Over my radio I heard Rui say Whatever you're doing stop right now. And...
I was in a very exposed position outside of my car. And I slowly panned the
camera away from Nginga's glare while his tail twitched outside my frame,
and... I braced myself because I heard the lion snarl and grunt. And then I
heard the grass moving rapidly and I braced myself thinking, That's it, I'm
done. But the lion had sprung the other way and disappeared into the tall
grass. So from that time onward I always came at this lion with a lot more
respect. I actually used to drop a camouflage veil in front of me. I ended up
getting nice low-angle shots of him but... never that close again.
The battle between Nginga, the lion and M02 didn't last
long. M02 lost and Nginga took his females. And you know how it works with
lions. When there's a takeover the males will kill the cubs. It's just how they
work.
Paola and Rui never gave up hope. We were going through some
camera-trap photos and we were clicking through and boom! There's Layla... looking
straight at us. Like, the most beautiful lion photo I've got off the remote camera.
The cubs were only nine months old when Nginga showed up and ousted the father.
They had to run for their lives. We weren't sure they'd be able to survive on
their own.
Rui: And after a week or two as I'm driving in the park doing
some other work, I drive into a bend and there's this beautiful lioness lying
down. I drive close to her and she's calm, calm, calm. She stays there right
next to us... When I look carefully to her, guess who? Mkombozi in great, great
shape. And she's just killed a nyala that was her own size.
Last year we gave her the name Mkombozi which means the
redeemer. Because we hoped she'd help lions make a comeback here. Now she can.
Thank you.