Aidan Hartley Aidan Hartley

My father vs the killer lion

iStock 
issue 08 June 2024

Laikipia, Kenya

This month, in broad daylight on our Kenyan farm, a lioness mauled one of my bull calves. Before she could make a kill, a quick-witted herder intervened and drove the beast off. My son Rider loaded the injured calf into the pickup and brought it home, where he gently cleaned the tooth and claw wounds, then injected the poor creature with antibiotics and a painkiller. Big cat injuries go bad fast, but we all felt cheered that the calf, to my mind a future champion Boran bull, had survived and might pull through. The next morning the calf got to his feet and suckled his mother. What a sight that was. The morning after that, the mother was out grazing with her calf when she inadvertently bashed into a tree in which hung a beehive. The African bees, now angry, poured out of the hive and stung the injured calf to death.

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