Walking with the lions

This was an unbelievable day! The first stop was out at 6:00 am to try to see the black rhinos that are being bred on this private reserve and protected from the vast poaching problem. We found all 7 of them together including a new baby born in July and one 18 month old... I think it is going to take a long time and much effort to save them. One of the fundraisers for this project is riding the elephants, which we all did ( it's easier than camels I think!). What fun and then we buy our elephants footprint to frame:-). As if that wasn't exciting enough, after breakfast we went to walk with the lions, another conservation project of ALERT (African lion and environmental research trust) to try to restore the lion population in Africa . Africa wouldn't be the same without lions! This is a controversial project because the lion cubs you see here (these are 6 mo old and we also walked with older ones of 11 mo.)will never go back to the wild after getting used to humans.
But at 18 mos these will be reintroduced to the wild to learn to hunt and eventually placed in protected game preserves where they will breed and those lions will be placed in some of the national parks. Sounds like another long term project. Walking with them is basically a fund raiser ( and I have a cool video). That was a thrill to be so close!! ( and yes, I'm more likely to contribute to these worthwhile causes...)
And this was all before noon!
Will post the rhino and elephant photos to flickr when I can (tomorrow?)as this Internet is like molasses tonight.
The day ended with a sundowner cruise on the Zambezi river where I also have many great photos of colorful birds I have never seen before! And hippos and one crocodile! And African dinner out in the bush. Whew! I'm glad tomorrow will be a bit slower!