Born Wild
Authors: Tony Fitzjohn
Born Wild
Born Wild
The Extraordinary Story of
One Man's Passion for Lions and for Africa
TONY FITZJOHN
with
MILES BREDIN
VIKING CANADA
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi â 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0745, Auckland, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Published in Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2010
Simultaneously published in the United States by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (RRD)
Copyright © Tony Fitzjohn, 2010
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available upon request to the publisher.
American Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data available.
Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at
www.penguin.ca
Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see
www.penguin.ca
/corporatesales or call 1-800-810-3104, ext. 2477 or 2474
To the Creatures of the Wild
Contents
List of Illustrations
Section One
1.  Leaving Southampton, 1968
2.  Kora Hills from the air
3.  Kampi ya Simba
4.  Life at Kora: (a) Kora Rock; (b) Myself, George and Terence (photo: Terry Fincher); (c) Shared breakfast in the mess (photo: Terry Fincher); (d) George does office work in the mess (photo: George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust); (e) Waiting for the lions (photo: Terry Fincher)
5.  Growing up with Christian: (a) With George by the Tana river; (b) Sharing a quiet moment; (c) Early days with Christian; (d) On Christian's Rock (e) Tracking on Boy's Lugga (photo: Terry Fincher)
6.  Freddie was bottle-fed until he was five months old
7.  With Freddie
8.  Freddie and Leakey pause for a drink
9.  Doum palms along the river road
10.  Fishing on the Tana in spate (photo: Terry Fincher)
11.  The waterpoint on the Tana river
12.  Resting with Freddie and Arusha (photo: Lindsay Bell)
13.  Gigi, Arusha and Freddie playing (photo: Lindsay Bell)
14.  Freddie gets a lift and Gigi tries to join in (photo: Lindsay Bell)
15.  Arusha, Freddie and George on the Tana river walk
16.  I was here to stay (photo: Terry Fincher)
17.  Outside my hut (photo: Terry Fincher)
Section Two
18.  Coming in for the night (photo: Lindsay Bell)
19.  In the camp with Kaunda
20.  With George and Kaunda (photo: Lindsay Bell)
21.  Jojo comes to Kora (photo: Lindsay Bell)
22.  Lindsay visits after the mauling (photo: Pete Gilfillan)
23.  With Orma tribesmen (photo: Lindsay Bell)
24.  Collecting water from the river (photo: Lindsay Bell)
25.  Radio tracking in the early days (photo: Terry Fincher)
26.  Kampi ya Chui after completion
27.  With Attila. Leopards won't take a bottle at this stage
28.  Attila and Squeaks on their morning walk
29.  Sharing a tree with Squeaks (photo: Joan Root)
30.  Teatime with Squeaks (photo: Yann Arthus-Bertrand)
31.  Palle released into the wild
32.  With Bugsy. No greater love . . . (photo: Terry Fincher)
33.  Bugsy and Squeaks - the best of friends
Section Three
34.  'The Old Man' (photo: Joey Thompson)
35.  George with his last pride
36.  On recce to Mkomazi, 1988 (photo: Terry Fincher)
37.  Fringe-eared oryx in the Supabowl, Mkomazi
38.  Early days at Mkomazi. Making the first road in
39.  With Fred Ayo at our first workshop
40.  Fred and Jumanne Mkuta building our house, Mkomazi
41.  With Hezekiah Mungure, Mkomazi
42.  Elisaria Nnko steers the project (photo: Thomas Pelgrom)
43.  Godlizen Mlaki and Fred Ayo in the new workshop, Mkomazi
44.  Costa Mlay with Lucy and Mukka
45.  Our wedding, Kora, 1997 (photo: Elisaria Nnko)
46.  Mkomazi takes shape
47.  Elisaria checks on the pups (photo: Frank Teuling)
48.  Coming up for dinner
49.  Wild dogs in the
boma
(photo: Greg Williams)
50.  Aart Visee and Sangito Lema taking blood samples from the wild dogs
51.  Kisiwani Secondary School, built by the Trust
52.  The first group of four rhinos arrives from South Africa
53.  The rhinos' reception committee
54.  Lucy and Badger
55.  Badger gets his teeth fixed
Section Four
56.  Death of Badger
57.  Breeding gets going - Rose and her second calf, Daisy
58.  The rhino sanctuary takes off (photo: Jesse Zwick)
59.  Jabu - home at last (photo: Dana Holeckova)
60.  Elvis gets operated on after a bad goring
61.  Martin Clunes accompanies Nina into Mkomazi
62.  Anyone for bananas? (photo: Frank Teuling)
63.  Nina brings Jonny Wilkinson to meet us (photo: Sam Dhillon)
64.  Jipe has a bottle on an evening walk
65.  Emmanuel, myself and Jipe
66.  Jipe brings us one of her cubs
67.  Friends for seven years (photo: Suzi Winstanley)
68.  Jipe, myself and Zacharia Nasari (photo: Suzi Winstanley)
69.  A lesser kudu became Jipe's first kill
70.  Putting on Jipe's collar
71.  Jipe admires Anthony Bamford's JCB (photo: Antony Rufus Isaacs)
72.  The new Kampi ya Simba, Kora, 2010
73.  Meeting with Asako elders on my return
74.  Tana river bridge, 2009
75.  Kenya Wildlife Seminar on Kora, 2009
76.  At Buckingham Palace, 2006
77.  Elisaria Nnko, Fred Ayo and Semu Pallangyo
78.  Kenya's Vice President Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka with his daughter Saada, and Jemima, Mukka and myself
79.  The family returns to Kora, 2009
80.  Lucy and Missie, our orphaned caracal
81.  Tilly and two baby ostriches
82.  Our family, Mkomazi, 2009 (photo: Dominic Nahr/Report- age by Getty Images)
Aerial photograph of elephants on page 187 from Peter Beard,
The End of the Game,
copyright © Peter Beard/Art + Commerce
Front endpaper:
With Gigi, Freddie and Arusha overlooking the camp
Back endpaper:
George at sundown, Christian's Rock
All photographs, unless otherwise indicated, are copyright © the author
List of Maps
1. End of the Line
The funny
thing about being chewed up by a lion is that they don't bite chunks out of you â they suffocate you. All that firepower and they use a pillow. I suppose I should be glad of it: two hundred kilos of fully grown lion pouncing on my back had already knocked the breath out of me. And when he put my head in his mouth and started to squeeze it wasn't long before I began to lose consciousness. Only when he clawed at my stomach did I wake up and my will to live reassert itself. It was just like that moment when you've been tumbled by a big wave and lost your surfboard: abruptly the light pierces the swirling water and, realizing you want to live, you kick towards the surface. I pushed my fist above my head and into the lion's mouth. But I wasn't strong enough: he was going to kill me, the bastard. I can remember wondering, as I faded away, Which one was it? A wild lion or one of ours?