"Tsavo's Maneless Lions" a Tsavo National Park Travel Page by Krumel

In November 2002 I joined another Earthwatch team, this time to collect data on maneless lions. Tsavo's lions are special in that also the males have either no manes at all, or maybe just a very moderate one, a phenomenon that might be similar to baldness in humans. In Tsavo's climate, where even the nights are very warm a thick mane would be a disadvantage, and therefore probably only lions with this particular genetic disposition are attracted to this area. Unlike lions in other regions only one male is dominating a pride, and they also seem to be more aggressive than "ordinary" lions. In 1898 two of them killed and ate nearly 140 workers building a railway line through Tsavo, effectively stopping the construction work until they were hunted down and killed. Of course Hollywood could not resist making a movie about these events. It's called "The Ghost and the Darkness" and stars Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer.

According to the briefing we received several lions were radio-collared, and we would be watching two different prides during those two weeks. That was the original plan anyway, but reality was a bit different. Only one lion (Romeo) had been fitted with a radio collar so far, and he had actually not been seen for several weeks. The biggest fear is that he might have got poached, but even if he just "emigrated" to somewhere else he is still walking around with a very valuable collar that has so far stored vital data about his every movement for the last 6 months, and even recording the temperature at regular intervals. So instead of looking AT lions we were looking FOR them, and most of the time just saw the tracks of our elusive study objects.