9th August 2000
We finally discovered Tjololo’s problem. Parking up close to him when he yawned we saw he had ulcers all over his tongue. This explains why he has difficulty drinking and isn’t keen to groom himself. I spoke to a vet and apparently it could be one of a number of viruses. Once on the mend apparently the ulcers clear up fairly quickly. So hopefully he’ll be better soon, already seems to be on the mend.
We found him in the same place we’d left him in the morning. We left him here to the Mala Mala rangers and guests. They followed him north where he apparently stole the remains of an impala kill from a couple of hyaena. We picked him up finishing off the kill. Following him as he moved off I got myself seriously stuck in a steep donga which took a fair amount of digging and manipulating 2 jacks at the same time to get me out of my predicament.
Interestingly Tjololo continued north marking in an area he hasn’t been in for a while, Masuli’s territory? He seemed confident with himself and we wonder if the two of them didn’t have a showdown while we were away. Time will tell.
Later moving into the Sand river he headed back south and suddenly calling continuously. Most of the time we could only follow his calls. With temperatures dropping at around 3-4 o’clock in the river valley all we wanted to do was close up in our sleeping bags and get a good warm sleep but Tjololo kept us on the move.
By dawn he’d had moved back east and lay up in the Lion waterhole donga.
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