The Dead Lion

Mother Nature can be a tough old bird. Just when you think you’ve worked it all out, she throws you a curveball. And sometimes, that curveball can be a life-threatening one, as a game ranger once found out.

If you feed him enough tell-that-lion-story-juice around a campfire, in the middle of the bush, experienced game ranger Kobus may just tell you more about that dead lion.

It happened some years ago, on a Big Five game reserve in the Limpopo Province. Head ranger Kobus heard some radio chatter about a dead male lion, discovered by some of his patrolling rangers.

They said they had spotted a dead male lion, lying motionless under a tree, next to a dry riverbed. Kobus made a mental note to follow up on the dead lion, and to inspect the carcass and determine the cause of death. First though, he had to complete some other pressing head ranger-y matters; he’d get to the dead lion in a day’s time.

And so, a day later, not forgetting about the lion, Kobus headed off to where the dead lion lay, to determine the cause of death and to ensure the lion died of natural causes, and was not killed by a poacher or met another kind of unnatural death.