Unwelcome wildlife watching in Uganda

Footballing lions and eyeballing baboons

By Chris Dowson

I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I heard the screams. Poking my head out slowly into the moonlit wet night air, I craned my head from side to side, keeping my body pressed up against the wall. With no-one, and more importantly no-‘thing' in sight, I fled gazelle like in both motion and temperament, towards the communal dining room.

We were on a tropical conservation course, based at the Makerere University Field Station in Kibale, a beautiful montane forest at the foot of the Ruwenzori mountains, in south west Uganda. Kibale is a forest paradise where brick red dirt supports an abundance of exotic plants, all intensely green due to the mixture of sun and heavy rainfall that alternately bathes the region.

The lions had last been sighted sprawled out on the village football pitch
Earlier in the day we'd had an emergency lecture from the head ranger of the Queen Elizabeth National Park, a sun scorched savannah sitting almost mid belt on the equator and bursting with African wildlife. The reason for her trip to Kibale was that eight lions from the park had strolled the considerable distance into Kibale through a forest corridor and it was her unenviable task to return them. The lions had last been sighted sprawled out on the Kanyawara village football pitch, a clearing in the forest complete with wonky wooden goals fit to make any carpenter cry, on which we were worryingly scheduled to play a match against the villagers later that week.

After showing us how to identify lion footprints the head ranger cheerfully explained in her laid back, stretching Ugandan drawl "I do nat think you shoould worry, I have a stroong conviction that the lions will not attack you". In a counterproductive attempt to put our minds further at ease she then mentioned that we only need lose sleep over elephants as they were the only creatures in the forest that, if stumbled upon, were likely to kill us. The rest of the day was naturally filled with attempts, both successful and unsuccessful, to scare the wits out of each other by jumping out snarling and roaring. When night fell however, the mood of levity was left behind as everyone grew a little more anxious of what was shrouded by the darkness.

I rushed panic stricken into the dining room
Leaving the bathroom, as I rushed panic stricken into the dining room, I was relieved to find the room full of people looking equally unsteady as the screams echoed around us. Terrified, we tried to work out which of our party was missing. The hysteria mounted as we concluded that at least four of our colleagues were being devoured. At this point our course organiser, calm and collected, told us that the screams were not human but the sounds of hyenas around a kill and were actually a recording being played from a tape. Unbeknown to us, the intention was to coax the lions into the open where they could then be darted and taken back to the park. With our dignities' only slightly dented we each breathed a sigh of relief that we were safe for the moment and departed for our beds.

The sound of clattering metal woke me up at about 3 in the morning. Just outside my room, something had knocked over the large steel bins in search of nourishment, from the bins, or from me. Like any curious naturalist my brave response was to pull the thin, feather starved duvet over my head and pray whatever it was would go away.

Baring canines longer than any lions
It didn't. Quivering and breathing loudly as anxiety possessed me; I gently drew back the curtain and readied myself for the unforgiving, soulless stare of the stalking predator. Instead a face similar, at least in expression, to my own peered back at me. Surprise etched on the brows, overshadowing an obvious quizzical intelligence. I only had a split second to analyse the baboons face before he screamed at me, baring canines longer than any lions', and retreated sturdily on all fours, off into the night.

On my return home I have told this storey countless times, though all parts indicating my cowardice were of course edited!