The Lion of Dolo

Last spring, Marina got this email from a renown veterinarian in Ethiopia. Here is the vet's story....

Last weekend was quite unusual. I was planning to relax for a couple of days when I received a phone call from the wildlife department: “Rea, can you leave tomorrow for Dolo Odo, to rescue a lion and bring him back to Awash Park, it is quite an emergency and you are the only one who can help us”. I cancelled my evenings with friends and packed my stuff. I checked on the map where Dolo was: South of the country at the Somali border, over 1000 km away from Addis…wow wow…we were running into trouble! Next morning early, off we went on 2 Toyota Hilux, 2 drivers, 1 chap from the department with all the federal confiscation papers, a vet assistant, 2 armed scouts and myself. On the way I was told that this lion was kept as an illegal pet, chained by the neck since he was a cub, the chain being so tight that it digged into its flesh. Recently the international pressure about the lion became so big that the state had to do something about it and ordered nearly over night a rescue mission.

It would turn out to be one of the craziest trips I did for a long time: 4 days, over 2000 km…we drove 63 hrs, I didn’t sleep for 50 hrs. Basically, we drove through the whole southern country, leaving the asphalt highway, going to Kenya to head eastwards, on bad gravel roads towards the arid zone of Somali Land, the roads extremely bad; very hot… I started to worry about the animal, would he survive such a trip?.

We reached Dolo at 3 pm the second day, which is right at the Somali border and went straight to the district headquarters. There was massive military deployment, we were at 20 km from conflict areas as we were told. The chief of the district showed us the lion, he was kept in a little hut, exactly like in the picture taken by a tourist 6 months ago and broadcasted internationally.

But I was shocked when I open the door, I was told he was a juvenile and here stands a fully grown 4 years old male adult. People were standing around and started to make problems so we disappeared again from the site telling them we would come back tomorrow. It was very hot so I couldn’t do anything anyway. We waited outside town until the evening and went back to the place. As hoped nobody was there, our lie worked. It was much cooler, although it started to get dark. I prepared my syringes, briefed my team about the procedure and ordered them to keep silence whatever happened, I didn’t t want to hear a single noise during this operation.they nodded, the lion roared and I started to move to the hut.

At that moment the population of Dolo stormed us, shouting, there were about 300 people around us,very unhappy that we were taking their lion. I hurried in the hut and tried to anaesthetize the animal. He was freaking out, people jumping on the roof, hitting the walls with sticks, screaming…the armed scouts had a hard time to, at least secure the entrance so that they wouldn’t t come in and grab me away. Even I started to shout to back off and the scouts threatened them with their guns…there is nothing you can do against an angry crowd. I focused on my work, knocked the animal down and we hurried to cut the chain, all by torch light, grabbed the animal, loaded him in the transport cage at the back of the pick up and disappeared as fast as possible. There was no way we could stay in town with the animal so we decided that I would stay outside the city with the 2 armed scouts and 1 driver while the others would go back in town and sleep in a hotel.

The animal woke up 4 hrs later and was horribly sick, he threw up for 4 hours… I thought he would die and monitored him throughout the night. But I had noticed before the anesthesia that he was not feeling well, may be he did eat something wrong. We left town at 4 am in order to drive as much as possible in the coolness of the early morning. We had to drive slowly since the road was so bad. We covered the cage with a blue plastic in order to minimize the stress for the animal. He was coping well so far.

We stopped for lunch and after 5 minutes again a huge crowd came running: “it is the lion of Dolo, why do you take him?”. I was amazed how fast the news are traveling in a desert area with no people. They were jumping on the cage, ripping off the plastic cover, women were screaming…we had to run away without eating. We couldn’t t stop anymore and had to keep the car with the lion moving. From then on, I switched driving with the 2 other drivers so that at least 1 could sleep and stop to eat. We arrived in Negele Borena at 6.30 pm.

The hotel refused to have us with a lion and we had to promise him that I would sleep next to the cage with the 2 scouts and if something would happen the scouts would shoot him. We left again at 4 am. The lion did eat and drink during the night. I was happy, until now he was surviving the trip well. My nightmare was to arrive in Awash with a dead body knowing that all the officials were waiting there for us with the media. But it was also clear to me that no wild animal could survive this trip!

We drove the whole day back, keeping the lion car moving (once we tried to stop at a police station but the crowd stormed even the police station). We arrived in Zoway at 8 pm. People were tired but we couldn’t t stay with the animal, too much stress, too much noise and the people. He was not doing too well at this stage, I was extremely worried. So I decided to continue alone with 1 scout and 1 driver and leave the others sleeping there. We switched with driving and we finally arrived in Awash Park at 1 at night. The scouts were waiting.

We unloaded the cage, dragged it towards the new big cage, opened both sliding doors and waited. The lion refused to move out! We kept 1 man on top of the cage to operate the door in case the lion would go in and rotate the shift every half hour. At 4 am the lion was still fast asleep. He was exhausted! The scouts then came to me “the lion sleeps, we are tired, let us also go to sleep”. I replied “OK but stay around, I keep an eye on him”. I sat in the back of the pick up and waited, waited. One and a half hour later I hear him drinking water in the big cage and whistled the guys to come, no answer, then louder “hey guys he is in”…still no answer, just some snoring from behind the bush. So I jumped out, climbed on the cage and tried to push down the sliding door full of rust…oh my nerves! That’s Africa!.

The bang woke up everybody. I was so relieved…my mission was now completed. One scout hugged me and said smiling to me “doctor, now you can have 1.5 hour sleep before the officials come” and somebody came running with a mattress and a blanket and everybody hugged me. I threw it in the back of the hilux and lay down. Of course I couldn’t sleep. Everybody had disappeared, I looked up at the stars and waited until the sun appeared. From time to time I would look down at the lion.

I was so filled with happiness, despite all the exhaustion and realized this animal was walking for the first time in 4 years!!!! Actually he didn’t t know what to do at the beginning, just doing the couple of steps he was used to do before the chain would pull him back during all these years, but after a while he would venture a bit further, surprised by this new freedom.

When the officials and reporters came, I could hardly keep my eyes open, I was filthy, had lived in the same clothes for 4 days and 4 nights, no shower, full of blood, vomit and shit…but right now I didn’t t care anymore, I was far too tired, and the lion was in the cage, safe, alive…that was all what counted!