5th August 2000
We were surprised to find Tjololo still with some carcass. Normally he’d have polished off these remains and moved on. He only finished the carcass after sunset and moved on east.
While lying around at the carcass we noticed he was drooling and seemed to be panting excessively. His coat also looked wet from sweat. All these signs pointed to him having some sort of fever.
When he moved on east his pace was slow and he kept resting up in the Sand river. But any sign of prey perked him up into hunting mode.
Around 3h00 he was meters off a duiker but blew his cover only to stumble into a herd of impala and when we found him he had a female impala dangling from his jaws high up in a tree, obviously in anticipation of interception by hyaenas. But the situation he was in with the impala dangling from his jaws was very tiring and it was inevitable he would drop the carcass. He did, and with the carcass on the ground he stayed in the tree catching his breath. He was exhausted. Luckily no hyaena were around. Only some 10 minutes later did he drag the carcass off some 500m into a donga. Exhausted, he rested up with the carcass on the ground and only treed it about an hour later. But again he dropped it. This was too much for him and when we left the carcass was still lying on the ground.
All the effort was obviously a bit much for him with not feeling himself. Hopefully with the larder full he will have time to recover and bounce back to be “The One Who Stands Alone”.
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