Part of the Pride (13 page)

Tsavo had always seen me playing with Tau and Napoleon in the next-door enclosure, and I think that for me and Tsavo our clash may have been a territorial dispute. It was about him teaching me who was the boss, and who was in charge of the piece of land where he lived. I know now that lion never meant to kill me, though if he'd had claws that may well have been the outcome. He wanted to give me a slap around, which he did, in the same way that male lions do to each other in the wild.

Perhaps my running up and down the fence with the younger lions was irritating, or possibly he was simply telling me—as deep down I think I knew on the day of my family's visit to the Lion Park—that he didn't want me in his territory.

However, when Tsavo bit me, it wasn't a case of me being lucky or fortunate that he missed an artery—it was him deciding to teach me a lesson rather than kill me. He was in total control, and every action he took, everything he did, was calculated.

I also don't believe now that pressing my fingers into his cheeks and forcing his skin between his teeth was what stopped him from going further. I have seen lions over the years since then in a frenzy of feeding or fighting, and I know that Tsavo would have bitten through his own flesh and severed my finger without hesitation if he was intent on finishing me off and feeding on me. He was playing
with me as he moved his teeth from my shoulder to my calf and to my leg. Lions have incredible control over their jaws and the pressure they want to exert.

People have often asked me if my life flashed before my eyes when Tsavo attacked me. It didn't. I knew that I had to try and survive this incident one step at a time. When I asked my family how I reacted, they said I was cool and collected and that they didn't know how I managed to stay as calm as I did during the attack.

I've been in situations with leopards and a jaguar when I've thought to myself, “How did I get myself into this situation—
again?
” I used the knowledge and experience I'd gained to get back in control, but mostly these days I try to not get into those situations in the first place.

Deep down inside I think I was hoping that Tsavo would just leave me alone. I didn't think I was going to die—that didn't cross my mind—or that I should have told my mom I loved her. One thing I do remember was that when he started charging towards me, I thought, “Kevin, you should have listened to your instincts, boy.” I look back now, though, and realize that Tsavo was an example of how a person's childhood, or a lion's “cubhood,” can influence the way that person or lion behaves as an adult. Initially, I think Tsavo was a well-loved animal who eventually got tossed aside like a used oil rag. He reminds me of one of those Hollywood child actors who never quite cracked it as an adult actor. Even though he tried to kill me, I knew that Tsavo's behavior stemmed from the fact that his spirit was conflicted and broken. I could only guess at what a very sad place that is for an animal to find himself in. Given half the chance, if Tsavo were human, I would guess he would've committed suicide by now. And that makes me all the sadder for him.

The first thing I took away from my experience with Tsavo was to obey my sixth sense.

Everyone has this sense and I think I've merely had to develop mine over the years, working as I do with big animals. The trick is to know the difference between the hair rising on the back of your neck and excitement or adrenaline. There's a fine line between your instincts trying to tell you something and your body reacting to the exhilaration of the moment.

The second thing I learned was not to succumb to peer pressure, as I had in front of my family. It was about me, not them, just as it was with letting the researcher into the enclosure with Thunder and Rain. I had the power to say no in both of these cases, and the ability to concentrate and listen to my sixth sense, but I didn't exercise it.

I've also learned, through Tsavo and during other incidents, that animals can react differently to you if there are other people around. I was messing around with Shanzi the hyena one day, carrying him around and scratching under his chin, when some tourists drove up to the enclosure and tooted their car's horn. Shanzi panicked and his first reaction was to bite down. Unfortunately, my arm was in the way and his teeth passed right through me. “Come closer, we want to get a picture,” this woman was calling, while I was bleeding. Shanzi ran off in a panic, but returned a few seconds later. Hyenas have a switch in their brain that can flick on and off very quickly, taking them from peaceful and cuddly one second to extremely crazy the next.

Even with Tau and Napoleon now I play differently when we're alone, compared to, say, if Rodney Fuhr or some volunteers are visiting. Animals pick up on the fear or excitement of bystanders, and I'm even more conscious these days that when I interact with my animals, it's for my benefit and theirs—not for the purpose of putting on a show for visitors.

Pressure comes in different forms. On the night after Tsavo attacked me, I was sitting in a bath, bruised and battered and inspecting my wounds while having a calming glass of red wine. I remember thinking that I must have a guardian angel, and that
there were still many things I wanted to do in life. I am a glass-half-full person, even though my red wine needed topping up.

My girlfriend at the time, Michelle, walked in to the bathroom and said, “Kev, I love you with or without the lions, but you've got to give it up.”

My hero Valentino Rossi doesn't give up motorcycle racing every time he has a crash. Presumably he thinks about what went wrong and learns from it. That's what I did. Michelle and I eventually split up and I later met and married Mandy.

Mandy works at the Lion Park and she loves animals, though perhaps not in the same way as me. Certainly she wasn't crazy about the hyena cubs that peed all over the house. However, she accepts me for who I am, and she accepts my lions, hyenas, dogs, motorcycles, and flying. She even accepted my anaconda while we still had it. That acceptance is just one of the reasons I love her so much. She has never tried to pressure me into being something I'm not, or doing something I don't want to.

My philosophy has always been to live life to its fullest, as I could be dead tomorrow. I could put myself in a cupboard and wrap myself in cotton wool and live to the age of a hundred and one, but it wouldn't be fun. What you think is crazy may be okay for me and what I think is insane may be fine by you. Look at base jumping, for example—that's crazy.

The day after Tsavo attacked me I went to work at the Lion Park and all of us who worked there had a debrief about what had happened to me the day before. I thanked Alex for intervening when he did.

I was downplaying the seriousness of the attack because the last thing I wanted was for someone to ban me from going into the enclosures. I hated the thought that I might be banned from seeing Tau and Napoleon again. Ian and Alex and I were sitting around, and everyone was surmising what might have gone wrong and what might have motivated Tsavo.

I stood up, cutting the meeting short. “You know what, guys,
I've just got to go and check on a few things.” I left the office and headed to Tsavo's enclosure. I knew that talking would solve nothing and that I needed to confront Tsavo.

“Here, Tsavie. Come, boy,” I called when I reached the same spot where I had stood in front of my expectant family.

Tsavo ran up to the gate like normal, as though nothing had happened the day before, and stood there expectantly, waiting for me to enter. I started to wonder again if it was my fault, for running up and down the fence with Tau and Napoleon before entering Tsavo's enclosure, and if that had annoyed him.

I know now that wasn't the case. I run up and down with the hyenas, playing with them in full sight of the lions all the time. The lions hate the hyenas and would kill them given half a chance, but they don't take out their hatred on me when I enter their enclosure, so that couldn't have been the problem with Tsavo.

I slid open the gate and walked in. When lions talk to each other, they go, “
Wuh-oow, wuh-oow
,” quite softly and it's a good sign. Tsavo started talking to me, so I thought I must just get back in the saddle. I didn't have a stick or a gun with me, and there was no one inside the enclosure with me. Tsavo was fine and he showed no sign of aggression towards me. That's the difference between us and animals—they have no hidden agenda. They act on instinct and don't necessarily hold grudges in the way that humans do.

He was the same Tsavo he had been up until the attack. Of course, he had never changed. He'd sent me a signal in front of my family and I had ignored it. But I felt different around him, no doubt because of the kicking he had given me. Right then I felt as though I had two left feet, and that if someone had asked me a question I would have started stammering and stuttering. I found myself acting differently around him. We interacted, but I found myself staying very close to the gate. Lions like to rub their heads on each other, just like house cats, and when Tsavo presented his big head to me, I moved to one side, just like other people had told me in the past.

“Always stay to the side of the lion . . . don't touch its head or tail . . .”

I wasn't confident enough to confront him head-on and I was drawing on the words of others, rather than my gut instincts. This wasn't me. Tsavo hadn't changed, but I had, as far as our relationship was concerned. I had confronted him, and in doing so had confronted any residual fear I might have had as a result of the previous day, but I was being more cautious than usual around him and that is no basis for a relationship. I think my own insecurities stopped me from continuing to work with Tsavo.

Also, I realized then that I didn't really know Tsavo. Tau and Napoleon and I have an intimate relationship because we've grown together as friends and brothers over the years. I know exactly what they like and what they don't like. We can read each other's moods. I had come into Tsavo's life when he was three and I didn't know what he had been through, or really very much about him at all. How would I know, for example, that if I raised my hand to pat him one day, he would know I was being kind and not about to beat him? I just didn't know.

I have walked away from my relationships with some animals, as I have walked away from some of my human relationships. If the trust and respect is not there I can't pretend as though it is, or that it might come back or develop again. If I'm not getting on with an animal, I don't want to break it or train it until it does what I want. I want to be its friend and to have it accept me for who I am. If lions have done things for me, for example on film or commercial shoots, they have done it because it was easy for them and they enjoyed it, not because I forced them.

As I've said, some of my lions are like family, some are like friends, and some are acquaintances. On that day, in that enclosure, Tsavo went back to being what he probably was and should have been all along—an acquaintance.

SIX
 
Slowly . . .

 

 

 

I'm always very wary when I receive an e-mail from someone who wants to come and work or volunteer with me and the message starts with something like this:

“Dear Kevin, I think I would be a perfect addition to your team because I have a natural affinity with animals. Some people say I have a gift and . . . ”

At that point I usually hit delete, or Mandy sends a polite, “Thanks, but no thanks.” It's like someone telling you they're a people person, and that they get on with everyone. Forming a relationship with another person—even a business relationship—takes time. The same goes with animals.

I've based a lot of how I work with animals on watching them, and learning how they behave. This goes for how I relate to individuals, as well as species. As a child I liked observing and keeping records about my pigeons and other birds and animals. I was watching and learning not just for the sake of learning, but because I wanted to work out how I could relate to my pets. It was never enough for me to just look at them.

It was the same with Tau and Napoleon, the young lions I met at the Lion Park when I first started visiting. I was allowed to enter the enclosure with them, so the interaction started with them from day one. Like any new relationship there was a bit of trepidation and some nerves. I didn't know them and they didn't know me. As I've said, in those early days I thought that what Tau and Napoleon wanted from me was a couple of pounds of meat off my lower legs, but I later worked out I was wrong.

Although Richard had given me the basic ground rules, about not crouching or sitting or bending over in front of the lions, or showing them my back, or running, or this and that, I was on my own for much of the time with Tau and Napoleon, so I was free to experiment and test some boundaries with them.

As I started to get more confident with Tau and Napoleon and understand more about how they behaved, I learned what was play and what wasn't. Sometimes something I thought was quite serious was actually play, and vice versa. For example, some lions are very possessive. If Tau grabbed my jersey and growled, I wasn't sure whether it was because he wanted to take it, or if he was just enjoying playing with it. I had to learn which actions and noises meant he was serious, and which meant he was having fun.