‘Lion on the loose’ — just another day in South Africa

A lion rests at Kisumu Impala Sanctuary. Lions are facing extinction. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • It turns out that the lion on the loose headline was underpinned by another story that just won’t go away — climate change.
  • The cat apparently enjoyed some success after its escape, killing and eating an Eland, prompting warnings for anybody cycling or hiking close to the park to be “cautious”.

“Turning from the latest worrying details of state capture, there is a lion on the loose near the town of Beaufort West,” said the television news anchor.

Then she laughed, adding: “Just another day in South Africa.”

And that, indeed, that is how it seems to be going in South Africa these days.

Of course, there have always been lions in this part of the world, and it has only been a matter of decades — mainly the latter part of the 20th century and into this one — during which Africa’s famed big cats could only been seen in parks and game reserves, rather than wondering through the untamed African savannah.

CHAOTIC LANDSCAPE

But having a lion or the occasional hippo moving around populated areas and outside of designated and protected zones is extremely rare these days.

What is not so rare is the strange, unusual and outright alarming news items of all sorts living “cheek by jowl” with each other in what seems to most observers to be an increasingly chaotic landscape where climate change, politics, corruption and bizarre animal events are piling up, one upon another.

So it was that the TV anchor, having just completed an analysis of the very concerning details emerging from the running commission of inquiry into state capture — the system of graft, influence-peddling and outright thievery which developed under former President Jacob Zuma — moved, as it were, on to a more “light-hearted” story about the escaped lion.

CLIMATE CHANGE'

It turns out that the lion on the loose headline was underpinned by another story that just won’t go away — climate change.

In this instance, extremely heavy downpours — an increasingly familiar aspect of rapidly moving climate change in this region — caused erosion of a game fence at the Karoo National Park, providing the enterprising big cat a means to get under a barrier specifically designed to keep dangerous animal in and poachers out.

The cat apparently enjoyed some success after its escape, killing and eating an Eland, prompting warnings for anybody cycling or hiking close to the park to be “cautious”.

Tourism authorities in the central Karoo town of Beaufort West said the lion had been at large for several days, adding that new tracks had been found about 7km from the park boundary.

SANParks, which oversees all of SA’s national parks and game reserves, called for people in and around the town or near the park boundaries “to be careful because often when people spot a lion they stop to take pictures”.

Rather, anyone spotting the lion has been asked to inform the local authorities.

It is not the first time that a lion has escaped from the park. A lion named Sylvester famously escaped, twice, in 2015 and 2016.

During his first escape‚ in June 2015‚ he evaded capture for three weeks and wandered more than 370km, it was reported.

He was moved to a private reserve in the Eastern Cape Province after his second escape, subsequently settling down in his new home and where he started a family with two cubs so far.

No sooner had viewers taken in the fact that a lion has been wondering around for several days near a major town, than the spotlight of attention switched to troubled flamingos, thousands of whose chicks are endangered by pollution and climate change-driven drought.

Some weeks back more than a thousand chicks were removed from their parents at Kamfers Dam in the arid region of the Northern Cape province, similar in general topography and climate to those parts of East Africa where flamingos also gather in their tens of thousands.

But despite the initial rescue, the plight of the Lesser flamingos using the dam is far from over, as dropping dam levels and sewage flowing into the dam – the result of human incompetence – are together inexorably causing the Kamfers Dam to both dry up and become increasingly toxic, with an accompanying die-off of the adult flamingos’ main food source.

CEO of BirdLife South Africa Mark Anderson said another pending mass rescue of more Lesser flamingo chicks is imminent, this time numbering some 5,250.

The non-government organisation said that rapidly dropping water levels at Kamfers Dam outside the former diamond hub of Kimberley mean that the dam could dry up completely in the next two weeks.

In addition, the dropping water levels and inflowing toxins mean that a “rapid drop in the density of algae in the dam is imminent”.

Blue-green algae are the primary food source of the Lesser flamingo.

In order for the current year’s hatchlings to achieve sufficient age and growth to fly with adult flamingos to reach to alternative feeding sites, the Kamfers Dam conditions must remain favourable for at least two months – a prospect that seems highly unlikely as yet another climate change-driven drought hits this already dry part of SA.

BirdLife SA says that their efforts to address the sewage discharge inflow problems were successful at first, but due to rapid evaporation rates water levels at the dam are dropping steadily.

Ornithologists pointed out that while the adult birds might be able to handle increased concentrations of toxins for a while, the chicks could not and, in any case, the algae die-off meant that the adult birds would soon have to leave for better feeding grounds, if they can find them. 

Storms in the region late last week were welcomed but were far from sufficient in terms of run-off from the parched land to fill dams.

The Lesser flamingo is on the verge of being declared a threatened species, with the drying Kamfers Dam just one of only four known breeding sites for this species in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Consequently, an urgent meeting has been called between conservationists, ornithological experts and local authorities to deal with the avian emergency.

Even the chicks already rehabilitated at great expense, involving a large number of man-hours as they are difficult creatures to sustain out of their natural environment, cannot be released back into the care of the adults at the dam because of the worsening eco situation there.

If it goes ahead, as seems certain, the rescue will be unprecedented, even for South Africa which has previously seen massive rescue efforts for oil-polluted penguins and other marine birds.

The cost will run into the millions of dollars and require literally hundreds of volunteers to help clean and feed the rescued fledglings.

By comparison, the TV anchor’s return to coverage of the outrageous antics of government officials in high places being blatantly “on the take” seem something of a “return to the new normal”.

In a country where what used to be “normal” is rapidly becoming something of a fond memory, the “new normal” is a wild ride through human misconduct, destabilised politico-economic conditions and a rapidly altering weather regime that threatens both fresh water availability and security of food production.