The Ugab’s ‘lion situation’
Just two weeks after our visit to the area (in April 2021), a lion attacked 72-yearold Charlie Ward while he and his son David were at Divorce Pass. David tells the story:
It was late afternoon and we planned to drive up the pass in the morning. In the meantime, we found a place to camp and walked up the first section of the pass to fill any holes created by previous vehicles spinning. We suddenly heard a grunt behind us. I looked over my shoulder and saw a lion in full lunge – its right paw swiping toward my father’s lower body. That’s it, I thought, we’re dead. I grabbed a rock, bellowed a roar of my own and launched the rock into its side where it stood above my father, just a metre away.
By some miracle it broke the attack. It leapt five metres away and turned to face us again. My father was now next to me and joined in the barrage of stones and bellows. The lion retreated 20 metres up the hill and lay down to look at us as we walked backward slowly while facing him and keeping up with the shouting and rocks.
Only then did I realise my father had been struck on the shin and there was blood all down his leg. We treated the wound and packed up the Landy. I drove all through the night back to Windhoek. By 7am we were at the Mediclinic where a doctor gave him some 20 stiches. He has recovered well.
ACCORDING TO ANDREW MALHERBE, Chief Operating Officer for Save the Rhino Trust (SRT), this male lion terrorised Ugab Rhino Camp just prior to the above incident.
“Johannes Ndumba, caretaker at the camp, was basically held hostage in his house for three days, the lion circling around the house,” Andrew says. “Eventually he managed to escape but it was a really traumatic experience for him.”
Shortly after the Divorce Pass incident a lion also attacked Helge and Irene Denker, who were camping in the Numas River, closer to Brandberg, but were not injured. The lion has since been darted and relocated to N/a’an ku sê, east of Windhoek. Although the assumption is that it was the same lion involved in all these incidents, Andrew is worried that other lions in the Ugab area could exhibit similar aggressive behaviour.
“We suspect that there has been some human interference with these lions: they have either been fed, or meat has been left out for them. They are now associating vehicles and humans with food, which is why this lion wasn’t scared of humans. We decided to close our camp because our staff don’t feel safe there. Tourists visit the camp at own risk and there is no dedicated team there to provide any kind of service.” Follow David Ward on Facebook at “Road Trip Namibia”. For more information about desert lions, see desertlion.info and follow the Save the Rhino Trust at savetherhinotrust.org Helge Denker tells his story on conservationnamibia.com.