Transcript:

music; ambience: radio communication, volunteers looking for lions, jeep engine

“He’s behind the shrubberies, behind the tree.”

Playing a nightly game of hide and seek is just part of the job when it comes to studying lions. Welcome to Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries, a glimpse of the world of science from the inside. Chicago Field Museum Zoologist Bruce Patterson is in Kenya’s Tsavo region studying the area’s lion population with a team of Earthwatch Volunteers. Most of the work is done at night, when the lions are most active.

“We were coming up the road and we spotted some forms on the bank as we drove within 70 or 80 yards. One got up and immediately revealed itself to be a lion.”

ambience: truck running

“There it is behind the tree.”

“As we drove up, the lions retreated into the woodland behind them. We caught up with the lions as they ambled on beyond the bend. It was a young male we've named Dickens and two females, one quite old, her nose pad completely black.”

“It was hard to catch up with these lions. Dickens disappeared. The other female was on the fringes of our spotlight as we were searching to maintain contact with the group. We did finally catch Dickens's eye shine 30 or 40 yards away in the woods. We went back and looked at the female, and in the space that it took our torch to relocate the female on the other side of the vehicle, there was Dickens, standing with them, and every volunteer in the vehicle was impressed with the ability of lions to move quickly and quietly at night.”

As human land use increases in Kenya, restricting the range of lions, researchers are hoping to find ways to alleviate the conflict between lions, ranchers and farmers.

Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries are made possible by the National Science Foundation.