National Park After Dark - Death By Lion: Tsavo National Park

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

Man eaters. Two words that send shivers down your spine and spark a deep, primal fear. Come along with us as we spend this week in Africa discussing the famous Tsavo man eating lions – with a twist. The grisly tale of what happened here in 1898 is undoubtedly among the most notorious tragedies in Kenya, but what can we learn from it? What drives lions to hunt humans, and will they ever stop?For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We've all been there. Whether we purchased our ticket willingly, we're part of a school group, or were brought there on a date. We have stepped foot into a museum. Buildings that serve as time capsules, artifacts on display from ages past. The starry night sits in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The painting seemingly plucked from Van Gogh himself. Reconstructed mosaic street tiles sit under bright lights in the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Pieces of history that the people of Pompeii walked on moments before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed their city forever. And in Amsterdam, photos stay glued to the walls 78 years after a teenage girl decorated them with her favorite postcards and pictures of movie stars in the Anne Frank house.

From artwork to artifacts, thousands of displays. items in museums around the globe sit silently, waiting to come alive again in our eyes. Some exhibits, though, we may want to keep frozen where they are, suspended in time. The Field Museum in Chicago is a marvel of a museum at over 480,000 square feet and made of towering white Georgia marble. As you open the doors, you are immediately greeted by towering ceilings and sue. the 42-foot-long T-Rex. As you wander the main floor, footsteps echoing across the 300 million-year-old fossilized limestone flooring,

you'll realize that this is just the start. This building holds thousands of artifacts and specimens from around the world. But one exhibit is now home to a pair of creatures that once wreaked havoc. A pair of brothers now stand motionless. stuffed safely behind plexiglass, where you can lead in close to study their tufts of tawny fur, large paw pads, and the curvature of their claws. You, yes you, are one of the lucky ones. You can see them up close and walk away with your life.

Not everyone who encountered this pair was so lucky. Every museum piece has a story to tell, and in this case, it's a gruesome, this is the story of man-eaters. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hey everybody, welcome back to National Park After Dark. My name's Cassie. And I'm Danielle. We hope you guys all got out on some adventures this past week, got out into some sunshine,

out into the mountains, wherever you are. Hope you've been enjoying the outdoors. Well, today, I saw you were on the long trail, right? Yeah, yeah, I had my own little adventure. today. I actually just got back. Actually, I headed out to Smuggler's Notch State Park today, and it's really close to where I am, and I haven't been there that often. And today I decided, you know, I got to explore my backyard kind of thing. And I found something kind of cool, which I thought I would share. I was just walking around on the trail, and you know how they

have those little info signs that have like a history and it has little picture and stuff like that yeah I've never been one to read that much into them um if it has if I know it says something about the area like geologically I'll read it and be like oh that's cool but the history ones I've always kind of bypassed and I don't know why I don't know why it's because they're so wordy and I just want like a picture and an animal and to be like oh yeah and like keep going I don't it's just like I've always skipped over them so today, especially with all the research we've been doing, I decided to read it. And I was at, there was this rock cave. So there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of climbing and bouldering over there and

stuff. And I was at this rock cave where there was a photo there. And it was saying, when I read it this time, it was saying that it's called smuggler's notch because back in the 1800s when the, when the war was going on, there was a ban on imports and exports from Canada. So people were actually smuggling goods through the cave systems and through like rock formations and stuff through that area because it was a lot less secluded or it was a lot more secluded. So the whole reason that this region got its name, Smuggler's Notch, was because people were smuggling stuff through that area in the 1800s. And I just thought that was really cool.

I never knew that. Yeah. Yeah. Because you don't read the signs. I mean, I guess I don't either, because I didn't know. But I guess my whole takeaway lesson from today is read those little signs because they have interesting information in stuff you might not even know in your own backyard. That's really cool. Yeah.

Before we get off topic too much, I know that you have a really interesting story today. And this is your first story that you're telling that I'm actually really nervous to hear. One, because it's in a place that is on my bucket list to go. And two, because it's going to be really scary. I'm not going to let it ruin my bucket list place, I hope. I think I'm scared. I really hope it doesn't. But I will say, I want to make it very clear, that this is a really graphic episode.

And it's really upsetting. Like, I'm upset. It's a tragic story. You're really not making me feel better about this whole, like, I'm going to be scared. And you're like, yeah, it's. It's horrible. You should be. Thank you. Well, I don't know. Everybody has their limits. And sometimes that is hearing about humans being eaten. So if that's your limit, please don't listen. Because that's what this is about. If you're a, oh, hell no, like this is where you stop. We'll see you next week. And thank you for coming. I, for one, was excited to do this story because Africa has been on my bucket list as well. like it is for many people, but not only because of the continent that this is taking place, but because of the subjects, lions.

I, fun fact, it's just so weird because now in veterinary medicine, anytime a cat comes in, an angry cat, I'm like, oh, hell no. Somebody else can take that. I am not touching that cat. They scare me. I don't want to do it. I know what they're capable of. Leave me alone.

Do not let me go near that thing. I have enough scars. I've put in my time. I don't want to do it anymore. Like, they're nice to look at. They're great. I just don't want to be handling them in that setting. It's like cats are great. We love them. But in veterinary medicine, they are fast and they attack quick. And once they have a hold of you, the only thing you can do is sit there and wait for them to be done. There's no like escaping. If you try to rip away, it's so much worse. You literally just have to sit there and wait until they're, done attacking you. Yeah. Because they'll stop, but you just don't know when. And you just have to be very still and ride it out. And I have the scars to prove it. Moral of the story, as of today,

I'm all good with cats. But back in the day, I wanted to work with not just cats. I wanted to work with wild cats. And at the end of college, my senior year of college, when everyone was going to Aruba and Cancun and going on spring break, I was driving my ass to the Midwest to different wild animal sanctuaries that focus had an emphasis and focus on conservation of lions and tigers. And I did job shadows. I did like I put out my applications like I wanted to be working with them. And now I'm like, I don't know if I'm cut out for that. I went the other way. This story turned you off to that dream completely. Yeah, I'm like, what was I thinking? I went the other way. I went with wolves and some people are like, what the hell are you doing with wolves?

But I have a healthy respect and love for felines, but this story just made me nervous, that's all. And a little more secure in my decision to go with the Canids. So let's go. Yeah. Enough about us. Let's hear it. What park are we heading to? We haven't even.

We're headed to Savo National Park. So Savo is located in Africa. It's a region in Kenya's southwest corner that forms the largest protected area in the country. It is an enormous wilderness which has been divided into two national parks, Savo East and Savo West National Parks. The two parks are separated by the Nairobi-Mumbasa Highway and Railway Line, but together, Savo is Kenya's largest park at nearly 22,000 square kilometers, which is roughly 8,500 square miles. Established in 1948, each side has something unique to offer. So about east is relatively flat, it has a lot of dry plains, and it actually has the Yata Plateau, which is the longest lava flow in the world.

And it is also home to most of the larger mammals, vast herds of elephants, kudu, rhino, buffalo, lions, leopards, hippos, crocodiles, all the iconic species that you think of when you think of Africa. And they also have over 500 recorded species of bird. Me and birds don't get along very well, so that, just hearing that just makes me not want to go. What? Birds either shit on me or they attack me. If I went to a national park with 500 different species of birds, I would come out covered in, my eyes would be pecked out. I would have shit all over me. They would come from me.

They know where I am. They find me. It's just, it's been a thing since I was a kid. I'm very scared of birds because they all hate me. All right. Well, maybe Savo East isn't for you. And maybe you want to go to Savo West. Savo West, on the other hand, is more mountainous and it's wetter.

It has swamps and rivers. It does have bird life and iconic large mammals. But this side of the park tends to be a more popular destination for tourists and visitors. The rock climbing opportunities, guided walks of the Savo River, varied scenery, and a better road system draw people in from around the world. Ecotourism is the main draw to this region, and millions of visitors visit Kenya, which is regarded as the crown jewel of East Africa. And out of those millions, 70% of tourists visit for a chance to experience natural attractions, including the magnificent wildlife that is native to that habitat,

aka 70% of people are going there for a safari. Every guide will be sure. to tell you that every tourist is itching for a chance to see one of Africa's big five, and that would be the leopard, rhino, elephant, Cape Buffalo, and lion. As time passes, more of Africa's wild places and the animals that live there are dwindling in both size and number, and that leaves many of us scrambling to get poked with yellow fever vaccines and swallowing malaria pills in order to get there before it's too late. But it wasn't that long ago. that Sava was the last place anyone wanted to be, and those iconic lions that everyone is scrambling to get pictures of

weren't sought after, but avoided. So our story is going to be taking place in Savo before it was officially established as a national park, which was in the 1940s. And it will focus on the construction of the railway that now separates the park. Built by the British government and named for its ultimate destination, the Uganda Railway didn't actually

actually reach Uganda. Construction began in 1896 in the port city of Mombasa and it stretched through Kenya to where it ended on the shores of Lake Victoria. The railway served as a link between the coast to the interior and allowed various goods and materials to flow between the two locations. It granted easier access for settlement and farming and it also contributed to the safari business because it made transport much easier. of different supplies and things from the coast to the interior. But that route that the railway eventually traveled was already being used by others, and for a long time. For centuries prior to the railroad's construction, porters, which are defined as a person employed to carry luggage and other loads,

they would have to carry up to 80 pounds of materials along that route, which took up to four months from point to point on foot, carrying 80 pounds. That sounds something I'd want to be employed for. Well, sadly, not many of these people were actually employed. They were enslaved. So that made the situation way worse. So different Arab and Swahili enslavers would utilize the area to move caravans of these porters, carrying the different materials and trade goods from place to place. And a lot of that included ivory.

The Taru Desert on the southeastern border of the Savo region, of this route was a place everyone dreaded. Described by Johann Kromp, one of the first non-natives to explore the area, he said it was, quote, weird and ghastly, full of sadness, death, and desolation. Most of the traveling was done at night, as in the daytime the sun was way too much to bear. But even then, the men suffered from dehydration. Lack of water wasn't the only thing to be feared in the area though. The Maasai people inhabited that area and were well known for their violent reputation. Over the years, the death rate along this route was very high. Thousands of people succumbed to the harsh conditions, dehydration, lack of food, and rampant disease. The dead and dying would be left

where they dropped, unburied, and left for Africa to swallow them. The railway would serve as an updated means of travel, but it served another purpose as well. It was a way to actually curb slavery. Since the early 1800s, European nations, which had colonized various areas of Africa, had struggled with suppressing slave traffic. In the late 1800, several international conferences gave rise to different acts to help combat the slave trade. And I won't get into the 19th century jargon of all these different proposals and acts and things like that. But essentially, the goal was to end slavery by eliminating the need for it. Like we don't need you to carry this on foot anymore because we have a railroad. So in 1896, construction of the railway began.

Construction was difficult work. Laying railroad was hard labor through difficult terrain. Thousands of workers were tasked with its construction and men from various parts of Africa, India, and Pakistan made up the majority of the labor force, which brought conflict to an all difficult working situation. These were distinct groups of people comprised of different ethnicities that had their own customs and expectations, and more often than not, they were very intolerant of each other. There was a lot of fights, a lot of arguments, not seeing eye-to-eye, which made construction very difficult. And on top of that, workers suffered from diarrhea, dysentery, scurvy, ulcers, burrowing fleas, and African tropanosomyasis. And, African tropanosy

also known as the sleeping sickness caused by parasites transmitted by the zizi fly, and malaria, which nearly half the workers contracted during the first two years of the railroad's construction. So this is not a good situation. Yeah, this is horrible. There's so many diseases. There's so many things that can get you while you're out conducting this railroad. Wow. Ronald Preston, the railhead engineer, was relieved to had made it past the Taru Desert.

At last, almost two years after construction started on the coast, they were finally in a place he thought would bring relief. The Savo Valley was, compared to the Taru Desert, an oasis. There was food, water, and forest with flowing streams. While pressed inside with relief, some of the men's eyes widened with worry. They knew the name itself was a warning. Savo, to the native Kamba people of Kenya, means place of slaughter. The Masai had been historically brutal here, launching raids on weaker tribes,

killing the men with spears, and then clubbing the women to death. More recently, though, this area was known for mysterious disappearances. It was rare for a group to pass through this area without at least a couple of their men deserting. Deserting was the leading theory, and some took it at face value. It was hard, shitty work with little to no pay, so they made a run for it as soon as the landscape offered some sort of chance for survival, but others who looked at it a little closer thought it was very strange. Why, so close to the end, after months and months of hard labor, leave all of their belongings at camp right before payday and just simply run off?

Yeah, something fishy is going on there for sure. A couple people abandoning it would be like, Okay, but it sounds like there's quite a few people who are just up and leaving, and I think that's a little suspicious too. One day, as the railway made its way to the Savo River, Preston was notified that one of the men had disappeared. A search party was assembled, and the missing man's clothing was found on the riverbank, and soon after, his remains were discovered. Preston said the skull and feet were untouched, but all the flesh had been torn from the riverbank. the body. Paw marks of lion were easily seen all around the remains. So here was the Savo mystery solved at last. This man eating brute was responsible for all the missing porters from the caravans. I have witnessed many an accident with fatal consequences in some of which the

unfortunate subjects have been badly mutilated. But the sight of this skeleton from which the flesh had been ravenously torn was one of the most gruesome spectacles imaginable. The man's remains were buried, and the men were ordered to construct bomas, which are thick brush stockades around their tents for protection. The next day, Preston and a group of workers set out to try and track down the line responsible for killing the man, and although they didn't find it, they found something else. Human remains, and a lot of them. Skulls and parts of skeletons were scattered around the area, and that served as proof that this was not the first attack. and it likely wouldn't be the last.

Word of the discovery spread like wildfire around the camp, and the workers protested. They were scared and wanted to abandon work at the site. They were like, okay, people are being picked off here, and I do not want to be next. Well, yeah, if I was working at a job and then I see a bunch of human remains that have been eaten, no thank you.

You can't pay me enough for that. I mean, I don't think maybe you could, But I mean, money talks, but money talks, but I mean, I'm talking to a lot of money. That's really scary. Yeah, but they were so invested, you know, and they had come this far. And what are you going to do? You're in, like, this is not an isolated incident, as we'll come to find out. So at Preston's urging, they worked in record time and laid railhead quickly in order to get out of the area and out of the reaches of this man eating lion. So Preston was like, okay, here's the thing. We got to get this done. So the faster that you work, the faster we can get out of here, pedal to the metal,

they whipped that thing together as fast as they could so they could get away. Well, talk about motivation. So when they reached Kanani, which is 20 kilometers from Savo, Preston took a tally of the men that had been taken by lions and counted 17 of them. Although his group had moved west of Savo, Preston returned to the area by Toronto. As he arrived, he noticed a man in a tree, frantically waving at him. Please come, he yelled, urging the man over. The man in the tree was a contractor and explained that in the middle of the night, a lion jumped onto his tent,

grabbed the mattress he was sleeping on, and began to drag it away. The man managed to roll off of it and climb up the tree before the predator noticed what happened. Preston gazed several feet from the tree and saw the ruins of the tent. ripped and tattered cloth blowing in the breeze. Is a tree the best place to hide from a lion? Not really. I mean, it worked out for him. But yeah, lions are excellent climbers. But, I mean, what are you going to do?

You're not going to outrun a lion either. The stories that the murderous messiah seem to be a thing of the past. For now in Savo, this place of slaughter, it wasn't the two-legged to be feared, but the four. A few weeks later, in March, civil engineer and lieutenant colonel John Henry Patterson was hired to complete the permanent rail fixtures surrounding Savo Camp and to lay the permanent bridgework over the Savo River. Preston's group of railhead layers laid temporary bridges from timber, but it was Patterson's task to build the bridge over a more durable foundation. When he arrived at the camp, still home to 3,000 workers, he was told of the disappearances.

At first, he thought the man-eater tail was exaggerated and thought that these disavisaged. were due to foul play within the groups of men. They didn't get along after all. But it didn't take long for him to realize that these disappearances weren't the fault of humans. Just days after his arrival, a man named Yungan Singh was taken from his tent. A lion stuck his head through the open door of his tent, grabbed him by the throat, and carried him away. He only managed to let out a single cry. Horrified, his tentmate notified,

Patterson right away, and the next morning, he and veterinarian Captain J.A. Haslam followed the remains of the man after following the drag marks made by the man's heels in the dirt. His body was in pieces and largely consumed, but his head had remained intact. Pieces of his skin had been licked off, and the blood sucked away. Oh my God. Oh, imagine you're sleeping in your tent and you look up and the person you're sleeping next to you, gets grabbed by the throat by a lion and is just drag. Oh, my God. It gets so much worse. As always, it gets so much worse. Oh, okay. Perfect. So a little side note, and when it says pieces of the skin had been licked off and the blood was sucked away, well, licking prey is the norm for lions and for many other felines. Licking their prey before eating it cleans prey of any dirt and it removes the

fur. So lion tongues, I'm sure everyone is familiar with and other felines like your house cats. They are covered in these small hook-shaped growths and they're actually called papillae. And they point towards the back of the mouth and they're used as a brush to separate the flesh from fur and bone. And it drives me absolutely nuts. Every once in a while, there'll be a video that goes viral of a lion, like a lioness. And she has a baby and Paula in between her front paws and she's licking it and the caption is like, look how cute. It's like it's mom and it's grooming it because it's alive. Like the baby and Paula will be alive. And it's like, no, that is not that type of behavior. Like that that behavior, it's feeding behavior. Yeah, the baby Impala is not

dead yet, but it will be. So that licking behavior is a way to remove dirt, fur, and skin from prey items. Okay, I hate, like, I hate the feeling of cat tongues. It's like, I hate it so much. And if I'm about to die, and the last thing I feel is a fucking lion licking my entire body with that tongue, that is like my nightmare that I didn't even know was a nightmare until you just described that. I hate every part of that. Everything about that. Anyways, back to the story. Patterson went on to write a famous book called The Man Eaters of Savo and Other East African Adventures, where he detailed many of these attacks that we're going to talk about. And he has gone down in history for his determination and his bravery in the face of these man eaters. But he wasn't always liked by the people in his camp.

He was known to be arrogant and would carry around a little notebook in his pocket that he would document mistakes being made by his workers throughout the day. like super micromanager. That is like the worst micromanager. He was thought to be unfair with wages and a mutiny even occurred only to be suppressed by local police. And there were even plots. Yeah, multiple two, two different plots to kill him. But some of his workers that actually liked him alerted him to what was going on in the camp

and kind of squashed that. Eventually, the workers may have been thankful that those plots. were foiled, because it was him that helped them in the end. Once it was confirmed that lions were to blame for the men going missing, he ordered the camp, which at the time of his arrival, was spread over miles, to consolidate. And despite Preston's previous request, only some of the tents had the Beaumas constructed that he had asked before. Oh, no.

Patterson built a macon, an elevated platform in a tree, which he would spend the night in, waiting for the lion to approach so he could shoot it down. He had used this tactic in previous travels to India where he had hunted tigers. And just to give you a visual, it looks like a deer stand. That's what I was picturing when you said it. Sometimes he would lie silently in wait. And other nights, he would take animals from camp such as donkeys or goats that had died throughout the day and placed them near his stand waiting for hungry predators to take the bait.

He spent night after night in that stand, only to listen to the same. the shrieks and cries of an attack happening somewhere else in camp, and he would climb down the next morning empty-handed. He laced the corpses of dead livestock with strychnine in hopes of poisoning the lions, and even built traps from pieces of railcars, chains, and wires, secure enough and large enough to fit a human inside to serve as live bait, but no dice. He was eluded at every turn. This went on for a month, with men being taken left and right. But then, In late April, the attacks stopped. From April to November of 1898, there were no lion attacks on the camp in Savo. Patterson thought that the lions had been scared off by his tactics and that they had simply moved on, up the railway to other camps, but no evidence of that was ever confirmed.

What then stopped the attacks? It could have been the bounty offered. In July of 1898, cash would be given to anyone who killed a lion within. one mile on either side of the railway line and up to a distance of five miles east and west of the Savo River. This drew in hundreds of hunters and could have been the reason for the pause and attacks. But the hunters didn't stay too long and they never did shoot a line successfully. The attacks had ceased for so long it didn't seem like there was a cause for concern anymore. The camp spread out again, and the bomas were taken down, and the men slept out in the open due to the oppressive heat. Because November in Kenya is summertime. So now after months of no attacks, they're feeling this sense of security, they don't need protective shelters anymore, and it's hot as hell.

They're getting comfortable. Then the attacks began, and this time they were worse. The lines were bolder, and they would. would grab someone and begin consuming them in front of other horrified workers instead of dragging them off like they did in the months before. Men would shout at them and throw lit torches, fired guns, and pelted them with rocks, but to no avail. Attack after attack made nightfall unbearable. Lion roars would be heard off in the distance, followed by silence. And then the attack. The attacks were so regular that after the roar sounded off and the silence fell, the workers knew what was

coming next. And they would shout, Kabar Dar Bahayan Shataata. Beware, brother, the devil is coming. Patterson didn't give up and sat in wait nightly. Finally, in early December, the first lion was killed. Patterson shot it twice from the mccan he had constructed in a thicket of thorn brush, striking it in the thigh, and then in the heart. The second line was not deterred by the loss of its counterpart and attacked the camp later on. He did not succeed in the attack, so Patterson constructed a blind near the area.

He tied three live goats to a 250-pound piece of rail and weighted, which gives me big Jurassic Park vibes. Yes, I remember in Jurassic Park. They have the little goat just sitting there, just waiting, and then you hear the footsteps. That's 100% what I pictured, only three goats tied to a big-ass rail. And all night passed, the goats just sat there, restless for hours and hours, with no action at all. And then, just before dawn, a lion appeared.

It grabbed one of the goats and dragged it, along with the two others that were tied along to it, along with the 250-pound rail through the brush. Wow, a lot of power. Patterson fired at it. and hit it in the shoulders, but it escaped. Ten days passed with no sign of the lion until it showed up again on December 27th. It forced its way into tents, the scared men fleeing for their lives and climbing the nearest trees. Unsuccessful in this hunt, the lion sauntered off, only to return one last time

the next night. And Patterson was ready. He was waiting in the macaon he made at the location of the previous night's attack. As the moon rose, the lion appeared. He fired, and it finally dropped, six shots later. The lions, nicknamed The Ghost and the Darkness, were finally dead. And if that sounds familiar, it's because it's an way over-dramatized 1990s movie starring Michael Douglas called The Ghost in the Darkness. So, the lions were examined, and Peterson noted that they were both.

both large males, and his account says that they were each nine feet long and almost four feet high. Most interestingly, they were mainless. Patterson was awarded hundreds of rupees from his workers who had collected this money over time as a thank you gift for slaying the lions, but he declined it, eventually accepting a silver bowl with words of thank you inscribed in its sides. As 1898 drew to a close, so too did the rampage of the Savo man-eaters. Estimates of exactly how many people were killed by that pair of lions during the nine-month reign of terror is really difficult to pinpoint, and mainly it's because the lack of official record for everyone involved in the accounts. The Indian workers, who were

hired and on official payroll for the railway were accounted for, and according to Patterson, at least 28 of them were killed. Sadly, though, records simply reflect quote unquote, scores of Africans were taken by lions. African natives that were hired for jobs on the railroad, such as bush clearing and water carrying, were not officially on the payroll, and their names were not written down in any historical record. They were either paid in food or tools, not in money. So, therefore, they weren't on the payroll, and it's really difficult to know how many of them were actually killed by the lions because we know that certainly some of them were we just don't know

exactly how many. And Peterson's number of those taken by the lions numbered 135. Wow, 135 people killed by lions. That is his estimate through the nine months. But remember, from April to November, it was radio silent. There was nobody being attacked. I have to know what was happening during that time? Is it like mating season or something during then that the lions were gone and, oh, we're going to get into that. Okay. So, so if we were going to go off of Patterson's account of 135 people, that means that over the 270 days, the lions were averaging, killing one person every other day. This would mean that the scenario was likely this. A lion would take someone in the night and consume as much of them as possible before dawn,

because this is when the search parties would be coming around looking for the missing person. The bodies were almost always found partially consumed, likely because the lions were scared off by the approaching groups of people. At most, 80 to 100 pounds of meat and organs were consumed, which divided amongst two lions was quite the sizable meal, as lions have been known to eat up to 65 pounds of meat in a single sitting if given the opportunity. From this estimation, it is likely that humans were the main prey source for these two lions during this entire period of time. So they weren't eating anything except for people.

Based on this account with these numbers, yes. That's wild. They literally just chose people as their easiest prey then and just went after them. Just went for it. But remember when the attack stopped, like you said, what was going on during that period of time? Where were they? What were they doing? Yeah. Interestingly, during the dry season, which is when these attacks stopped in Savo,

resident lions stay close to permanent water sources, which makes finding prey much, much easier because different prey species rely on the water source and stick close to the river versus traveling. long distances. And in this season of 1897 and 1898, Sava was going through an especially dry spell that created mass drought, which in turn created this type of domino effect that affected people in local villages. Because a lot of local villages rely heavily on agriculture as a form of feeding themselves, the drought killed all their crops and there was mass famine. Two of the villages just up river from the Savo Bridge are some of the locations where locals were starving. Mass mortality due to this famine was rampant in those areas. And it is thought that the lions encountered those corpses and fed on them when they were not in Savo. So they were eating people

all year, but they just found village that everyone had already died in and they were just eating people who had already passed away. That is one of the leading theories of what they were doing. Yeah. Do they not bury their people there? Do they have other rituals that they do? Cassie, that is such a beautiful question. I'm so glad you asked, and we are definitely going to get to that. Okay.

So the nightmare of the killer Savile Lions had ended with those shots from Peterson. Or did it? Death by Lion did not start with that lion pair, and it certainly didn't end there. Only three short months later, after Peterson's shots put an end to the rampage on the railway, Lions began killing again. About 100 miles from Savo, another railroad worker was killed, followed by a man named Charles Henry Ryle, who was the superintendent of the railway police, who was taken and killed while he was actually on watch for Lions with two other people following an incident that had happened earlier in the day. And that incident is when Lions had

jumped on top of the railway station and attempted to peel back the corrugated iron roof and attempt to get the people hiding inside the building. That attempt was unsuccessful, but the lions went on to kill several other people later in that day. So Ryle was a part of this group of two other people trying to hunt them down and kill them when he was killed himself. The attacks continued even after the railway was finished. In one account, a game warden came across two people who were attacked, but were actually still alive. He got them to medical care where one of the pair succumbed to his injuries

that he had sustained trying to pull the lion off of his friend. In another very frightening story, a tourist was pulled from his tent by a lion, but was saved by one of his friends. His wounds were wrapped and treated, and he was resting and recovering. when the lion came back for him. It forced its way into the tent,

grabbed the recovering man, and ate him. Oh my God. Like you just survived this horrific attack, and then you're sitting there. And I'm sure you're having nightmares about it, too, just like, oh, my God, this lion, and you're just thinking about it, probably dreaming about it.

And then you look up and that lion is back. Back to finish what it started. God. Another notorious man-eater story comes from a more recent time in the late 1990s, from a small town called Mufwe, which serves as the gateway to South Luangua National Park. Even today, lions account for about 200 deaths per year in Africa. The point being, lion attacks haven't stopped and likely won't. But why? Like I mentioned earlier, the attacks at Sava were horrific, but they weren't unique. One of the first pieces of evidence that we have of a lion attacking humans was found in Iraq, dating back to the 8th century BC. It's a carved panel of ivory that shows a lion with a human dangling from its mouth. For thousands of years, lions have been preying on humans, but what drives this behavior?

In his book, The Lions of Savo, exploring the legacy of Africa's most notorious man-eaters, which is the book that I got a lot of this information from. Bruce Patterson is the author. It's confusing. He has the same last name as Patterson from the main story. So it's a little coincidental, but he is no relation to him at all. He describes in detail how and why predation on humans likely occurs. And to summarize about a good half of this book,

I broke a lot of the chapters down into a couple different bullet points. that I thought were very interesting. So number one, opportunity. Lions are huge opportunists, and humans present some of the easiest opportunities for a meal around. Lions usually hunt in groups, but are capable of taking down prey twice their weight and size by themselves. Pray that can run fast, kick forcefully,

or ones that have large defensive horns that can easily scoop up, launch a lion, puncture it, fatally wound it. These are the types of prey that lions are going after on a daily basis. So you have to think how easy a meek little human with no defenses, especially if you're caught off guard, you don't have any form of weapon or defense. It's so easy. And I mean alone with, I mean, we need a weapon, you know, to defend ourselves. Whereas other animals, obviously, they have more adaptations. I don't want to say adaptations, but they have more. capabilities of protecting themselves than people do. I mean, we don't have fangs, we don't have claws, we're squishy, you know, like, we're goneers for sure, so I can see how they would want to eat us. And the other part of that is hunting is very risky business, and hunts don't always work in the lion's favor. Injury sustained while going on hunts is something that's a real threat. And a lot of these prey animals are huge, like you said, have evolved with adaptations that help give them a fair chance at survival.

And so not every hunt is successful. And a lot of times lions wind up empty-handed and they go hungry. But humans are kind of a sure bet. Next, it is thought that man eating is habit-forming, meaning that once a lion is either taught from a young age or the behavior is learned through imitation behavior and cooperation in hunt, that habit will stick. So what once may have started as a single opportunity may form into a routine. And to form a routine, lions must observe and study their prey. Just as they examine habits of grazing zebra, so too do they study people. Lions should never be underestimated. They are masters of the hunt and will stock and study for long periods of time until the exact right moment.

A person who bends down to tie his shoe, a lone person who stumbles and falls while carrying laundry, or someone who breaks away from a group of people to relieve themselves to go take a pee. This is what lions wait for. Moments of opportunity and lapses in judgment. For example, in 1999, a British tourist camping in Matsudona National Park in Zimbabwe forgot to secure his tent flap. and was killed by a group of 12 lions after one entered his tent through that opening. Scavenging on human remains, scavenging on human remains could also contribute in some cases. Remember those caravans of people in the area before the railway construction began?

They were already traveling that route. Yeah. In many of those cases, those caravans were comprised of enslaved people, like I mentioned, transporting goods and materials, and oftentimes thousands of pounds of harvested ivory. Many of them fell ill and died from rampant disease, and they were left where they dropped. Warfare in the area also contributed to the dead and dying, where victims were left where they fell as well. Another thing to consider is many African people do not bury their dead as part of funeral rituals, and that means leaving the bodies exposed to the elements and to animals.

And sometimes, even if the funeral ritual does not call for leaving somebody out in the open, whether it calls for someone being buried or cremated, sometimes this wasn't always possible depending on the time and location and the resources available. So people would sometimes have to improvise the ritual, and it would end with discarding the body, again leaving it open to scavenging. Some theorists point to this scavenging brought on by religious ritual as a possible cause for the attacks in Savo. Because remember, now we're back in Savo during the railway construction, there's so many groups of people with so many different religious beliefs and

practices and customs that not everyone's going to bury the people who pass away. And there's thousands and thousands of workers with a lot of disease and other issues. And if they're just leaving them there for the animals and the elements, that could be a contributing factor. Yeah. And like you said before, once they get a taste for it, it becomes like a habit. So now they're praying on you. And of course, lack of natural prey due to either disease or drought could also turn a lion to consuming. Easier prey, more available prey, aka humans. And there's one big thing to remember here that underlies all of these different factors and situations is that the lion just needs to be hungry. hunger drives predation. Without that key factor, any one of these things on their own is not enough to cause a man-eating attack. So, you know, lions aren't just going around picking people off for fun because they got a taste for humans and they're just on a rampage now. Like, yes, if they have killed people in the past and humans are one of their key prey sources, if they're not hungry, they're not going to attack you to eat you.

That kind of brings me to a little bit of a question because cats do kill for fun, like house cats and things. So lions aren't like that. They won't play. Do they play with their food before they kill it? Or is it more just the grooming that you were talking about earlier? There has been definitely cases of lions, quote unquote, playing with their food before they eat it. But not, I'm talking more of like, lions aren't known to sport hunt. Like they're not just doing it for fun.

It takes a lot of, like I said, there's risk involved, energy expenditure. You know, it's not like they're just doing this for funsies. They have a reason to do it, and it's for survival. Yeah. Like you said, they're hungry. It's not. I was just curious because cats, they'll kill something and lay it on your doorstep just to say, I love you, kind of thing. And I was wondering if lions will just like kill something to kill something.

Based on my research, I did not come across anything like that. I don't know if there's any cases that that ever happening, which there certainly could be, but not to my knowledge. Okay. And there are also contributing factors that will sound really familiar if you have listened to all of our episodes. So bringing it back to the Night of the Grizzlies, which was episode 17 and 18, Cassie told us all about the cases in which the bears were being fed intentionally to draw in tourists. Attacks on humans that transition from scavenging behavior that began as intentional feedings comes up here too. In this case, it was hyenas that were being fed trash. People treated them like live garbage disposals and would leave out and intentionally feed the hyenas to get rid of their

trash. And over time, they became accustomed to associating humans with food, which was most likely linked to the case of the man-eating hyena outbreak of 1955 when 27 people were killed. Wait, there's a man-eating hyena outbreak and a man-eating what? Are we going into another episode now? Like, are we starting another? That was the only hyena part, but I actually kind of went off, like, I paused when I was researching that and I was talking to Ian about it. And I was like, okay, would you rather be eaten by a lion or a hyena? I'll go first. Haina. I mean, lion. Lion, lion. Oh, okay.

Because hyenas, have you ever seen that? Okay, so another thing, I didn't even include it in the episode because I'm like, damn, this thing's going to be three hours long and people don't want a biology lesson. They want a story. But essentially, lions attack, there's a whole chapter about the mechanisms and ways in which lions attack. And it's essentially by they go for your throat, they want to break your neck, or they suffocate you.

And that goes for any prey species, whether it's a zebra or a person. But hyenas just masks come down upon you and just start ripping you apart. Kind of like African painted dogs. It's just a, you're still alive and things are happening and it's horrific. They don't have a method. They just grab whatever they can and start ripping it off. Okay. I pick lion too because at least they sound like they're fast.

Yeah, it's like a quicker death, I feel. Unless they don't know what they're doing or whatever. Okay. Anyways, focus. So here we are. We're back. And we're going to go back to episode three. to the story of Timothy Treadwell.

We know that incidents of man-eating cannot always be blamed solely on behavior. Bruce Peterson said, quote, man-eating is a complex behavioral pattern that is learned, not innate. The likelihood of man-eating in any instance depends on the age, condition, and prior experience of the lion,

as well as the traditional and cultural habits of the people involved, and it is also effect by environmental conditions and recent history of the area. In short, there are a ton of variables. Why human predation occurs is almost always a combination of several factors, one of which is physiological. Injured, old, and diseased animals are most likely to seize easier hunting opportunities out of necessity.

And tying it back to Timothy Treadwell, the bear that ended up killing and consuming him, was an old and injured bear. Well, it was the same thing in Night of the Grizzlies. It was an underweight bear that was scavenging for trash, was really, it was older. Yeah, same. Same deal. Not in the prime of its life, essentially. Once the news of the Savo Lions had been killed, Peterson became an international sensation. His story was not only recounted in his own book, but articles about him were also published in various magazines and newspapers. He gave lectures in several countries and was even, even invited to the White House by Theodore Roosevelt himself, where he was asked to arrange his famous Kenyan safari. During one of his American lecture tours, he spoke at the Chicago Field Museum. After his lecture, he spoke with the president of the museum, Stanley Field, and told him that he

still had the lions in his possession. But they were rugs, but he had their skulls as well. He offered to sell them to the museum after touring it and seeing how artistically displayed specimens were in this huge majestic building. Peterson had missed out on a financial opportunity and was hoping to make some cash back. So in a letter that he wrote to the director of the museum, he stated that they were the most famous lines in history and that they would make a great centerpiece for their collection.

And he requested $5,000 for them. The museum accepted, and in 1925, the Savo man-eaters found a new home in Chicago. They were in excellent condition, but were still rugs. Taxidermis spent grueling hours reconstructing the pair into their former glory and did a really amazing job.

The only marks on the lions are those that were acquired in life. The skulls of the pair were also put on display, but not before they were examined, because it turns out they had some stories to tell. Tom Nosk, the Field Museum's preparator, whose job it was to install the building's exhibits, noticed that one of the lion's skulls had a broken canine. This observation triggered a deep and detailed forensic analysis of the pair of skulls.

Dr. Elias Nyberg, a dentist, former deputy coroner, and specialist in forensic dentistry, joined a team of Field Museum employees to analyze the skulls. As just the skulls and the skins were all that was left of the lions, it was really difficult to say whether either of the lions suffered from other issues, such as arthritis, broken bones, or other skeletal traumas, but their mouths were a gold mine. Lion won. This lion had significant injury to its lower right canine. Its tooth was almost completely worn down, which would have taken years.

That process exposed the pulp cavity, which is where the nerves are located. It was likely extremely painful. He was missing three of his lower incisors, which are the little teeth in front between the big canines. Two of them could have possibly fallen out during the same. the cleaning and preparing of the skull after the lion's death, but at least one of them is known to have broken off or fallen out years before his death. There was evidence of root-tip abscesses, and the skull also showed malaclusion, meaning that the jaws didn't line up correctly, which could have been due to trauma or a birth defect. And because of this misalignment,

teeth were rubbing against each other in very painful ways. They were rotated, and some of them even grew abnormally long. These deformities and injuries would have made typical hunting tactics and behaviors very difficult for him, and any pressure on that broken canine would have been excruciating. Broken teeth and lions are not uncommon, but it certainly makes life very difficult. The canines in particular are primarily used for puncturing, suffocating, and holding the neck of their prey, and this means that their teeth need to be long and thin. So in other words, this lion was screwed. The second lion, this lion was a little more difficult to examine,

as Peterson shot it several times in the face. The only abnormality they found in the mouth prior to the damage caused at the time of its death by those shots was a fracture in one of the carnasials, which is a tooth used for shearing and chewing meat, and it had some exposed areas of nerve. but that injury looked relatively recent. Because of the lack of dental disease in this particular lion,

the team reflected back on Peterson's accounts. He has documented that the first attacks were by one lion, then eventually the two would attack together. But then, after the first lion was killed, this second lion went on a hiatus for almost two weeks. During this time, he snuck around camp and did kill goats, but never successfully attacked a person. This could likely mean that he was initially not responsible for any attacks on people.

He was learning human hunting behavior from his companion. And when that companion was shot, he fumbled and couldn't do it on his own. So this is just like, when I read this, it all fell into place. Because there's so many factors going on. Like this first lion obviously has huge trauma and issues. to his mouth and it's causing him so much pain and it's a physiological reason that could be to blame for man-eating behavior. But the second one is behavioral. He's learning from somebody else. Yeah, he has seen how easy it is to get these people and he's been watching and like probably

kind of like around stalking and watching the behaviors and everything. And that totally makes sense that afterwards he's like, okay, this is easy. Let's do it. Or I'll do it myself. At first, he's likely watching the first lion and waiting. And then as time goes on, they're in it together. They're hunting together at the same time. And then when that first lion is shot, he hadn't learned the ins and outs 100% on his

own. And he was fumbling. He was struggling to do it on his own. And that's just so interesting to reflect back on. the historical accounts and line it up with the physiological changes and the traumas associated with their skulls and their mouths and their teeth and it's just it's really cool. It kind of just shows how this all led up to happen. It wasn't something that just happened overnight.

This took a long time for it to become what it did. Right. Based on this, the first lion was not always a man eater. He did it out of necessity because of injury. A test called dental microware texture analysis, DMTA for short, was performed on the teeth. Witnesses from Peterson's account said that they could hear crunching of bones as the lions ate. But through this testing, evidence of that dietary habit was not found. What was found was wear patterns consistent with captive lion teeth that are usually provided with softer food.

This evidence suggests that the Savo Lions were eating soft food, aka flesh and organs. which is also consistent. I know it's so disgusting. Like I'm saying this in such like a scientific, like removed type of way. And I'm trying really hard. Like this makes sense because scientifically this. And I'm just sitting here like horrified. My face is like, I'm sorry, soft food because they were chewing on organs.

It's so gnarly. And I'm trying not to, I'm trying to compartmentalize and look at it from a different point of view. Which everyone can see my face. So you're saying your scientific stuff and I'm like jaw on the floor. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to take away from how horrific this was. And there was a lot of people who lost their lives in a really, really tragic way. But studying the reasons why this happened, it's interesting.

It's very interesting. So reflecting back on his accounts, he was saying that when they would find these people, that they were they were partially consumed. It wasn't like there was no trace of them left. Like there was their skeletal remains were still there, which lines up with this DMTA test. Even though there were witnesses saying there was

crunching of bones and it was crazy. We all know that stories kind of blow up over time, kind of telephone type of thing, which I'm sure there was crunching and really horrific sounds. Anyways, also chemical tests were done on the hair keratin and

bone collagen on the lions. And it confirmed that they had consumed people, but it also revealed that the number of humans consumed was far less than Peterson's original estimate. This test indicated that one of the lions had eaten 11 people and the other had eaten 24, meaning that the total deaths were around 35, not over 100. So where are all the other people he was talking about? Who knows? This is just the discrepancies in scientific testing based off of his... Does this mean it's possible there was another man-eating lion that never got caught? I mentioned it very, very briefly.

There was another man-eating lion in Mufway in the 1990s, and that lion is also on exhibit in the field museum. So they actually have three man-eating lions there, and it's just like their thing. But yes, there... And lions kill 200 people on average every year. you're still in Africa. So quite possible. There were other lions involved, but these two were the primary. So Africa is really high on my list of places I want to go. And I would also love to see a lion not eating me. When I go to Africa, do you have any advice on what I can do to not get eaten by a manny eating lion? I do. Now that I fully scared the absolute shit out of you, with all

All that being said, terrifying as it may be, I really do want to emphasize that most lions never threaten, attack, or consume a person. They live their lives 100% removed from people and interaction with humans. And a lot of them make it a point to avoid us altogether. So just because there are a lot of scary circumstances of human predation, it doesn't mean it's a rampant thing. It's like bear attacks. Right.

But say, for some reason, you find yourself face to face with the lion. It's you. You're on safari. Your dream has come true. You're in Africa. You have your camera. You're zooming in with your zoom lens. And then you realize that you don't need your zoom lens because there's a lion right in front of your face.

What do you do? No idea. What do I do? So don't run because you will lose every single time. The fastest man on record is Usain Bolt. and he could reach up to 27 miles an hour. And, you know, newsflash, you're not him. And even if you were, lions can run 50 miles an hour easily.

So that's out. Also, you need to start to try to understand what the lion wants. Read its body language. If they're pawing at the ground, it generally means that it's uninterested. While lions that are feeling threatened will swish their tails back and forth. And those on the hunt stay very, very still. and they hold their tails rigid, stick straight. Face towards them at a slight angle with your eyes averted slightly,

but still facing them because you never want to turn your back. If you're charged, it will likely start as a mock charge. So stand your ground. If you run, it can quickly turn into something else. Make yourself look big. Wave your arms, yell loudly. I mean, good luck. Lions take on crocs, buffalo.

Pray that's bigger, badder, and scarier than you, but go ahead, do your best, take your backpack off, put it above your head, scream, do whatever you need to do. Make yourself look like an absolute lunatic, essentially. And if you're near anything that can be picked up or thrown, do it. Rocks, sticks, whatever you have near you, throw it directly at them. If the lion bluff charges do not approach further, but also don't leave the area altogether. Back away very slowly and maintain eye contact, never turning your back. Wait, so now you have eye contact?

You want to keep your eyes on it. If it's approaching you, don't stare at it. Don't dead stare at it. But if it bluff charges you and then kind of backs away, you want to look at it while slowly backing away. Like at it, but not at its eyes. Right. You don't want to be like looking off into space, but you also don't want to be staring in a staring contest with it. From what I've read.

I have no personal experience, okay? And then let's say that despite all this, it doesn't work. And there's a lion on top of you and you are actively being attacked. Protect your neck. This is the first thing that lions go for as they are attempt to snap your vertebrae and or suffocate you. So try and protect that area if you can. And that's it. That's all the advice I have on lion attacks.

Best of luck to you. So basically, you're probably in a real bad spot. tries to attack you. You can try to make yourself look big, but it's not going to care and just hope that it's pawing at the ground and not interested. Exactly. And I think it really, we can say this for most large predator attacks. There are so many different circumstances that goes into like why an animal is attacking you, what their motives are, etc. But if a predator truly deep down in its heart wants to eat you or kill you, it's going to do it. If you are unarmed, if you have no defense, like, it's going to happen.

That video, that viral video that was going around, quote unquote, mountain lion attacks hiker. And it was that one in Provo, Utah, that the female mountain lion was basically bluff charging for like a long time, like five minutes that hiker. Because she had a baby nearby or something? Yeah, she had a baby nearby. She wasn't attacking him because she wanted to eat him. If that was the case, she would have been stalking him.

He would have never known she was there. And that mountain line would have been on his back and on his neck before he even knew. She wouldn't be approaching him from the front and giving him time to back away. And there's also another circumstance in Colorado a few years ago of that guy. It was like all over, all over the news that he killed a mountain line with his bare hands that was trying to attack him. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, which is true. It was trying to attack him, and he did kill it with his hands, but it ended up being a very young and inexperienced mountain lion.

I do remember that. Like, it wasn't even a full-grown mountain lion, and it didn't, like they said, I didn't know that it shouldn't attack people at that point. It was young and didn't have a lot of interactions or something. I'm pretty sure, and I'm not going to put my money on it, but if I remember correctly, I think its mother was either hit by a car or killed by a hunt. hunter so it didn't have the proper guy. It didn't know what it was doing essentially. I do remember that. I'm not sure what happened either, but I did think that that one lost its mom somehow and never got taught how to hunt or anything. Right. So basic moral of the story, we could go on forever about that. But there are different situations and stories where, yeah, people do survive. And

that's amazing. But it's because of a different one reason or another. And, And it's highly unlikely that you are going to fend off with your bare hands a 350-pound lion that wants to eat you. So, but you can definitely try these little tips and tricks for sure. Thanks, that makes me feel much better. Thank you for that lesson. I will really take it to heart. The story is the same. It echoes throughout every corner of the planet and affects almost every carnivore species that finds themselves hiding within those corners.

Throughout history, humans have waged war on predators. Wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, bears, tigers, and lions have all been hunted and persecuted throughout history. They have been systematically extirpated from a majority of their historic habitat as humans encroach further and further into wild places. As a result, predation on livestock and humans have increased, and their natural prey has become scarce in the face of human development and only fragments of their original home. remains. Ironically, man-eating has at times been actually caused by people. Encroachment, habituation, and injuries sustained through snares or non-lethal shots have all been documented as as precursors to human predation. There's a picture that I will post on our Instagram of a lion that was caught in a snare, and it had gone out of the snare, but it had grown as the snare was

still on it and it caused a big deformity on its face that obviously negatively impacted its ability to hunt and that's where this point is. It's like ironically, things that we're doing can sometimes lead to man-eating behavior because now that lion can't hunt properly and we have another situation of well, it's got to go for easier prey which is a lot of things. It's a whole circle. Yeah. According to panthera.com, as of today, lions are extinct in 26 African countries. have vanished from over 95% of their historic range, and experts estimate that there are only about 20,000 of them left in the wild. They are listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List

of Threatened Species, the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. Conserving biological diversity is one of the largest and most urgent environmental hurdles we have to tackle. Interestingly, although we are happy to have Savo National Park now, when it was first formed, that land was spared and designated as a national park, not because of its rich biological diversity, but because despite its large size, it was rendered almost useless. The country did not see use in that land, so it was kind of tossed to the side and spared for wildlife as a second thought because it was rendered useless for other purposes for us as humans due to its dry climate, lack of water sources, and the infestation with the sleeping sickness disease.

From a conservation standpoint, the park isn't configured well at all. There is an area of dense human population smack dab in the middle that separates the east and the west parks, And of course, there's that area of railway and roadway that separates the two as well, which means it has human population edges on many sides, and the park is fragmented. By the time the park was created, the area's highest in biodiversity had already been settled by humans. However, the park does have its advantages. It is one of the most protected and secure parks in the country, and because of its large area, it protects a large swath of wilderness that serves as safety. haven for herds of lions that are being pursued for their ivory, and it is also home to rhino breeding programs. Lions serve as a huge draw to the park, as visitors spend big bucks for their chance to see

them in the wild. Money, which is redirected back into the park's conservation and animal management plans. Deforestation, unsustainable hunting practices, habitat fragmentation, and poaching are just some of the issues that wait just beyond the park boundaries. And although we are able to distinguish these boundaries on a map, we all know animals know no such thing, leaving them at great risk. Non-lethal wildlife control, habitat conservation, anti-poaching efforts, and a deeper understanding and appreciation of animal behavior will all need to be implemented in full force if we have any shot of saving our wild world. And I'm going to end this episode in the words of Bruce Patterson. There's really something about man-eaters that puts people in their rightful place,

not at the helm, but a couple of notches down. It is both sobering and inspiring that we should inherit the stewardship of both lions and their landscape. For their fates, will surely be decided within our lifetimes and by our hands. If you'd like to learn more about the Lions of Savo, I will definitely link the books I use as part of my research on our book recommendation list on our website. And if you'd like to learn more about the ongoing conservation efforts for the Lions of Africa, I have linked information for the African Wildlife Foundation in the show notes. And that is it. That is the story of the Savo man-eating lions. Wow. That was a trip.

Thank you for sharing that. I really, first off, that was terrifying. And it definitely makes me nervous about going to Africa, but it did not determine me from my thoughts on the trip. But second, I really like when we can take these morbid stories and we can add a conservation aspect to it. I think it's really cool that we can incorporate this horrible story, but we all love to hear about the national parks and then actually bring in an important informational, educational aspect to it on how we can actually help preserve and what's going on that's so dangerous to our environment as well. So I think that's cool. So thank you for explaining that. Of course. It would be, if I didn't do that, it would be a total misjustice. Like, it's so important.

I mean, I never want, whether it was, you know, and I'm sure you felt the same, whether it was your episode with the Grizzlies in Glacier, or it's this story, or it's the story of Timothy Treadwell and the Grizzlies up in Katmai. We never want these stories to be, a deterrent or a fear-inducing story that makes you want to avoid these places or avoid these animals or be scared of them. We want you to understand them and understand their behavior and understand the circumstances that led to that tragic accident or that tragic story. And there's always a reason and there's always things that can be learned and implemented in the future to help avoid that. And we never want to vilify any animal because they're animals and they're doing

what it comes natural to them. And we live in the world with them. And they deserve respect and understanding. And we're going to need to understand them and learn their behavior and understand their needs if we want to successfully conserve their world and ours. Yeah. And when we can understand something and also when we're able to contribute in our own little way, it kind of brings us all a little bit closer to these parks and these stories, which I think is really cool. And it's definitely one of my favorite parts to be able to research these different conservation efforts that you can be a part of and try and help out in preserving our environment. It's really cool to be able to incorporate that. Thank you for sharing. If you want to see the photos that Danielle's going to post on our Instagram,

You can go to National Park After Dark on our Instagram. Also, if you want to hear more stories, we do have a Patreon and we do add more bonus stories on there. So you can go to our Instagram National Park After Dark and click the link in our bio. Or you can go to our website, npaddpodcast.com. We also have a Twitter that we are now utilizing and doing stuff on. So follow us on Twitter at NPAD podcast as well. And as always, rate review, subscribe to us. But we hope that you all have a lovely week.

We hope that you don't encounter any lines. And we'll see you next Monday. So in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye, everyone. Bye. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet.

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