Kenya 2023: Chapter 30 – A Tale of Tragedies

WARNING. THIS BLOG CONTAINS GRAPHIC DETAILS ABOUT NATURAL PREDATOR BEHAVIOR AND EVENTS. READER DISCRETION ADVISED.

A call came over the radio: a cheetah was preparing to hunt. Lenny kicked the truck into fourth gear and we went hurtling over the rugged roads at top speed. Had we not stopped to see the giraffes earlier, we may have caught it up close but as we crested the last hill, we could see the cheetah running across the hillside and watched it down its prey. 

Dammit.

We rolled up in time to watch it eat a baby gazelle but even with a 1.4x teleconverter on the 600 mm lens, we were still right at the edge of our range for decent pictures. We were disappointed, but recognized the reality of the Mara. After 15 minutes or so, most of the other trucks that were lined up at the kill site had drifted away. 

Lenny seemed dispirited too and indicated that a gazelle nearby was about to give birth. That would be cool to see, we thought, and prepared ourselves for a bit of a drive, but Lenny drove only around the edge of the hillside, 200 yards from the cheetah kill. There, less than a hundred feet from us, was a very pregnant gazelle laying on her side. Two things happened simultaneously. We were both really excited to see a birth and knew full well that the cheetah would kill the baby before it would learn to walk or run or would kill the mother while she was down giving birth. The gazelle was entirely susceptible.

After a few minutes, we could see labored spasms and a small mass began to emerge from her backside. A minute later it was clear that something had gone wrong. The head of the baby and one leg were out, but she was unable to eject the rest of the baby. It was a still birth.

Sadness and despair came over us in hushed whispers. As the mother stood and tried to free the dead calf, two gazelle spooked. Ed recognized that the cheetah may be on the move and that we need to move the truck to position ourselves for the forthcoming slaughter. Lenny moved the truck back to the main road. 

A thick sense of anticipation built rapidly. Every hair stood on end as we got into position. There, at the top of the hill, the cheetah emerged from the grass, staring down the gazelle. The more nimble of the herd sprinted down and away toward safety. The mother and the cheetah were left, locked in a mortal stare. She sprinted off in a hobbled run, the dead calf still hanging out of her.

We reached a frenzy. The cheetah started into a loping trot and after a few steps burst into a full-fledged run. The kind of run you see on National Geographic. The kind of speed you see on the highway. He crossed the road at about 40 or 50 miles per hour, a yellow spotted blur in the camera viewfinders. The d6, for all its glorious high speed frame rate, couldn’t keep up. It was, in a word, incredible.

The cheetah closed the gap with the gazelle before the bottom of the hill in mere seconds. She wheeled, pivoted, attempted to throw off her attacker. The cheetah never lost a step, using his big tail as a rudder to change position quickly. A few turns at the bottom of the hill and the gazelle was down. The cheetah had scored a second kill within minutes. Greg shouted a celebration.

But it was too soon. 

There, hidden in the bushes next to the kill site at the bottom of the hill, and unbeknownst to us nor the cheetah nor the fleeing gazelle, were two hyenas who immediately chased off the cheetah from his hard-earned kill. 

A THEFT! An incredible twist to an incredible drama! We’d never seen anything like it before. Planet Earth couldn’t write a better or more tragic story.

A third hyena came in from behind us and the trio obliterated the pregnant gazelle. One hyena took the dead calf and trotted off with it. The remaining two ripped the mother in half and carried her carcass off in different directions. Lappet-faced and white-backed vultures swarmed the site. The cheetah sitting on the sidelines attempted to get back into his kill several times, but was chased off by the snapping jaws of the hyenas. Hyenas have one of the greatest bite strengths of any mammal so cheetahs will rarely take them on because it could mean serious injury or death.

From the moment we came over the hill until the moment the hyenas stole the kill, only about 30 minutes had elapsed. As the remains of the gazelle disappeared into the mouths of the hyenas, we decided to move on. We had just witnessed the very best drama the Mara could offer: a series of triumphs and tragedies played out on one of the greatest natural stages in the world.