BY DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
Abandoned by her males, it’s up to Charm to feed her cubs – and defend them from the dangers of the plains, as this heart-rending tale from Dynasties shows
Families have quarrels. Sometimes, they even have bust-ups and, as a consequence, split forever. Sociologists, had they been observing them at the time, might well have foreseen such ructions, long before the family itself realised what was happening. Animal sociologists – ethologists to give them their proper name – can often do exactly the same thing. Those studying animals that live in families, troops or herds, spend years observing such communities, trying to understand the rules that govern them, and they can, as a consequence, sometimes predict that animals are about to do the same sort of thing. What happens next can be not only dramatic but also very revealing of the nature of the animals themselves. But recording such events would be difficult.
Individual animals are often not as easy for us to identify as individuals of our own species. Sometimes ethologists have to attach radio-tags to the animals they are studying so that they are able to be absolutely certain of their identities. They also give them names. Usually the names they choose have no similarity to the names we use for our children and friends. They do that in order to avoid being accused of one of the cardinal sins of ethology – anthropomorphism, that is to say, attributing human characteristics and emotions to an animal without adequate justification.
Some degree of anthropomorphism, of course, is justifiable and inevitable. If an elephant, on seeing you, lifts its trunk, flaps its ears and then charges, you are justified, at the very least, in saying that it is angry.
But suppose you watched an elephant coming across a pile of elephant bones, picking them up with its trunk, one by one, as if caressing them. It would be tempting to say that the animal was mourning the death of a relative – tempting, but unjustified. Even if you know that the bones had belonged to a member of that elephant family, you could not be sure of what was in its mind. Calling this book, and the television series on which it is based, ‘Dynasties’ might in itself seem to be sinfully anthropomorphic. It will, after all, remind many of the famous American television series, Dynasty, about a human oil-rich family in the United States. Happily, however, the dictionary legitimises such use for it and says no more than that the word refers to ‘a succession of rulers of the same line or family’. Animals have families just as we do and that is exactly what the new series, which starts on BBC One on November 11, is about.
To choose their subjects, the producers consulted ethologists all round the world asking whether the particular animal group they were studying was itself approaching one of the crises which inevitably overtake even the most amiable and wellestablished families. From the answers, they selected five, as varied as possible both in the nature of the animals themselves and the sort of dramas that were likely to overtake them. Camera teams then joined the scientists and followed the fortunes of each of those families for up to twoand-a-half years.
It was a risky plan. It could be that in spite of the ethologists’ predictions, nothing dramatic would happen, and there would be scarcely enough incidents to justify an hour-long programme. A MOTHER’S LOVE: Charm and her eldest son Tatu, who lies beneath her chin It might also be that a crisis would lead not to happier times with a new generation, but a failure of the animals concerned to meet the demands of their new situation. But the producers determined before the series went into production that, once a community had been chosen, the drama would be told exactly as it happened.
You must now be the judge as to whether these varied and extraordinary histories are tragedies or triumphs.
‘THE DRAMA IS TOLD EXACTLY AS IT HAPPENED’
‘CHARM STAYS QUIET, AFRAID OF ATTRACTING ATTENTION’
Life for any single mother is tough. It’s harder still when you’re a lioness. Charm has four cubs, as does her cousin Sienna. The oldest of their offspring is three years old – the equivalent of a lion teenager. The youngsters are boisterous, vulnerable and always hungry. It’s up to Charm, as pride leader, to find food while protecting her dynasty from Africa’s many threats.
Most lionesses can rely on male mates for help. With their shaggy manes and barrel-chested bodies, male lions are hopeless at hunting – they’re too conspicuous and slow – so the females do it. But they are superb protectors. No hyenas or marauding leopard would dare approach a pride with an alpha male lion.
Charm and the Marsh Pride, named after the Musiara Marsh in Kenya’s Masai Mara that is their home, don’t have that protection. Her family’s males abandoned her: they fathered her cubs, and Sienna’s, then moved on to find future mates. So the Marsh lionesses live a precarious existence – forced to avoid other lions, which could kill their cubs, they have to stay away from the best hunting territories. They live on the open plains where most lions roar at night, but Charm and her family keep silent, fearful of attracting attention.
Scavenging is also difficult. Most lions watch the skies for vultures, to see where hyenas and wild dogs have made a kill – then move in to steal the meat. But without their big male escorts, this is risky. Instead, it is up to Charm to make the most difficult and dangerous kills alone. During the 18 months the Dynasties team were filming the Marsh Pride, they captured footage of her stalking a healthy adult wildebeest bull weighing at least 650lb – double the lioness’s weight. She risked serious injury, but her family needed meat, and this wildebeest had become separated from its herd.
She edged closer patiently, using the long grass as cover, until she was close enough for a surprise attack. Grabbing her prey by the loose skin of its throat, she used her hind legs to knock it off balance as it fought to escape. Her long years of experience paid off: despite the bull’s huge strength and weight, she tightened her grip until it fell to the ground, unable to breathe. One swift bite to the windpipe brought its life to an abrupt end.
The meat was vital as the pride were hungry because Charm had been left to hunt alone when Sienna disappeared during the filming. The crew managed to locate her again on the other side of the plain but she was in a very bad way with deep gashes on both her flanks, most likely inflicted in an encounter with another pride. It would be six weeks before Sienna had healed sufficiently to seek out and rejoin the Marsh Pride. The two lionesses’ oldest cubs, three-year-old males Tatu and Red, weren’t much help either: cocky and over-confident, on their first attempt at a hunt they took on a fully-grown hippo and were lucky to escape without being crushed.
Charm’s best hope for her dynasty’s survival was her daughter Yaya, who had put on a growth spurt as she approached three years old and was now bigger than her mother. She was clumsy and gangling, but she was strong. Cameraman John Aitchison watched her gaining in skill. ‘Yaya had a real urge to hunt. Even when the rest of the pride were lying asleep under a tree, she would go off to try to catch a warthog on her own. She became really good quite quickly, and a useful hunting partner to Charm. A really strong mother-daughter bond was developing between the two of them.’
But with the rains long over, the land began to turn very dry and dusty. Food was getting ever harder to find. In desperation, Charm led her pride to the edge of the Mara Reserve and a much easier source of prey – cattle. It would prove a fatal decision. For several nights there were rich pickings. Farmers cannot guard all their cattle by night. Killing lions is illegal, but to the Masai there is nothing more precious than their cows and they will do anything to protect them.
So it was that a few nights later, Charm and her pride came across a freshly dead animal and took advantage ‘THE ROAR OF TWO MALES ECHOED MARSHES’ OVER THE of the free meal. But it had been laced with poison, probably a pesticide called Carbofuran. When the camera team caught up with the Marsh Pride, one of the young lions – Charm’s son Alan, who had always been greedy and had eaten his fill of the carcass – was staggering around and foaming at the mouth. Others were lying limply under a tree. Charm was desperate to move her family to safety – but she too had been poisoned. The old lioness was barely able to walk.
Park authorities immediately summoned vets from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, who tried to save the stricken cub, but it proved impossible. Worse was to come. Sienna, too, had feasted on the poisoned carcass – authorities found the remains of her body, mauled by scavenging hyenas and vultures. But there was some good news. Charm’s daughter Yaya had survived, along with the two young males Red and Tatu.
Then the dynamic of the pride changed yet again. For several weeks Red and Tatu wandered further away each day. They were now nearly four years old, almost fully grown, and if they were ever to father cubs and continue Charm and Sienna’s dynasty, they had to leave. One day they headed away and didn’t come back.
One morning, a sound echoed over the marshes that had not been heard in well over a year. Loud, deep and penetrating as if the whole landscape was shuddering, it was the roar of two adult male lions. But it wasn’t Red and Tatu returning, it was two young lions unknown to the Marsh Pride. The males were welcomed, not only by Charm but also by Yaya, who was now old enough to mate. They would give Charm the chance to tap into a new bloodline, and also provide the protection the pride desperately needed. Camerawoman Sophie Darlington saw a change in Charm’s behaviour. ‘She went from being old and tired to young and vivacious. Yet she remained the boss – she welcomed those males into her territory on her own terms.’
After four months, Charm slipped away from her pride with a growl. She had gone into labour, and took herself deep into the long marsh grasses to hide while she gave birth. When she returned she had two tiny cubs, a male and a female. The babies were so small that their eyes were not yet open. They suckled hungrily, not venturing from their mother’s side for weeks. And soon afterwards another remarkable surprise occurred: Yaya had produced three cubs herself.
A pride of lions that had seemed on the verge of extinction was suddenly bringing up two new generations. Charm was simultaneously a new mother, and a new grandmother – and her lion dynasty was secured.