The Tanzanian guide told the group to stay quiet, watch the lions, and wait a few more minutes. About a hundred yards away, a dozen lionesses lay in the sun, some on their backs with their bellies obviously full. The male lions lounged lethargically nearby. Yet somehow the guide sensed the lions were on the verge of making a kill.

"He couldn't explain exactly what it was," said Mary Lang Edwards, a professor of biology at Erskine College and a member of a Thomson Safaris group that toured the Selous Game Reserve and the Serengeti in January, 2000. "He said a few subtle signs came together in his head. Part of it was his observation that wildebeest and zebra were beginning to move into the area."

Within minutes, the lionesses had arisen, dispersed, and hidden themselves in tall grass along the path trodden by the wildebeest and zebras. Human observers stood so close they had no need for binoculars.

"We saw one lioness rise up with tremendous energy and power," Edwards said. "I saw her swipe a wildebeest with her right, front paw, and that was it. She was so focused, such a good hunter. She didn't have to take more than five steps."

Variety of Wildlife
The best time to visit the Selous Game Reserve (pronounce: Seloo , the final "s" is silent), one of the less-traveled parts of Africa, is during the dry months of June-October. Even traveling in January, however, Edwards and her group saw an astonishing variety of wildlife. When they flew into the area by small aircraft, they descended directly over a herd of elephants wading in a river. They navigated the Rufiji River by boat in the company of hippos, crocodiles and thousands of waterfowl. By land rover and by foot, Edwards saw leopards, cheetahs, elephants, wildebeest, impalas, Thomson's and Grant's gazelles. Walking through a grove of trees, she came upon "something with legs five times as long as our legs." It was a giraffe, blending into the tree trunks. At night, hippos waddled quietly through camp.

"I had a guidebook for the mammals of Africa," said Edwards, "and I would just check them off. We saw everything."

The reserve also hosts a stunning array of birds. Especially during January, migrant species from Europe fill the trees and waterways. Year-round, bee-eaters, rollers, cuckoos and woodpeckers may be seen as well as heard in the woodlands, along with the distinctive "Go-away bird."

Among waterfowl, native species include the goliath heron, a brown-and-white bird that stands nearly 5-feet high on black legs, a white stripe of feathers with black flecks descending its narrow neck like a necktie and ending at the chest in a beard of white plumes. The African skimmer is noted for its unique bill. Flying above shallow water, this bird drags the lower part of its bill, which is longer than the top and extends like a knife blade. When it strikes a fish the bill snaps shut, and the skimmer swallows its prey in flight. Birders may also see the rare Pel's fishing owl, white-backed night heron, and African fish eagle among the more common plovers, egrets, sandpipers, stilts, storks, and herons.

Selous Reserve
The Selous Game Reserve in southeastern Tanzania covers 22,000 square miles, an area twice the size of Massachusetts. The largest game reserve in the world, it has grown from a protected area of less than 1,000 square miles set aside by Germans in 1905. In 1922 the British expanded the reserve and named it after Frederick Courtenay Selous (1851-1917).

Selous was a British game hunter and naturalist who spent nearly 20 years in the area collecting specimens from lions and elephants to kudus and butterflies. He became a captain in the 25^th Royal Fusiliers, served in World War I, and was killed in a conflict with German soldiers at Beho Beho near the Rufiji River in 1917. His simple grave lies within the Selous Game Reserve. (See "Frederick Selous" in the January, 2001 newsletter.)

The reserve owes its great size and protected status largely to the efforts of C.J.P. Ionides, a game ranger and herpetologist specializing in snakes, who went to work for the Game Department in 1933 and spent the next 20 years realizing his vision of the Selous as an undisturbed ecosystem. The Selous is not a national park, however, and licensed hunting is still allowed in the reserve, primarily south of the Rufiji River.

Selous Ecosystem
The chief landmarks of the Selous Game Reserve, the Rufiji and Ruaha rivers, come together as they flow through the reserve near its northern boundary. On their way eastward to the Indian Ocean, they accumulate water from a network of smaller rivers, pass through Stiegler's Gorge, and spread out onto a broad floodplain that is readily accessible and offers spectacular wildlife viewing. Every type of vegetation present in the reserve as a whole can be found in this northeast corner.

Along the river banks stand dense forests of borassa palms, shaped like giant carrots up to 75 feet high, with fronds of greenery on top. They require a tremendous amount of water to survive. Thickets of brush among the palm groves provide cover for big cats, birds and plains game.

Visitors floating down the Rufiji by boat are likely to see crocodiles lounging in the sun, holding their snaggle-toothed jaws open. Not simply waiting for lunch to walk in, crocodiles, like panting dogs, expose their tongues to cool their bodies. Hippos are also plentiful in the murky waters of the Rufiji River. Though they prefer the cool safety of the river by day, occasionally they may be seen grazing on the riverbanks.

Away from the river are miombo woodlands, which occupy three-quarters of the Selous and are dominated by trees of the species brachystegia, juibernardia globiflora, isoberlinia, pierocarpas angolensis and combretum.

Most of the elephants in Africa live in the Selous, although their numbers decreased dramatically due to rampant poaching in the 1980's. A recently published guidebook on the Selous indicates a 72% reduction in the elephant population from 1976 to 1991 (Baldus and Siege). Although black rhinoceros have virtually disappeared due to poaching, greater kudu, sable, Cape buffalo, lion, leopard and hippopotamus remain abundant.

Mixed blessings of the reserve include the tse-tse fly and brush fires. The flies carry disease that threatens ungulates, but because their presence keeps the area unsuitable for farming and grazing of domestic livestock, they tend to protect wildlife habitat. African brush fires temporarily damage flora and habitat, but they also strengthen plant species and enrich the soil.