INSPIRED BY A LIONESS

5 YEARS WITH MELA (Lockdown Day 4)

“Mela Bella baby lion” I call and wait a few seconds as I do not know where she is in her enclosure. A bush begins to shake and I look towards it as she bursts out of the leaves running to me. She is licking her lips and mewling in short whao whao moans.

Mela was born on the 29th March 2015. It was a Sunday and I was in Johannesburg having my broken arm attended to (That is another whole story involving a fractured cheek and other miscellaneous breaks).

Taiga phoned me in the morning exclaiming that there was a cub in Ariel’s enclosure.

I was concussed and struggled to compute this as there was no way that there could be a cub in Arial’s enclosure, “what?” I asked

“there is a cub in Ariel’s enclosure, it is alone, it is just sniffling around in the grass. Thulani called me to come and see it, I had heard what I thought was a cub screaming early this morning but theen I just thought it was impossible, what must I do?”

“There can’t be a cub because Beau has had a vasectomy and Arial is a baby herself” (in fact she was no longer a baby, except in my maternal mind)

“Well there is!”

“Ok, well just leave it, Ariel will take care of it”

We ended the call and I phoned Thulani to verify what I have just been told.

“yes Thandi, there is a cub in Ariel and Beau’s camp. I saw it there when I did my rounds this morning. Ariel is not with her. She is lying in the grass there next to the stones, but Arial she is with Beau in the other camp”

There were interlinking gates between three camps which we kept open so that we could give the two lions more space. They were living in what were referred to as the cub camps which were not all that large. The cub facilities had been used for dozens of cubs when the farm had been a breeding farm prior to 2012. But by 2015 they stood empty and so I had made use of them as the introductory camp for Beau when he was sent to Love Lions Alive for sanctuary. He had required ongoing medication and observation and this was a good place from where to perform those tasks. Later, so as not to have Beau live out his life alone, Thulani and I had decided to move Ariel in with him. We had deliberated for months, watching how Ariel, who lived with her sister Skye and Shalom, was being pushed out of the threesome and was often to be seen alone or lying at the fence closest to Beau. The cub camps were accessible from the larger one Ariel was in, so we left Beau there to bond with Ariel from the other side of the inter leading passageway. We watched them for weeks before agreeing that Ariel and Beau were relaxed with each other. Partnering her with Beau meant Ariel would have a friend and it left Skye with Shalom so they too were not alone, everyone would be happy.

Most importantly, Beau’s veterinary chart showed that he had had a vasectomy. It was therefore safe to put a female with him under Love Lions Alive’s policy of no more breeding on the farm Glen Garriff.

Now, 6 months later there was a cub.

I asked Thulani if he could entice Ariel into the section of camp in which the cub was and then close the gate between her and Beau. He said that he would try.
An hour or so later, he still hadn't managed to get Ariel into the cub’s section. He threw food for her but Beau ran in to take that piece leaving the one Thulani had first thrown to Beau, available for Ariel to take.

I told Thulani to leave it but I asked him if he would please go back to the farm later in the day to check on it. Thulani didn’t live on the farm, the owner of Glen Garriff moved all staff off of the farm a few years earlier, he lived on the adjoining government owned farm along with all the other members of both current and ex/employees and their extended families.

Thulani agreed. We spoke again at around 3pm at which time he reported that Ariel and Beau were sleeping in the 3rd part of the cub camps furthest away from the cub. The cub had crawled its way over to the fence nearest the owl tower (where the fire wood was chopped and owls roost, hence our name for the old cilo). He told me that it was lying still and I told him to just leave it.

“let’s wait and see what happens”.

I was recovering from concussion and fell asleep for a few hours in the beautifully dressed king size bed in the Blue room of my father’s house. I was so far removed from the cub in the camp in the Free State that I couldn't fully appreciate the reality of its existence.

At 6.25pm I awoke to my step mother, Phillipa, holding out my phone, it was Thulani. My heart raced, I had been wrapped up in luxury deep duvets and sleep. With a start I realised that Phillipa had removed my phone to allow me to sleep and that I had not had the lifeline between Thulani, the lions and me active at my side. This was the first time in years that I had not been connected to Thulani and the lions. Phillipa quickly explained that the doctor’s instructions were to give me complete rest and so she had monitored the phone for me, and now woken me because she knew I needed to respond to Thulani.

“Thandi, the cub she is screaming and Ariel has not come”.

I struggled to engage my brain and think about what it was best to do. All I knew was that it was incredibly difficult to look after a new born cub and that it was against our policy to breed cubs and lastly, that I was lying broken in a bed in Johannesburg far, far from being able to care for the baby whereas her mother was right there.
“Ariel must come to her, she must!” is all I was able to decide.

“umm about that, I have already given the cub to Taiga, she is making it a bottle”

“what! We haven’t decided what to do”

“Thandi! Taiga and me, we have been watching it in the sun for hours. The mother is not here, she is there. The cub has been screaming and screaming. Taiga phoned you but you did not answer. Thandi this is what we have decided for you, we have saved the cub. Taiga she is feeding the cub for you and I will stay to help her if she needs or I will go home now Thandi.”

The first night with a cub is the hardest. It is touch and go whether it will take to the bottle and whether, especially after such a delayed start, the fake milk will satisfactorily replace the colostrum the cub should be getting. The natural suckling from the mother, receiving her firm but gentle licks, the warm love and furry care are impossible to replace and hard to mimic.

One also has to stimulate the excretion of meconium, the cub’s first poo. This is vital and has to happen within hours. Taiga was alone with the new cub but she had the experience gained over our first months at Glen Garriff in December 2011 into 2012 when all the cubs we initially cared for were born.

I arranged to be taken back to the farm the next day to care for the cub. My neurosurgeon father sternly disapproved. Doctor’s orders were that I do not work. He and Phillipa were adamant that the best place for me to recover was in their home with no stress and minimal movement.
But I went.

My arm was in a sling so that became Mela's hanging out spot. She snuggled in the hanging sack around my neck. We bonded instantly. I was mostly bed ridden which gave us a lot of cuddle time. I simulated licking her with a warm damp cloth. I fed her bottles with no rush and no other sharp clawed cubs clambering at my feet for a turn as was the case with our 2011/2012 cubs. It did not bother me that I had to wake every few hours to feed, wind and poo her as we were in a bed-bubble enjoying synchronized sleep patterns.

In the following days as I was able to, we would lie on the sunny grass of the autumn afternoons. She began following me when I made the long walk down the passageway and when she was too slow to follow, I popped her into my sling.

We ventured out more and more. Becoming my constant companion meant bonding with my other constant companion, Micah my Golden retriever. This happened much to Micah’s dismay. He had already had to deal with all the cubs born there in the early days as well as Taai my lion son (whose story is fundamental to my life) and he knew that they bit, scratched, jumped on him and did not share their meat. But the old grumpy dog allowed the cub to clamber into the nook of his furry chest and sleep nestled there. He even began to lick her tummy on which I deliberately spilled a little milk from her bottle.

Taai on the other hand was not so easily won over, he was jealous of the new family member. I had to give Taai special alone time. As I improved in strength, I took walks with Taai while Mela was sleeping in her bowl bed; we spent quality time together on the lawn under the willow tree, our special, away from everyone place.

Mela’s ‘bowl bed’ came about one day when I carried a bowl full of clothe pieces I had ripped from an old sheet to use to wipe her anus to stimulate her to poo. Lionesses lick their babies to make them poo and at the same time dispose of the poo thus not alerting other predators to the cubs’ whereabouts via the smell. Having only one good arm, I put Mela into the bowl on top of the clothes as I carried it from the kitchen to the sitting room fire place alongside of which I was to feed and poo her. She loved the bowl of clothes and from that day on would climb into it. Her tiny form nestled in the clothes. When she outgrew the bowl, I bought her a large enamel bowl, at first she looked so terribly small in the expanse of duck-egg-blue-bowl. She used that bowl as a bed for nearly a year. Until her head dangled over the side and her too long legs stuck out at cross angles. One day she picked it up in her mouth and ran around smashing it, squeezing it in her arms as she rolled on her back until it was squashed into an unrecognizable lump of metal.

I had a travel permit to keep her with me and so Mela was with me when I left Glen Garriff. (Whilst lying in hospital not able to open my eyes, I had seen the situation at Glen Garriff clearly for the first time and as a result I blankly refused to cooperate with the owners regarding a sale of lions they were busy doing). Not knowing that we were going to leave that day, I had not taken any of our possessions, we were simply locked out of the farm with no prior warning and not allowed to come back in ever again. I applied for a permit to house Mela Bella elsewhere and bought her the needed bottles, formula, vitamins and supplements. The permit was valid only until she turned 6 months old, by which time I would have to move her to a proper lion facility. At first it felt like we had time enough to find a place for her to live with me, but the months sped rapidly by whilst I tried to negotiate a lease agreement with just the right farmer on just the right piece of land for me to build her a safe and beautiful lion enclosure. I was very specific about our needs. I would build her as natural an enclosure as possible with bushes, trees, veld, big rocks, high ground with open vistas and low ground with shady shelter. And all this had to be on a mountainside. Not a small ask. But I was very sure my baby girl could not live in a 4 sided, flat, ordinary lion camp.

As the deadline approached, I began exploring options to temporarily house her at another lion facility whilst I continued to work at getting my own place of sanctuary for her. I was distraught as I hated to place her somewhere without me or somewhere where breeding or tourist activities took place.
The thing was, to have a sanctuary for her, I had to first build it before I could register it and it had to be registered before I could apply for the necessary permits to have her there. My time, energy and emotions were also stretched by the fact that all my possessions were still locked away from me in a pile in the skinning shed at Glen Garriff, I was being charged with 4 different allegations of theft because the Glen Garriff owners said that they would make sure I could not get a permit to keep a lion if any one of the allegations managed to stick. I was forced to expend the energy to fight the charges because I had to have a clean name in order to have a permit to keep Mela. This all took time and resources. Evidence and witnesses had to be rounded up. A lawyer in Harrismith and an advocate kindly saw the big picture and worked to clear my name for no personal gain. Once this was done, just in time, with only days before Mela turned 6 months old, I found Appin, the farm we are on today.

I successfully sought an extension of 3 weeks to her permit and we built her an enclosure at Appin. The farm has every bit of natural splendor I had been seeking for her. I chose to build her enclosure far up on the mountainside so that she could have as much space to move about as possible without any people around. In order to look after her, I set up camp with her on the mountainside.

She was to sleep in her enclosure and I was to sleep alongside but outside of it. This did not work. I moved in to the enclosure with her.

It was at this time that Line came into our lives, she was here when we built Mela’s enclosure, she in fact planted the first ever poles in the sanctuary and stretched the first ever fence. Line and I moved the camp fire, our table and chairs into Mela’s enclosure and kept her company.

Over the following months, Mela and Micah and I lived in our camp on the mountain, we spent our days clearing away dead bush for the camp so as to create a bit of shelter to set the tents into. We lay in the deep shade at midday. We walked or jogged circuits up and around on a mountain path in the evenings, this when she had her leonine energy burst, in order to expend it positively without sacrificing tents and awnings.

Mela was the motivating factor behind creating Love Lions Alive Sanctuary. She got me up every morning, she made me do it, she gave me no choice and allowed me no option of giving up. I could not fail her. As a result, here we are. Line, me, Mela and another 23 big cats all living on the mountainside in sanctuary.

Mela enjoying a walk back in the day when we still walked freely. Now she lives in an enclosure permanently with Carl

Mela as a youngster lying in what is right now becoming the jaguars enclosure

Mela Bella coming to say hello with Carl lying on the rock behind her