I mention this because Paul has recently published a memoir, Drawn to Africa, about his family’s time in East Africa.
Across oceans and cultures, one family’s journey unfolds, a testament to their resilience, wonder, and deep sense of belonging that will resonate with readers. Why would a mild-mannered Minneapolis printer take his wife and young children on a mission to British East Africa in the years immediately after World War II? Could they revive a Lutheran printing press, a symbol of faith and communication, that had remained silent during and after the war?
Drawn to Africa tells the remarkable true story of the Bolstad family, whose sense of calling carried them from the quiet heart of the American Midwest to the vast, unpredictable landscapes of Tanganyika. Their journey began with an ocean crossing and a harrowing flight aboard a converted B-17 bomber – complete with an emergency landing between Cairo and Nairobi. Drawn to Africa is a family memoir written by Paul Bolstad with memories contributed by sisters Rosanne and Marilyn and brother Daniel.
Even after resettling in America, the pull of East Africa remained strong, drawing them back to the land that had captured their hearts. The sequel,Drawn to Africa Again, continues their journey, exploring their ongoing connection to Africa. Available on Amazon.com in 2026.
Adventurous, heartfelt, and grounded in faith, Drawn to Africa is a vivid portrait of resilience, discovery, and the enduring ties between people and place.
Email Paul Bolstad – pbolstad43@gmail.com – for more news about Drawn to Africa Again. We’d love to hear your stories and memories of Africa, so please share them with us.
It was late in the afternoon and shadows were lengthening before Musa, Clary’s gun bearer, exhausted from his ordeal, stumbled into the house of Clary’s father in Tanga. “Your son has been attacked by a leopard and is close to death!” he gasped before sinking to the floor croaking for water.
This was bad news. William knew of many leopard attacks, none of which had ended happily. Hastily, he assembled two long, stout poles, a heavy blanket, sheets, and some sisal rope to make a stretcher. Then, while selecting six strong men from his workers to be stretcher-bearers, he coaxed precise directions to the village from Musa who was too exhausted to make the return journey. The man had done well to make the perilous trek at such a fast pace. He would be well rewarded later.
“Twende. Let’s go.” The rescue party set out into the fading light of the dying day. By the time they arrived at the edge of town, night had fallen. Hurriedly walking in the dark, they lost their way several times. But then they noticed the smell of smoke from the bush fire that had been lit during the leopard fight and, later, its yellow glow above the distant horizon. Finally, the pale light of the village’s only kerosene lantern, seen through an open window of the headman’s hut, guided William out of the darkness and straight to his son’s bedside.
Drawn by this big event in their monotonous lives, villagers stared through every window and door of the hut as Clary, his pale face showing both agony and shame, narrated the incident to his father—agony from the unattended leg wounds, and shame at being outwitted and outdone by a wild animal. William, however, finding that he had arrived in time to find his son alive, was greatly relieved. Clary was badly mauled, yes, but still conscious and alive.
Willing hands lifted Clary from the blood-soaked bed and placed him on the uncomfortable jerry-rigged stretcher. Then four strong carriers heaved it onto their shoulders. Clary faced a long, jolting ride back to Tanga, and it wasn’t going to be easy for the porters either. They had to carry a heavy load on the thorn-strewn paths through the dark bushland crawling with wild game, slithering snakes, and biting insects. “Let’s go,” William motioned to the waiting carriers, and without a word, they set off.
Early the next morning, Clary’s father, red-eyed and dead tired, walked into the room, already brightly lit by the early morning sun, where Clary was sleeping. He was trailed by a Kanzu-clad servant carrying an enamel washbasin steaming with boiled water and a white towel folded over one arm. Uncorking a dark green bottle, “Doctor” William, poured tiny purple crystals into the hot water. Little whirls of violet smoke curled up from each grain, which darkened the water into a deep purple liquid. “Permanganate crystals”, said William, before his son could ask. “We must disinfect your wounds before gangrene sets in. Otherwise, both of your legs risk being amputated! Leopard claws are full of rotten meat from their kills, so washing out the wound with this solution is your only chance.”
Swahili and Arab in origin, the kanzu is a white or cream-colored, ankle or floor-length robe worn by men in East Africa, in this case, Uganda.
(Kayla Allan Benjamin. CCA-SA 4.0 International License)
Then, with the warning, “Son, this is going to hurt like hell,” William poured cup after hot cup of liquid over Clary’s legs, washing away dried blood, dirt, and yellow body fluid, and staining the towel a sickly blue-black color. A sound like a lion roaring with its jaws wired shut escaped through Clary’s clenched teeth as he struggled to control the tears welling up in his eyes. However, his father wasn’t done yet. “The most painful part of your recovery is still to come,” he warned. Closing the door behind him, he left his son alone to rest and reflect on his ordeal and to contemplate his future… assuming he had one.
“My hunting days are over,” Clary internally moaned. Who will trust me to guide them after this? He could not understand how he had missed that leopard, which was lying right at his feet, or why the big gun did not fire at the critical moment when the angry cat was on him. He could not comprehend what had gone so terribly wrong, yet the deep red wounds on his torn legs were certain proof that indeed it had all gone wrong.
With this on his mind, Clary asked a servant to bring him his 400 Jeffrey rifle, which he carefully examined, noting the leopard’s teeth marks and dried white saliva marking the ends of the barrels. But then he found something unexpected, the two triggers bent right back against the rear of the trigger guard. Then he checked the safety catch, which came off with a “click” that sounded more like an explosion as he suddenly realized what had gone wrong the day before: the gun had an automatic safety catch; open the breech and the safety is automatically pushed to “safe.”
Now he remembered! When he was lying on the ground under the bush fending off the leopard, he’d broken open the gun, reloaded, closed the breech, rammed the barrels into the leopard’s mouth, and, not realizing the safety catch was on, squeezed both steel triggers so hard he’d bent them back against the rear guard, rendering the gun useless. It would have to be repaired by a good gunsmith.
A double-barreled rifle. Being able to snap off two shots in quick succession was a boon to hunters caught in tight situations. The safety catch is visible at the far left.
(Hmaag. C.C. A-S 3.0 Unported License)
For young Clary, the following three weeks were the most boring of his life. Confined to his bed where his slowly healing legs were cleaned daily, he did nothing except eat, sleep, read, talk, listen, and defecate. But that ended one morning when his father announced that Clary must start walking again before his damaged muscles settled into a new straight position. Otherwise, he would find walking upright difficult and painful and probably walk with a limp the rest of his life.
William then lifted Clary into a sitting position on the bed with his legs dangling over the side, and from there into a standing position. With a loud yelp of pain, Clary pulled free and sat down again. Blood oozed from cracked black leg scabs that had torn open when he tried to stand. “Son”, William said, “I warned you it would be painful. But if you don’t start walking now, you’ll be a cripple for the rest of your life.” So, several times each day, Clary practiced walking, one slow, painful step after another, until he could reach the bedroom door unaided by the African servant standing ready to lend a hand in case of a fall.
A month or so later, Clary had improved to where, armed with a rifle and accompanied by his dog, Satan and a porter, he was taking daily walks into the countryside. Ambling down Tanga’s main road past the imposing German-era Kaiserhof hotel, they strolled beneath huge shady mango trees and between rows of swaying coconut palms into the bush beyond the railway station. Returning home in the cool evening, with the salty tang of the sea breeze in the air, Satan trotting at his heels, and a fat kill draped over the porter’s shoulders, Clary finally felt his world was in order. It only remained to deal with his shame about the leopard incident.
For days, storm clouds had gathered into huge, woolly towers far out to sea, signaling the coming of the rainy season. Nightly rumblings of thunder carried into the little room where Clary lay awake contemplating a return to the place of his mauling. He had to lay his mind to rest about how he’d missed a leopard only inches away from the gun’s muzzle. Furthermore, he must do it before the rains came to wash away all evidence of the incident. “I have to go tomorrow,” he told his father.
The next day, Clary was up before dawn. Breakfasting on tea and chapatis, he was out of town before first light, carrying his repaired 400 Jeffery’s Express rifle and accompanied by a young helper with a haversack containing water bottles, biltong (air-dried, cured meat) and a twist of tobacco as a gift for the village headman. Satan, whining sulkily, was forced to stay safely at home, as leopards, should Clary meet any on the way, were partial to juicy dogs.
They did not stop until they reached the settlement by the old baobab trees where the villagers were pleasantly surprised to see him alive. Gratefully receiving the gift of tobacco, the headman informed Clary that the leopard had not been seen or heard of since the incident. Their goats were grazing peacefully once more.
Clary only recognized the thicket because of the termite mound, the fire having turned the thicket into an untidy mass of blackened, tangled branches protruding from a grey-black carpet of charred leaves. He pushed his way through the tangle of burned branches and leaf ash until once more he stood atop the termite castle where the events of that fateful day came flooding back. Then, looking down, as he had done on that same afternoon many months before, he could hardly believe his eyes as he stared right into a hole in the side of the mound. It was a deep hole, large enough to hide a full-grown leopard.
Finally, Clary understood what had happened: The big cat had crouched inside this hole, shielded from Clary’s fusillade of 303 bullets. Then the mound’s earth walls had protected it against the blast from his double-barreled rifle fired at point-blank range. (Inches to one side of the hole – just where the leopard’s neck and shoulder would have been had it had been lying on instead of in the anthill – were two bullet holes where the slugs from the 400 had slammed into the dry earth.)
For the first time since the incident, Clary felt relief. No longer did he need to blame himself for not killing the leopard.Admittedly, he’d forgotten to switch off the Jeffrey 400’s safety catch. However, Clary vowed, he would never do that again. And, having decided that, he realized with a thrill that he could be a professional hunter after all.
Clary discovers the leopard’s lair
(Artist: Gregg Davies)
Immersed in thought, Clary didn’t realize how dark the sky had become. The first large raindrops began to plop down as he hurried to take the footpath back home, raising mushroom clouds of dust, perfuming the air with that unique smell of fresh rain on thirsty soil. The rains had finally started.
And despite getting soaked, Clary didn’t mind a bit. He was too happy.
This is the story of Clary Palmer-Wilson, born in Nairobi, East Africa in 1907. At the age of 14 he began earning his livelihood as a hunter in the East African bush where dangers lurked everywhere and mistakes carried severe consequences. Unable to survive by hunting alone, he tried mining during a gold rush, became a car mechanic, farmed, and took on any other task that paid enough to keep him going. Eventually, he tried settling down to a normal life with a regular job, even though he still felt the call of wild. East Africa’s time as a wild game paradise was winding down. But Clary was too old to change. He lived to hunt.
Clary Palmer-Wilson was a legend in his own time, credited with the world’s record buffalo and a massive elephant named The Crown Prince. Despite being asthmatic and allergic to over 150 substances, he became a sought-after hunting guide.
(Artist: Gregg Davies)
From 1920 to 1973, during Clary’s hunting days, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) was a very different country. Beyond the towns and larger villages huge tracts of land teemed with wildlife. (In 1965, the country had 1,200,000 elephants.) Raw, untamed Africa started just beyond the front door, and the understaffed and overworked wildlife department was grateful for any help they could get in controlling marauding animals. Clary, a professional hunter, often assisted in game control measures but never shot an animal for sport, only for food or to earn his living.
This is a historic account of one man living an unusual life in East Africa. Such a life would not be possible today.
(Adapted from Ric Palmer-Wilson. The Legend of a Hunter in a Bygone Era. Published in 2023 by Amazon.com.)
Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania). Tanga is in the northeastern corner, opposite the island of Pemba.
(Shakki. GNU Free Documentation license.)
1924. Somewhere west of Tanga.
Clary Palmer-Wilson lay dying on a rickety wooden sisal-rope bed in the village headman’s mud and wattle hut. Seventeen years-old and miles from medical help, his only comfort was the thatched-palm roof that kept the room dark and cool from the fierce African sun. Dark red blood oozed through his khaki shirt, which he had torn into strips to make temporary bandages for his shredded legs. Outside the hut, a dozen natives gathered to witness the last moments of the young man who had tried to save their dwindling goat herd from a spotted devil—a leopard. Instead, he had become a victim himself.
Clary’s gun bearer, Musa, however, still held out hope. Wearing only a tucked-up loincloth, he set off at a fast trot to fetch Clary’s father William in far-off Tanga.
It had all started few days previously in the coastal town of Tanga when a delegation from the village asked Clary for help. The game department had refused because it was too busy keeping buffaloes away from the local railway station and elephants from native shambas (gardens). (In one moonless night elephants could destroy a family’s entire season’s food crop.) Intrigued, Clary accepted the challenge, although it was more for the love of hunting than for saving goats. Taking up his double-barreled 400 Jeffrey rifle and a war-surplus 303, he casually informed his father. “I’ll be back in a day or two. Make room for a leopard skin rug somewhere.”
Setting out at dawn, Clary and Musa (Arabic for Moses) reached the village in mid-morning. Soon thereafter, Clary found himself crawling through a small patch of dense thicket near the village, frequently stopping to crouch and tensely peer around. He had seen the leopard’s spoor entering the thicket. He could smell its pungent odor. But where was it? Eventually deciding the leopard was gone, Clary climbed atop a termite mound to see over the top of the thicket. Holding the muzzle of his rifle in one hand and shading his eyes with the other he scanned across the surrounding grassland for other thickets that might harbor the large feline goat-killer. Then, out of the corner of his eye the young hunter saw an ear twitch, and suddenly there it was—yellow-eyes, black tipped ears, shiny dark nose above sharp teeth bared in a half snarl—leopard! At Clary’s very feet!
Leopard–sleek, handsome, and dangerous.
(David Bygott)
Taken by surprise, Clary, still holding the gun by its muzzle, leapt backwards, landed on his back, jumped up and fought his way through the thicket into the open where he whirled to fire at the pursuing cat—which wasn’t there. Glancing at the villagers waiting nearby, he wondered what they were thinking. (Witnessing his wild rush from the thicket, his ragged hair standing on end and his khaki clothes littered with dry leaves and broken twigs, they were wondering if the devil leopard hadn’t taken possession of him, too.)
“I´ll get that big cat out of there now, good and dead”, he said to himself, although loud enough for all to hear.
Exchanging his heavy rifle for the 303, he tried to flush the cat out by firing into the bushes where he had last seen it. Shot after shot ripped into the thicket. However, none induced a single sound or movement from the leopard. Clary knew that, if wounded, the leopard would have growled loudly or charged. If dead, it was somewhere in the thicket. If alive, it was somewhere there and very annoyed. He also knew that he, the brave hunter, the village savior, had to go back in to settle the question. Taking up the 400 Jeffery’s rifle, he nervously inched back into the thicket toward the termite mound.
Lee-Enfield 303 rifle used in the First World War. It was capable of 20-30 shots per minute in the hands of a highly trained rifleman
With his gun at the ready, he searched the bushes near the termite mound, circling it completely before climbing up to peer into the surrounding thicket. Dangling branches showed green gashes where they had been struck by 303 bullets. Gouges in the fresh earth bore testimony to the same cause. But nothing else was noticeable and nothing moved.
Suddenly, there it was again, that heart-stopping ear twitch of a live leopard!
And, once again, right at his feet, Clary saw an angry cat with flattened ears, fiery eyes, and a snarling mouth. But this time he was ready. Swinging the gun down, he pulled both triggers at once. “Boom! Boom!” Dust and sand exploded everywhere. He’d missed!
With a short, guttural growl the enraged leopard leaped, knocking Clary off the mound to sprawl under a tangle of low-lying branches. Fortunately, they blocked the savage cat from reaching his neck and face. Still on his back, he pulled the gun free of the bushes, reloaded, and jammed it through the branches into the leopard’s neck. Then he squeezed both triggers hard. To his horror, his rifle did not fire. Instead, the enraged cat seized the gun barrel in its jaws, at the same time clawing Clary with its razor-sharp claws, shredding his trousers and legs.
In excruciating pain and high on adrenalin, he again squeezed both gun triggers, this time with all his strength, yet the only sound was leopard teeth breaking on gunmetal. The smell of fresh blood driving it on, the cat lunged closer to Clary’s jugular. Holding the animal at bay with the gun barrel, Clary screamed for help from the men outside. Jolted into action, they responded by lighting bunches of dry grass and hurling them into the bushes, setting fire to the dry underbrush. They threw Doum palm nuts in all directions. They shouted like madmen. They beat the bushes with long sticks to cause maximum distraction.
And their efforts paid off, causing the enraged leopard to retreat into the thick vegetation. However, danger was not yet over because the fire set by the villagers was moving with increasing speed and intensity towards Clary, who, severely wounded, could barely move. Yelling above the roar of the fire, he attracted the attention of the men who hacked a path through the bushes to where he lay. Lifting him up, they stumbled back to safe ground. Then, seeing his wounds, they took him to the headman’s hut.
Editor’s note: Many of this website’s posts derive from my time as a volunteer in Tanzania in the mid 1960’s. However, I’m also interested in the experiences of other volunteers who devoted a few years of their lives in assisting communities and non-government and government agencies in East Africa. This post, by Paul Bolstad, is the second in this line. If you have a volunteer story you would like to have published please let me know at d_herlocker@icloud.com.
By Paul Bolstad, U.S. Peace Corps volunteer.
PROLOGUE
It was late afternoon and the Kilombero Settlement Scheme’s small, corrugated metal office building was hot and stuffy. Wiping sweat from my brow, I returned to trying to make sense of a farmer member’s accounts as recorded by the scheme’s clerical staff: Smudged pages, indecipherable scribbles, misplaced decimal points, numbers in the tens when all logic said they should be in the 100’s, columns that didn’t add up. . . Yuck!
“Hodi?” Can I come in? Our mechanic stood in the open doorway brandishing a greasy truck (lorry) part. “Imekwisha!” he announced. It is finished! He glumly added that: (a) the vehicle it came from couldn’t run without it, and (b) he had no replacement parts. Oof! Bad news: The scheme’s trucks had to be kept running to haul our farmers’ sugar cane to the processing factory. I knew exactly what Mr. Temu, the manager, was going to say: “Paul, please take the bus to Dar es Salaam tomorrow to get more vehicle parts.”
And I didn’t want to because it would delay sorting out the farmers’ accounts so they could be paid for cane they had produced last year, something the previous manager had failed to do. But the trucks had to be kept running, so . . .
Mechanic: How can I work without spare parts? Paul Bolstad
Just then another familiar face appeared, an older man with wispy beard and Muslim skull cap (kofia). Mr. Temu and I knew him as a loquacious troublemaker and probable cause of the removal of the scheme’s previous manager. He wanted to see Mr. Temu about a “problem.” Uh oh!
This was more bad news: I could see this request leading to a baraza or meeting, with Mr. Temu and I spending an entire morning or afternoon listening to farmers’ complaints about problems we already knew about and were trying to fix. It would keep us in touch with our farmers but otherwise solve nothing. For my part, I would worry the whole time about unfinished accounts and the need to keep our trucks / lorries running.
Dar es Salaam was beginning to look more inviting.
I was part of a group of 13 Peace Corps volunteers assigned to the Rural Settlement Division in Tanzania’s Ministry of Lands and Settlement. Our charge was to help, in any way we could, in the management of resettlement schemes. The latter were assisting people to a better life by giving them an opportunity to produce cash crops alongside their normal food crops. This involved clearing land with heavy equipment, surveying plots, and supplying seeds, fertilizers, tools, and on-site agricultural advice. Schemes marketed the crops at negotiated prices and, after deducting the costs of inputs they had supplied, paid each farmer based on the amount he/she had contributed.
KILOMBERO SETTLEMENT SCHEME
The Kilombero Settlement Scheme, based at Sonjo 35 miles north of Ifakara, supported 250 families living in three villages. Settler members came from all over the country. The settlement scheme provided sugar cane to the privately owned Kilombero Sugar Company, which had extensive plantations of sugar cane at the base of the Udzungwa Mountains 17 miles away. Smaller sugar cane “out-growers” augmented the company’s cane production. At 1,000 acres, the Kilombero Settlement Scheme was the largest “out-grower.”
Location of the Kilombero Settlement Scheme. Map data@2014 Afrigis(Pty) Ltd, Google
Sugar cane growing on the settlement scheme.
Paul Bolstad
Planting sections of sugar cane, which will take root and grow up to 15 ft (4.5 m) high and 2 inches (5 cm) thick .
Paul Bolstad
I arrived in Oct. 1966, half-way through the harvesting season, to find the settlement scheme roiled by farmers so unhappy that they had forced the removal of the previous manager. They were especially angry about frequent breakdowns of settlement scheme vehicles which threatened the scheme’s ability to deliver its quota of cane to the sugar factory. Many had waited for over a year to harvest their cane and be paid.
Farmers discussing a problem
Paul Bolstad
However, there was a wider problem in that the farmers simply didn’t trust the government civil servants running the settlement scheme. They especially disliked the Tanzanian clerical staff, or “karanis,” who acted superior, treating the farmers with little respect. The farmers also felt the karanis were trying to trick them out of their fair shares in the proceeds. The leaders in fomenting and channeling this mistrust and anger were settlers from the coastal areas, the “Waswahili,” whose language, Kiswahili, was widely used throughout East Africa as a trade language. Not known for their commitment to hard physical labor, they were, on the other hand, accomplished attenders of meetings and discussions, and in sending delegations to headquarters bearing complaints and demands.
Settlement scheme farmers meeting to discuss problems. Note the predominance of Muslim Waswahili as indicated by their distinctive kofias or caps. Paul Bolstad.
THE NEWCOMER
I had no immediate assignment, which was just as well because I was, at the time, effectively useless to anyone. Thus, my first three months were devoted to improving my Kiswahili language skills, and in a crash course in sugar cane production and operational details of the settlement scheme.
Paul Bolstad
When the new settlement scheme manager, Mr. Felix Kitipo Temu, arrived, I found him to be friendly, helpful and highly competent. I became his administrative assistant, and we became fast friends while working together to understand and put right the troubles that plagued the settlement scheme. I soon found myself deeply involved in its operations.
Mr. Felix Kitipo Temu, in retirement many years later.
Paul Bolstad
AS A GO-BETWEEN
I acted as Mr.Temu’s “go-between” with the sugar factory whenever the scheme couldn’t fulfil its quota of cane. He also frequently sent me to Dar es Salaam, over 200 miles away, to obtain vehicle parts and get papers signed at the ministry. I became an expert in going from one desk to another in government offices, waiting out reluctant and/or slothful bureaucrats until I got what I needed. Because travel by bus to Dar es Salaam took a full day, and I averaged one trip a month, this aspect of my work took up much of my time.
AS AN ACCOUNTANT
Mr. Temu’s arrival coincided with the end of the harvesting campaign of 1966. Each year the sugar company set the dates of the “campaign, which usually started when the fields and roads were dry enough to support heavy equipment and continued for about seven months when the sugar processing factory, which ran 24 hours a day, shut down for five months of repairs and maintenance.
The Kilombero Sugar Cane factory backdropped by the Udzungwa Mountains. The factory continues to operate to this day with 45% of its production supplied by 8,000 Kilombero Valley small holders. https://www.kilomberosugar.co.tz/en/about-us
The factory’s shutdown brought up the issue of payments to the farmers. Before any payment could be approved by headquarters in Dar es Salaam, we had to submit our accounts for each farmer, including how much cane was produced and transported minus charges for goods and services. But the scheme’s accounting system was a mess. Mr. Temu and I struggled for three months to make sense of seven months of receipt books and records before we satisfied the chief accountant. We then went to the bank and loaded up our Land Rover with a pile of money in small denominations and drove straight back to Sonjo. I still remember the line of expectant farmers waiting to be paid the next day.
Subsequently, Mr.Temu asked me to devise a new accounting system based on what we had learned, one any illiterate farmer could understand when he was paid. In fact, it only required the ability to add up a column of numbers twice and get the same result, as well as using a measure of common sense. (Mr. Temu’s favorite saying was “Common sense is not common.”) I don’t remember being involved in accounting after that.
AS A PLANNER
We spent much of each year preparing for the next harvest season, a major objective being to ensure that our cane was successfully loaded in the fields and hauled to the factory over 17 miles of bad roads.
The reason this was so important was that the settlement scheme had to supply its quota of a minimum daily tonnage of sugar cane to the factory or risk its quota for the next harvesting season being reduced, Furthermore, if not delivered within two or three days of being cut, the sugar content of the cane began to fall, causing the factory to reject it or pay a lower rate.
Farmers loading sugar cane.
Paul Bolstad
Trucks hauled cane to the factory on dirt roads like this.
Paul Bolstad
Thus, we had to ensure our government-owned trucks / lorries were adequately prepared for the long harvesting season by the scheme’s trained mechanic and his assistants. (We had a warehouse but no roofed garage, therefore repairs were carried out in the shade of a large tree.) We also had to order the correct quantities of spare parts for the coming season so that the scheme’s mechanics could quickly repair vehicles as needed.
Mechanic repairing truck
Paul Bolstad
AS A BUILDER
Mr. Temu and I came up with the idea of creating a shortcut to the factory and charging a small fee for each truck using it. This required digging a ditch of considerable length to drain low-lying sections of the proposed road. Our government division advanced funds to hire laborers, and our neighbor, Major Plett, another sugar cane “out-grower,” whose trucks would also use the short cut road, provided additional labor.
We devised a simple design for the ditch, a method of measuring the amount of earth removed by each laborer, and a way to keep the ditch drained of water while being dug (basically, start digging at the lowest spot and work upwards). We also paid each laborer as soon as he completed his day’s defined task. I remember being amazed at how much this speeded their work. The short cut was a success, significantly reducing the distance our trucks had to drive to reach the well-maintained roads of the sugar company.
Farmers building the shortcut road.
Paul Bolstad
We next decided to construct a proper office and a much better facility for servicing vehicles and storing spare parts. This required government funds for labor and for cement and bati (corrugated metal) sheets. We already had iron frames supplied years earlier for settler housing but never used. In addition, I secured a CINVA-RAM block-making machine from the Peace Corps office in Dar es Salaam, and prepared simple designs for the two buildings.
We then found a good source of soil to use to make “stabilized soil” blocks with the CINVA-RAM machine. Then I simply showed some laborers how to use the machine and paid them for each block produced. (See how a CINVA-RAM machine works at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMK3l8_VR4Q.)
The walls were formed by laying air-dried blocks between the steel frames, which, set every ten feet, supported the corrugated metal roof. Having learned to lay bricks during Peace Corps training, I not only could teach and supervise the workers but also, much to their amazement, do the job myself—I doubt any of them had ever seen an “mzungu” (white man) lay bricks. The speed of their work improved considerably after that. They were a great success, and we were very proud of them.
The results of this effort were two buildings of simple but durable construction; the office is still standing and in use today, over half a century later.
Constructing the new Kilombero Settlement Scheme office building in 1967.
Paul Bolstad
The same building in 2024
Jono Jackson
YEAR 2
Transporting cane to the factory continued to be a problem. Therefore, we encouraged the farmers / settlers to obtain their own vehicles for hauling sugar cane. One farmer, who owned a duka (small store), had the financial resources to buy a new Ford 5-ton lorry. Another bought, with my financial support, an older used truck which often broke down. But we didn’t stop at that as we also recruited several transporters from Dar es Salaam to come to the settlement scheme during the harvest season and earn 51 shillings per load.
LOOKING BACK
I left the Kilombero Settlement Scheme in 1968 when my two years as a volunteer ended. A year later, in 1969, the government of Tanzania concluded its financial resources were too limited to continue supporting settlement schemes and abruptly converted the Kilombero Settlement Scheme into a self-supporting cooperative. This caused the poorer settlers, including most of the coastal Waswahili, to immediately depart, leaving their holdings to be taken over by the scheme’s more successful farmers. When next I visited, in 1974, the cooperative was struggling to survive.
Settlement scheme problems? Hakuna matata! Paul Bolstad
Looking back on my time at the Kilombero Settlement Scheme, I for years felt it difficult to conclude that the efforts of Mr. Temu and I in putting it on a firm operational footing were in any way part of an incremental building of a rural development process. One can even say that our efforts were largely wasted because of the abrupt abandonment of the settlement scheme idea so soon after I left. (Note: That said, my discovery that the office building we constructed still exists, that it is still occupied by a cooperative, and that recent data shows “out-growers” to be supplying up to 45% of total cane intake of the Kilombero Sugar Factory (https://www.kilomberosugar.co.tz/en/about-us) makes me wonder if Mr. Temu and I, weren’t perhaps more successful than we thought.)
In any case, I know I did the best I could and that what came of my efforts is more the responsibility of those that followed. I am content in the memory of the rich personal experiences and relationships I had with people such as Mt. Felix Kitipo Temu, who became a friend and acted like a co-worker rather than a boss. I was fortunate that I had to learn Kiswahili, (now Tanzania’s official national language), because it provided insights into, and appreciation of, Tanzanian culture I would not otherwise have had. Furthermore, I gained a perspective on rural development in Africa that proved useful in my subsequent studies and in living and working elsewhere in Tanzania. All in all, I consider myself the chief beneficiary of the two years I spent in Tanzania on the Kilombero Settlement Scheme.
1965. A small group of tourists and I were in Tanzania’s Oldupai Gorge listening to an African guide talk about paleontological discoveries at the gorge. He was a young man, one of five trained by paleoanthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey, and was clearly enjoying his job. However, he really came alive at the discovery site of a nearly two-million-year-old species of ape, Zinjanthropus boisei, nicknamed Nutcracker Man because of its huge teeth. “A very important find” he excitedly announced. “Why? Because this ancient ape walked upright, just like us! This same creature may also have been the first to use rudimentary stone tools!” Then, gesturing to a small concrete monument at his feet, our guide proudly stated, “And Dr. Mary Leakey found the skull of Nutcracker man right here!”
Discovery site of Zinjanthropus boisei (Nutcracker Man). It has since been reclassified, first as Australopithecus boisei and then Paranthropus boisei. (Paranthropus means Robust Ape.)
The tour guides, in place since 1963, had been taken on to deal with a sudden surge in visits stimulated by artlcles about Oldupai Gorge and Nutcracker Man published in National Geographic Magazine. Safari companies, instead of driving their clients directly from Ngorongoro to the Serengeti National Park, were beginning to include Oldupai Gorge in their itineraries. Visitor numbers, already too high to be handled directly by on-site scientists, rose from 600 in 1963 to 3,335 in 1965, initiating a rising trend that continues to the present day.
The Oldupai Gorge Site and Visitor Center is only a short diversion from the main road about halfway between two of Tanzania’s most visited tourist sites, Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti National Park. (Graphic by (David Bygott and Jeannette Hanby.)
Of course, increasing tourism in Tanzania primarily reflected the allure of its wildlife, especially in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Serengeti National Park. For instance, in 1965, four of five visitors to Ngorongoro and the Serengeti bypassed Oldupai Gorge entirely. Nonetheless, findings excavated there continued to attract visiters by keeping it in the news. Examples not included in a previous post https://storiesofeastafrica.com/2024/09/20/the-leakeys-and-their-discoveries-at-oldupai-gorge-tanzania/ include:
A 1.75 million-year-old stone circle, the oldest-known evidence of a man-made shelter from weather.
A computerized depiction of the remains of a stone circle at Oldupai. It was built by piling basaltic rocks in a ring structure and was used as a windbreak and / or base to support upright branches covered by skins and grass. (https://www.dennisrhollowayarchitect.com/Olduvai.html)
Rudimentary stone tools, associated with Australopithecus apes, that are a million years or more older than those associated with Nutcracker Man and Homo habilis (Handy Man).
An array of extinct animal species that co-existed at Oldupai with early humans, who first scavenged their remains and later hunted them. Some of these animals were remarkably large.
Weighing up to two tons and with horns up to 2 m (6.6 ft) long, Pelorovus was one of the largest bovines (and even ruminants) to have ever lived.
(Mr. A. GNU Free Documentation License.)
At 4-5 tons in weight, Deinotherium (Greek for “Terrible Animal”), was one of the largest mammals that ever lived. Not directly related to modern day elephants, it probably browsed tree foliage in open woodlands. Its tusks weren’t used for digging but rather for removing branches that hindered feeding. Isolated populations survived until 12,000 years ago, possibly hunted into extinction by modern man (Homo sapiens). (Concavenator. C.C. Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.)
Almost sixty years later, tourism at Oldupai Gorge is booming, with 3,000 visits a day during Ngorongoro-Serengeti’s five-month peak tourist season. (Thus, out of the nearly 1.5 million visitors to Ngorongoro and Serengeti last year at least 450,000 visited Oldupai Gorge.)
Traffic jam in Ngorongoro crater. Most of these vehicles later continued to the Serengeti National Park, a significant number visiting Oldupai Gorge along the way. (David Bygott.)
This good news, however, brought with it a need for upgraded infrastructure, not only to handle the large numbers of visitors, but also to interpret the findings that have made Oldupai Gorge a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the most important in the world depicting human evolution.
This led to the construction, in 2018, by the J.Paul Getty Museum, of the Oldupai Gorge Site and Visitors Center (replacing a smaller original museum dating from the 1970’s). Situated at the very edge of the gorge and under the jurisdiction of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA), its one of the largest on-site museums in Africa.
Oldupai Gorge Site and Visitor Center.
(David Bygott.)
Backed by a view of Oldupai Gorge, an interpretive guide does his bit at the visitor center.
(David Bygott.)
Also, to better direct tourists to Oldupai Gorge, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority erected a large monument depicting Nutcracker Man and Handy Man at the turnoff from the Ngorongoro-Serengeti Road. The junction is now so well marked that even tourists unaccompanied by experienced drivers and/or tour guides will notice it.
Monument to the discoveries at Oldupai Gorge of Nutcracker Man and Handy Man.
(David Bydgott.)
Thus, the NCAA has reason to be pleased about the present state of tourism at Oldupai. However, there is still room for improvement: Most Tanzanians can’t visit Oldupai Gorge. This is partly because it’s far from population centers, but also because of the NCAA’s prohibitively high entry fees (except for school field trips). Reducing entry fees for Tanzanian citizens would help the country’s small (10% of the population) but growing middle class better appreciate an important part of their (and the world’s) national heritage.
To the casual eye, Oldupai Gorge, in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Conservation Area, seems much like any other network of scrub-littered ravines draining (whenever it rains) dry rangeland areas in the world. However, it stands out from the rest in being a special place, a UNESCO World Heritage Site yielding up artifacts invaluable to understanding early human evolution.
Oldupai Gorge (David Bygott)
Oldupai seasonal stream, the eastern half of which flows through Oldupai Gorge, drains the eastern Serengeti Plains.
(David Bygott & Jeannette Hanby)
Oldupai Gorge’s fame reflects its unique geological history:
Basalt flows from Ngorongoro’s Crater Highlands which flooded the area almost two million years ago.
The subsequent, intermittent formation of shallow alkaline lakes attractive to a rich diversity of animals, apes and early humans (Lakebed clays aided in fossilizing their remains).
Periodic volcanic eruptions in the nearby Crater Highlands which added successive layers of ash that helped preserve animal and hominid remains.*
Geologically recent earth movements which tilted the Oldupai area, creating the stream that cut the ( up to 90 meter / 295 ft deep) Oldupai Gorge, exposing an orderly sequence of nearly two million years of layered deposits containing animal, pre-human, and human artifacts.
* Hominid–Family of erect, bipedal primates including humans together with extinct ancestral and related forms and the gorillas, chimp, bonobo and orangutan.
In this way, Nature first created, and then exposed, a treasure trove of artifacts illustrating human evolutionary history.
All that was needed now was for someone to piece that history together.
Layered deposits exposed by erosion in Oldupai Gorge.
(David Bygott)
The volcanic ash comprising most of the layered deposits in the gorge came from once active volcanoes in the Ngorongoro Crater Highlands (background).
Enter Louis and Mary Leakey. Born in Kenya to missionary parents, Cambridge-educated Louis was raised among the Kikuyu, whose language he spoke and about whom he later wrote a book. For her part, Mary, despite receiving only a sporadic education, already was a woman pioneer in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology. Their complimentary skills, hers in excavating artifacts and his in interpreting and publicizing them, made them an effective husband-wife team.
Mary and Louis Leakey
(Smithsonian Institution Archives. Accession 90-105, Science Service Records, Image no. SIA 2008-5175)
Beginning in 1931, the Leakeys spent most of their professional careers excavating Oldupai Gorge’s layered deposits, from the lowest and oldest (1,750,000 years) to the highest and youngest (present day).
Time sequence of depositional beds at Oldupai Gorge related to environment and human evolution.
(Jeannette Hanby & David Bygott: 1992. Ngorongoro Conservation Area Guidebook. David Bygott & Co)
Their first major find, in 1959, was a large, robust ape, which Louis Leakey classified as Zinjanthropus boisei (Later classified as Australopithecus boisei, and then reclassified as Paranthropus boisei). He initially considered it to be a direct ancestor of humans because it walked upright and was found with an abundance of faunal remains and rudimentary stone tools (so named becausethe stones chosen already resembled the final product and were simply altered by chipping off a few flakes). Its massive teeth (for which it was nicknamed Nutcracker Man) implied a diet of coarse plant material.
It was a welcome discovery for the Leakeys who up to this point had, whenever Louis could find enough funds to support their work, spent 28 years at Oldupai uncovering animal fossils and crude stone tools. Zinjanthropus, however, caught the world’s attention, enabling Louis to secure proper long-term financial support–from the National Geographic Society.
A reconstruction of Zinjanthropus boisei (now Paranthropus boisei)
(Cicero Moraes and Dr. Moacir Elias Santos. Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.)
But then in 1960, remains of another hominid species, discovered by Mary and her son, John, came to light. Similar in age to Zinjanthropus boisei but smaller in stature, it had smaller teeth and a larger brain, which at 600 cc was 100 cc larger than Zinjanthropus’s. This changed Louis’s mind–Here was the real direct ancestor of man, one more likely to have used stone tools. Louis named the new find, Homo habilis. Handy man.
A reconstruction of Homo habilis.
(Cicero Moraes. C.C. Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.)
Still largely ape-like, H. habilis remained partially arboreal (long arms) but ate more meat (implied by its smaller teeth) than apes, and probably scavenged and hunted smaller animals, while still eating lots of plants.
A chopper associated with Zinjanthropus (Australopithecus / Paranthropus) boisei and Homo habilis remains at Oldupai Gorge.
(Picasa. CCO 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.)
(Note: Present-day thinking is that Paranthropus boisei may, in fact, have been able to make rudimentary stone tools, which it used for butchering carcasses.)
Louis’s and Mary’s announcement that they had found a new species of early human provoked controversy as many experts thought they had too little evidence to support such an important conclusion. Only in the 1980’s, following Richard Leakey’s discovery, in 1972, of Homo habilis remains on the shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana, did the scientific community fully accept that Homo habilis was a true human ancestor.
Richard, one of three Leakey children. Still young when this picture was taken in 1965, he was to become a noted paleoanthropologist in his own right.
The Leakey’s later excavation of Homo erectus (Upright Man) remains in higher level, 0.7 – 1.2 million-year-old, deposits in the gorge, created less of a stir because remains of H. erectus already had been discovered elsewhere (Java in 1892 and China in 1927). Nonetheless, finding H. erectus , Paranthropus boisei, and H. habilis, as well as 17,000-year-old artifacts of H. sapiens (Modern Man) at Oldupai made it possible to demonstrate the full sequence of human evolution at a single site.
Reconstruction of Homo erectus. Upright Man.
(Cicero Moraes. C.C. Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License)
At 950 cc, H. erectus had a larger brain than H. habilis. Upright Man also used more sophisticated stone tools, including hand axes and cleavers, had a more modern gait and body proportions (flat face, prominent nose) and sparse body hair, carried out coordinated hunting of medium-large animals (bovines-elephants) and possibly was the first human ancestor to use fire, have a proto-language, and practice monogamy (as inferred from males and females being similar in size). H. erectus also was the first human ancestor to spread from Africa into Eurasia.
Stone tool hand axe used by Homo erectus.
(Loctus Borg. C.C. Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.)
Stone Age Homo sapiens, represented by the 17,000 year-old remains excavated at Oldupai Gorge, used stone tools tools characterized by microliths, which are smaller, finer, and sharper than stone tools made by H. erectus. They include spear points and arrow heads. Microliths were advanced technology in their day because they were portable as well as easier to make than the hafts of spears and bows. Thus, when a spear point broke it could be easily replaced without having to make a new haft.
Microliths.
(Birmingham Museums Trust. C.C. A. 2.0 Generic License.)
SUMMARY
From the early 1930’s until Mary died in 1996 (Louis died in 1972), the Leakeys were responsible for most of the stone tool and hominid fossil discoveries at Oldupai Gorge (and Laetoli). These discoveries, which were major contributions to understanding human evolution, proved that:
Humans were far older than previously believed
Human evolution centered in Africa rather than Asia, as earlier discoveries had suggested
The earliest humans coexisted with a species of ape which, like them, walked upright.
They also demonstrated the relationship between the evolving features (especially brain size) of increasingly modern species of humans and the sophistication and frequency of use of stone tools.
Louis and Mary Leakey worked at Oldupai Gorge for 41 and 65 years respectively. It was time well spent.
REFERENCES
Bygott, D. 1992. Ngorongoro Conservation Area Guidebook. Tanzania Printers Ltd.
Featured image: Eleusine jaegeri, a large tussock grass, dominates the highland grasslands of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It is unpalatable except when young. Consequently, grazing pressure is confined to an underlying mat of palatable grasses (Andropogon, Cynodon, Digitaria, Sporobolus) which is kept low by constant usage.
Several months ago I made digital copies of the Range Management Handbook of Kenya available online. The response was so positive that I’ve decided to continue with other difficult-to-obtain publications on eastern Africa’s rangelands. Today I’m happy to announce the online availability of several digitized publications on the rangelands of Tanzania!
During the mid 1960’s and 70’s I was involved in, among other things, surveys of vegetation in Tanzania. Whenever possible, I also obtained copies of other surveys and studies, six of which I have digitized. Published between 1967 and 1978, they are now out of print and hard to obtain. Nonetheless, they may still have some value, be that for planning, instructional, research, or historical purposes.
Also, if you have paper copies of additional publications on the rangelands of Tanzania and would like me to digitize them and make them available, please send me an email.
Outside the house a prowling hyena whooped mournfully, waking me from my reverie. The fire which, last time I noticed, had been burning merrily away in the fireplace, was now.a bed of glowing coals. The short wave radio, having wandered off frequency, was whining and crackling with static. The feeble, slowly pulsating light from the Petromax lantern showed that it needed pumping. Again, the hyena whooped, but farther away this time. I looked at my watch and realized the lateness of the hour . . .
Buffaloes by My Bedroom: Tales of Tanganyika
Many years later, when I think about my nights at Ngorongoro, whether in the Crater Highlands, on the floor of Ngorongoro Crater, or somewhere on the Serengeti Plains, the first thing that comes to mind is the querulous oooo-WHUP (I am here) of a prowling spotted hyena.
The spotted hyena only occurs in Africa. (Graphic: Ngorongoro Hyena Project)
At the time I gave this little thought. But now, having investigated the matter, I know it was because the spotted hyena is not only Africa’s most abundant large carnivore, but also mostly hunts at night.
Something I did know, however, even then, was that the spotted hyena had an image problem. Less than handsome (although its small black cubs are cute), it has long been regarded as a skulking, slinking, nocturnal, weird-sounding, odd-looking, unclean scavenger too cowardly to prey on any but the weak and young. Furthermore, its role in disposing of human corpses encouraged the feeling that the animal is something of a living mausoleum. (Many East African tribes placed their dead, and in some cases, near-dead, in the bush for just this purpose.) Thus, it’s not surprising that the spotted hyena, whose behavior sometimes seems to verge on the demonic, also is associated with death and witchcraft. Consequently, it plays a more important role in African witchcraft than any other animal. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_spotted_hyenas#:~:text=In%20the%20culture%20of%20the,branded%20with%20an%20invisible%20mark.)
“Where’s my public relations person?“
(Photo: David Bygott)
That said, any spotted hyenas worried about their poor fan base can take heart from the fact that scientific research is casting them in a more positive light. Two attributes stand out: (a) high intelligence, and (b) speed and efficiency in utilizing prey carcasses. Together, these traits have made the spotted hyena a very successful carnivore. Details follow.
But first, two interesting spotted hyena facts.
Spotted hyenas look like dogs but are taxonomically more closely related to cats (most closely to genets and mongooses).
Hyenas are more closely related to mongooses than foxes, which, like dogs, are in the Suborder Caniformia.
(Graphic: Ngorongoro Hyena Project)
Dwarf mongooses.
(Photo: David Bygott)
Also interesting, and rather strange, is that males and females look so alike (females have a pseudopenis and false scrotum), that spotted hyenas were long thought to be hermaphrodites.
Female? Male?
(Photo by David Bygott)
Now, down to business:
Contrary to their reputation, spotted hyenas are highly intelligent, capable of outsmarting chimpanzees in laboratory problem-solving tests. Some everyday examples of this intelligence include (a) exceedingly cunning and suspicious behavior after escaping from traps, (b) use of deceptive behavior, and (c) an ability to plan for hunts of certain prey species in advance.
Regarding (b) and (c) above, Hans Kruuk, who studied spotted hyenas in Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti in the 1960’s, once observed a spotted hyena which upon finding a carcass, sounded the alarm call to keep other hyenas away, allowing it to keep the carcass for itself (Spotted hyena mothers sometimes show similar behavior by sounding alarm calls when other hyenas attempt ro kill their cubs). Hans also could often tell, from their behavior, when a group of hyenas had decided to hunt zebras, even when none were in sight and other prey were more easily available.
Other examples of spotted hyena intelligence occur throughout this report.
Complex behaviors reflect high intelligence, and spotted hyena behavior is the most complex of all African carnivores. An aspect to this is a high degree of behavioral flexibility. For instance, hyenas don’t always stick together, They may act communally, as when hunting dangerous prey, and defending clan territories, or individualistically (and highly competitively) as when caring for their young, foraging, and hunting smaller prey. This allows the species to exploit many different resources efficiently.
The spotted hyena social system differs from other social carnivores in that there is no communal sharing of food (or care of the young, each female caring only for her own).
(Photo: Bernard Dupont. CCAS 2.0 A license*)
Females rule. Larger than males (unusual in mammals), they take the lead in territorial marking exercises, group hunts, and battles with other packs. Females also remain in the clan / pack while males emigrate (at about two years of age). Males not only defer to females, but also play no parental role, and are often not even allowed near the otherwise communal dens, Less closely knit than wild dogs, spotted hyenas more often forage and hunt alone.
“Darn females won’t let me in the house! “
(Photo: David Bygott.)
Complex behavior requires good communication. Spotted hyenas are excellent communicators. This is because every individual is, to another hyena, a potential competitor (even dangerous enemy) or collaborator, which makes the signaling of moods and intentions very important. Thus, the spotted hyena has an enormous array of calls (whoops, moans, grunts, giggles, whines, yells, growls), expressions, postures, and attitudes. This can lead to a massive amount of noise when they compete with one another over a carcass. Consequently,the spotted hyena is one of Africa’s noisiest animals.
Highly gregarious, the spotted hyena is the most social of all carnivore species, with the largest social groups. For instance, a spotted hyena clan may comprise 35 to 80 adults. (In contrast, the largest recorded pride of lions, the other major social large carnivore, is 30 animals, including cubs.)
Social group size, however, varies with the availability of food, as does the size of spotted hyena territories, and the degree to which the group (clan / pack) defends them. For instance, in the Kalahari Desert spotted hyena densities are so low that they forage and hunt within territories too large (500-2,000 sq. km / 193-772 sq. miles) to defend against other hyenas. In contrast, where wild ungulate prey is most abundant, as in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater, hyenas are numerous, forming large social groups and aggressively defending territories less than 40 sq. km (15 sq. miles) in area. (The much larger Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, which includes the crater, is home to 7,200-7,000 animals, the largest spotted hyena population in Africa.)
Ngorongoro Crater’s large resident population of 25,000 ungulates supports high densities of from 380-470 spotted hyenas.
(Photo: David Bygott.)
One night in the Serengeti, two friends of mine, staying in a guest house, experienced at close hand the aggressive defense of a spotted hyena clan territory. Hearing hyenas, they went outside and played a recording of spotted hyena calls from another area. Minutes later they had to scramble atop a nearby Land Rover to escape a crowd of angry spotted hyenas. Hearing hyenas from another clan in their territory, they had rushed over to expel them.
Another example of the spotted hyena’s complex behavior is a greater plasticity in foraging and hunting behavior than exhibited by other African carnivores. for instance, spotted hyenas both scavenge and hunt, the former usually during the day because they use vultures as indicators of kills, and the vultures only fly during the day.
A spotted hyena waits for lions to finish eating before scavenging the remains.
(Photo: David Bygott)
However, when carcasses are scarce, spotted hyenas also hunt, usually at night, and, depending on the circumstances, either alone, in small parties, or in large groups. A common technique is to lope toward a herd or flock, forcing its members to flee, revealing easy to catch stragglers (weak, young, sick).
Wildebeest calves in Ngorongoro Crater and on the Serengeti Plains are a favorite prey of spotted hyenas. As they are easy to catch, they are hunted by single hyenas.
(Photo: David Bygott)
Like wild dogs, spotted hyenas simply run their prey to exhaustion, usually within 1.5-5 km (1-3 miles). A single hyena can catch and kill healthy prey the size of a bull gnu, but only as a last resort. When hyenas are numerous, other pack members may join in near the end of a chase to help pull down larger animals like wildebeests. However, usually led by a female, they also stage deliberate pack hunts of dangerous prey, such as zebra families guarded by sharp-hoofed stallions.
Zebras fight back, so spotted hyenas must hunt them in groups.
(Photo: David Bygott)
Often eating their prey alive, spotted hyenas, unlike wild dogs (https://storiesofeastafrica.com/2023/09/13/wild-dogs-wildlife-of-ngorongoro/), compete with other pack members by eating as much and as fast as they can, with individuals swallowing up to a third of their weight (A lion can only swallow a fourth of its weight). Twenty hyenas, and another group of 35, were recorded finishing off carcasses weighing 100 kg (220 lbs.) and 220 kg (485 lbs.) respectively, in 13 minutes. And they do this with remarkably little fighting. Instead, there’s lots of noise, which attracts other clan members (up to 65 seen on a kill in Ngorongoro Crater). Only then do all clan members ever come together. (These competitive scrambles are less common in the Serengeti where there is a better ratio of prey to hyena.)
When many spotted hyenas are on a kill, some quickly eat what they can before taking a chunk of meat and bone elsewhere for a quiet meal.
(Photo: David Bygott)
Spotted hyenas also excel in that they eat almost the entire carcass of their prey. They can, for instance, crack quite large bones, such as those of buffaloes and giraffes, noisily splintering them before they are swallowed. Furthermore, their digestive system can dissolve bones, and even teeth, within hours. (Dry hyena scats, composed of ground up bones, are a chalky white.). Thus, virtually everything is eaten except the rumen contents (Grass! Yuck!), and horn bosses of larger antelopes. The hair, and hooves, which cannot be digested, are disgorged. Probably no other carnivore utilizes vertebrate prey so efficiently. Other species waste up to 40% of their kills.
“The good stuff’s finished; time to eat the hide.”
(Photo: David Bygott)
Hans Kruuk found the spotted hyena to be a formidable predator. This to the extent that lions often scavenge hyena kills. Direct competitors with lions for food, spotted hyenas, unless present in large groups, generally give way to the larger carnivores, allowing them to appropriate their kills. In turn, spotted hyenas frequently steal kills made by cheetahs and wild dogs (although the latter, being more socially cooperative, are sometimes able to successfully defend themselves) and, given the opportunity, also kill their cubs, as do lions. In the Serengeti, lions and hyenas have exerted such pressure on wild dogs that they have pushed them into outlying parts of the greater Serengeti ecosystem.
A single hyena being harassed by a pack of wild dogs.
(Photo: Kruger sightings HD. CCA 3.0 U**)
Furthermore, spotted hyenas can be dangerous to livestock and people, especially when other food is scarce, but also when an opportunity arises for an easy meal, such as encountering an unattended child, or someone sleeping in the open. A relevant example (see below) recently appeared in my local newspaper.
Furthermore, spotted hyenas are easily kept and trained. Witch doctors sometimes add to their persona by keep them as pets. Hans Kruuk and his wife, Jane, successfully raised a young hyena as a family pet in the Serengeti National Park, although they eventually put it in a zoo when it learned how to open doors and steal bacon from the chief park warden’s breakfast table.
Spotted hyenas: Complicated creatures. Just like us.
REFERENCES
Estes, R.D. 1992. The Behavior Guide to African Mammals: Including Hoofed Mammals, Carnivores, Primates. The University of California Press.
Fosbrooke, H. 1972. Ngorongoro–The Eighth Wonder. Andre Deutsch.
Herlocker, D.J. 2009. Buffaloes by My Bedroom: Tales of Tanganyika. iUniverse.
Featured image: African wild dog pack, Kruger National Park, South Africa. Bart Swanson. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 unsorted license
“Wild dogs!” John yelped. Pointing out the right window of his Land Rover, he exclaimed “Over there–ten of them.” Then he really got excited: “And they’re chasing something! See how they’re trotting, strung out in a long line? Fantastic!” Abandoning our search for rhinos, we promptly sped off to follow the hunt.
It was 1965 and I, the assistant conservator (forests) for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), was temporarily without official transport because the NCA had prematurely exhausted its government-imposed monthly fuel allowance. For the time-being I would be unable to supervise the crew constricting a road around the western and northern rim of Ngorongoro crater or visit forest guards patrolling the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve; they were all too far away. What I could do, however, was accompany my neighbor, John Goddard, a Canadian biologist studying black rhinos, into the Crater. John had his own source of funding, which meant he was unhampered by government fuel allowances.
Rattling across the crater floor in John’s Land Rover, we followed the pack for about a mile before it brought down its prey, an adult Grant’s gazelle. Then, instead of resting from their exertions, the wild dogs immediately started ripping it apart; John and I arrived to find one dog pulling on a foreleg of the gazelle, another yanking the other direction on a hind leg, and two others tugging at its stomach while the rest of the pack danced about uttering excited twitters and whines. John quickly took several photographs, but then surprised me by leaving the vehicle to approach the frenzied melee taking place only thirty feet away. What was he thinking? They’ll eat him for dessert! But then another surprise: instead of aggressively defending their kill, the wild dogs warily backed away, allowing John to walk right up to it.
Wild dog pack tearing into a Grant’s gazelle in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.
In his 1972 book, Ngorongoro: The Eighth Wonder, Henry Fosbrooke remarks on how wild dogs in the crater always gave way when John approached. He did this, Henry said, to collect the prey’s mandibles–aging its teeth showed an animal’s age at death. John wanted undamaged specimens so he collected them as soon as possible after the wild dogs made their kill. However, in this case at least, there also was a fringe benefit: Returning with both the gazelle’s head and part of one of its hindquarters, John announced, “This takes care of dinner, tonight!”
My three years (1964-1967) at Ngorongoro exactly coincided with the presence of a wild dog pack in Ngorongoro Crater. Few were seen prior to this time and the pack left the crater in 1967. But then African wild dogs have a reputation for being rare and elusive. For instance, Henry Fosbrooke saw a wild dog only once during his 30 years of on and off acquaintance with Ngorongoro. George and Lory Frame, who studied cheetahs and wild dogs on the Serengeti Plains in the 1970’s, often spent days or weeks searching for dogs to study, then, having found a pack and studied it for a few days, woke up the next morning to find the dogs had vanished.
“Where’d they go?”
Being rare and elusive makes the African wild dog difficult to study. Nonetheless, it’s worth the effort, and not just because the wild dog occupies its own taxonomic genus (Lyacon) differing from the genus Canis (jackals, wolves, coyotes, domestic dogs) by dentition highly specialized for a hyper-carnivorous diet, and in having four toes on each foot. Both attributes support survival, the first by enhancing the shearing of meat, which increases the speed at which prey is consumed (thereby lessening the chance that lions and hyenas can steal the kill), and the second increases an animal’s stride and speed, allowing long distance pursuit of prey.
To the average viewer, however, the African wild dog’s most distinctive features are its large, round ears, and a splotchy black, white, and brown (sometimes verging on yellow) body–hence its other name, the painted dog. Happily for those who study this species, each animal has its own unique, readily distinguishable coat color pattern. African wild dogs also apparently really stink, although, unlike John Goddard, I never got close enough to tell.
Painted dogs, Kruger National Park, South Africa. Unlike those pictured here, the wild dog in East Africa generally has a white-tipped tail. (The Maasai call it Oloibor kidongoi, the white-tipped one.)
Bernard Dupont. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.
The African wild dog is a habitat generalist able to survive in a wide range of environments (An extreme, although undoubtedly short-lived, example is the sighting of a pack near the summit of Tanzania’s 19,341 ft Mt. Kilimanjaro). However, wild dogs are most commonly found in relatively open habitats which provide good views and running conditions.
Almost exclusively carnivorous, killing most of what it eats, the species is specialized as a pack hunter, concentrating on whatever medium-sized antelopes are most abundant. More enduring than its prey, it pursues the latter at up to 35 m/h (56 km/h), one dog leading , and the rest strung out behind, until the prey is exhausted, usually within 3 miles (5 km). Their ability to run their prey down without having to conceal their approach allows African wild dogs to be conspicuously colored, and like cheetahs, hunt only during the day.
African wild dogs chasing prey in Botswana’s Okavango Swamp.
Probably one of the most successful African carnivores, African wild dogs are such effective hunters that when prey is abundant, a pack can regularly have both breakfast and dinner. For example, wild dogs in Ngorongoro Crater killed twice a day, catching 85% of the animals they chased. Even the lowest recorded success rate for this species (39%) exceeded those of all other large predators except cheetahs. Furthermore, the entire pack benefits from a kill because it is shared among them.
Wild dogs in the Serengeti primarily prey upon Thompson’s gazelles and, in season, wildebeest calves (pictured here).
One reason for their rare and elusive nature is that wild dog packs are frequently on the move, averaging 10 km (6 miles) / day, or when game is scarce, up to 40 km (25 miles) / day. In the latter case, hunting ranges can be huge, up to 1500-2000 sq. km / 580 – 770 sq. miles (The largest recorded range is greater than the total area of London), exceeding in area even those of cheetahs. However, a range can be smaller when prey is resident and numerous.
The African wild dog has specialized on an abundant food resource which it can only exploit efficiently by hunting in packs. In East Africa these typically consist of about 10 animals but can go as high as 20 or even 60. Social bonds are strong; when separated from its pack, an African wild dog becomes so depressed that it may die. Each pack has only a single breeding pair, composed of the dominant male and female, which needs assistance from the other adults to provision large litters of up to 10 pups during an extended (12-14 month) period of dependence. Food sharing, by regurgitation of meat obtained from a kill, is supported by an emphasis on submissive, begging behavior within a pack. Aggressive behavior is rare. In-breeding is prevented by the emigration of females to other packs whereas the males, related to one another but not the breeding female, remain.
Wild dog pups. Litter sizes , larger than any other canid, are enough to form a new pack every year.
David Bygott
Despite being such effective hunters, and having an exceptionally efficient reproductive system, African wild dogs are the least common large predator in Africa. Furthermore, their population is declining. With under 7,000 animals remaining in the wild (there are fewer wild dogs than cheetahs) and having disappeared from much of their former range, African wild dogs are the continent’s 2nd most endangered large carnivore, after the Ethiopian wolf. Reasons given include:
(a) infectious diseases: Wild dogs are highly susceptible to canine diseases spread by domestic dogs;
(b) competition from lions and spotted hyenas, which appropriate wild dog kills, and in the case of lions, also kill their pups and adults;
(c) habitat fragmentation and loss.
The fragmented continental habitat of African wild dogs. The full extent of the original habitat can be roughly approximated by the distribution of smaller relict ranges. (Approximately 700 wild dogs live in northern Botswana.)
IUCN. CCA-SA 4.0 International license.
The results are smaller, less efficient and viable wild dog packs. Once African wild dog packs are reduced to small sizes, and suitable habitats are fragmented and altered by humans, wild dog populations seldom recover.
Lions are bad news for wild dogs.
David Bygott
So are domestic dogs, which carry infectious diseases.
Bothar at English Wikipedia CCASA 3.0 Unported.
Thus, the most effective way to ensure the conservation of African wild dog populations is thought to be by creating and protecting areas connecting isolated habitats. A good example of the importance of extensive, connected, ecologically diverse wild dog habitats is provided by the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem in Tanzania and Kenya. Probably due to a combination of disease and competition from lions, (the major source of wild dog mortality in the Serengeti), and from spotted hyenas, African wild dogs disappeared from the 5,700 sq. mile (14,763 km) Serengeti National Park in the early 1990’s. However, the wild dog populations survived by moving into other parts of the greater (15,444 sq. mile / 40,000 sq. km) Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem. These include Ngorongoro Crater where wild dogs have returned after a 30 year absence, but primarily the Loliondo Game Controlled Area where a more hilly habitat provides greater security from larger predators while the wild dogs are denning and raising their young. Currently, the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem contains about 120 African wild dogs.
The Loliondo Game Controlled Area (dark green) lies east of the Serengeti National Park.
Abrah Dust. CCA-SA 4.0 International license.
REFERENCES
Estes, R.D. 1991. The Behavior Guide to African Mammals: Including Hoofed Mammals, Carnivores, Primates. The University of California Press. Fosbrooke,H. 1972.
Fosbrooke, H. 1972. Ngorongoro: The Eighth Wonder. Andre Deutsch.
Frame, G. & L. Frame. 1981. Swift & Enduring: Cheetahs and Wild Dogs of the Serengeti. E.P. Dutton.
A cheetah cub purred as it chewed on a windshield wiper; another admired itself in the Land Rover’s fender mirror; a third, sitting on the roof, dangled its tail beside an open window . . . George and Lory Frame, who studied cheetahs and wild dogs in the Serengeti in the late 1970’s, recount how, one day, five large, playful cheetah cubs, members of a family they were studying, turned the tables on the two researchers and investigated them, instead. For the Frames it must have been a welcome break from their usual routine of hours and hours of careful observation and note-taking.
A nice patch of shade.
George and Lory certainly had an interesting animal to study: An inhabitant of wooded savanna, open plains, and desert, the cheetah is a striking cat: lightly built, with long, thin legs, small feet with blunt, unsheathed claws, and small rounded head, it’s built for speed–the field version of a greyhound, as one researcher put it. Capable of top speeds of 60-70 mph (90-112 kph), it’s the fastest animal in the world, a specialist in hunting small, but fast antelopes, such as Thomson’s gazelles (and hares), seldom killing animals larger than itself.
Built for speed. Photo by David Bygott.
However, becoming so speedy has involved tradeoffs. A sprinter with little stamina for chases beyond 300 m / 985 ft., a cheetah must use whatever cover (tall grass, shrubs, trees, ravines) is available to get as close as possible to its prey before attacking it. Furthermore, the cheetah has sacrificed not just stamina, but also the strength (it’s less than a fourth the weight of a full-grown lion) and weapons (note those dull claws) needed to protect itself from other predators. Consequently, cheetahs must avoid large predators, especially lions, which often kill cheetah cubs as well as steal kills. Hyenas also frequently appropriate prey killed by cheetahs. Therefore, cheetahs do not hunt at night, which is when lions and hyenas are most active.
Cheetahs also are unique in that males are social while females are solitary and shy (but still highly promiscuous). Furthermore, they have large home ranges, the largest, up to 400 sq. miles (1,036 sq. km), being those of individual females. Groups of males, called coalitions, defend smaller territories, 14-62 sq. miles (36-160 sq. km) in area, within female home ranges.
Cheetah stalking a Thomson’s gazelle, its favorite prey on the Serengeti Plains. The adult zebra and wildebeests in the background are too large. Photo by David Bygott.
Large home ranges, and mortality from larger predators so intense it limits cheetah numbers even when prey is abundant (less than half of all cheetahs live beyond three months), means that cheetahs never achieve high densities–they are always less abundant than other African carnivores. For instance, the 15,444 sq. mile (40,000 sq. km) Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem (see map at end of post), an area larger than the state of Maryland, and almost twice the size of Wales, has 275 cheetahs (the world’s highest density of these cats), but also 3,000 lions and at least 7,200 hyenas. (The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is part of the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem.)
Two of the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem’s 275 cheetahs. Photo by David Bygott.
Most other protected areas are too small to protect viable cheetah populations. Of the roughly 10,000 cheetahs in Africa, about 2/3 live in unprotected areas where. due to persecution and loss of habitat, their numbers are declining. Low populations, the need for young males to sometimes travel large distances to establish new territories, and an extraordinarily low degree of genetic diversity means that cheetahs, of all carnivores, are most vulnerable to habitat loss and fragmentation. (Low genetic diversity also raises the possibility that a disease could devastate wild populations.). Thus, steps are needed to conserve them outside protected areas.
Some conservationists see the cheetah’s future linked to the survival of traditional pastoral livestock management. This is because, historically, there has been little conflict between cheetahs and traditional pastoralists, who minimize stock losses to carnivores by seldom leaving their animals unattended during the day and corralling them at night in protected enclosures.
Traditional pastoralists seldom leave their livestock unattended. Photo by David Bygott.
MAPS
Vegetation of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. Forest (darkest green–far right) is the poorest of these habitats for cheetahs. Graphic by David Bygott and Jeannette Hanby.
The seasonal movements of the Serengeti-Mara wildebeest populations occur within all or part of each protected area. Graphic by Abrah Eust. Creative commons 4.0 international license.
MAJOR REFERENCES
Estes, R.D. 1991. The behavior guide to African mammals: Including hoofed mammals, carnivores, primates. The University of California Press.
Fosbrooke, H. 1972. Ngorongoro: The eighth wonder. Andre Deutsch.
Frame, G. & L. Frame. 1981. Swift and enduring: Cheetahs and wild dogs of the Serengeti. E.P. Dutton.
Durant. S. 2004. Survival of the fastest: The cheetahs of the Serengeti. Africa Geographic. Pages30-32.
Zoological Society of London. Cheetah conservation in Africa. ZSL.org
