A Season with Lions with Dave Salmoni : Animal Planet

Am I Still the Same Person I Think I Am?

2008-05-26T15:00:00-04:00

I’m sitting on a train heading to my parents’ house from my new home in Toronto, Canada. I’m getting close to the time that I will have to say goodbye to them, but this isn’t a goodbye trip. I haven’t ridden the train since I was a kid, but it used to be my way of getting around to see my family before I had a car and could drive. It’s a cool feeling knowing that I can decide to go see my parents on a whim. It’s the whole reason I moved back to Canada. As my days are becoming more and more consumed with thoughts of lions, I can’t even begin to understand how I got to where I am right now.

I mean that in a grand scale kind of way, like, “I really have the best life I can imagine for myself. But also, and more pressing right now, in a “how did I become a city slicker who is preparing to go into the bush, when I have been a wild man who prepares to go into the city for so long?” kind of way. Of all the second-guessing I have done in my life, wondering if I can give up my family life, social life and comfortable life has never even crossed my mind, until now.

It’s a funny type of second-guessing, because I know I CAN do it; my fear is, once I am out there will I WANT to do it? My whole life I have wanted to live in the bush, and each time I was out there, I have wanted to stay. That’s not entirely true; I wanted to stay most of the time. I won’t lie and say a hot shower and a hotter woman hasn’t crept on to my wish list some evenings alone by the campfire. But the thought of me being out in the bush, and not wanting to be there, would mean me having to mentally redefine myself. I would then have to come to terms with the fact that with my age and level of comfort I have become a city slicker who visits the bush and not the guy that I think I am — a person who feels most at home in the wild, with wild animals. I don’t want to be a city slicker.

The story of how I got here is probably less interesting but hopefully understandable. Three years ago, I was in New York promoting another lion project that I had done. In fact, it was the project in which I developed some of the methods that I will be using on this lion project. I was on a talk show, where I met one of the hosts. She was beautiful woman who I had an instant chemistry with. We fell in love almost immediately. With my no fear, take every journey life offers you attitude, we moved in together. So there I found myself, moving from Africa with a pride of lions to New York City with a jungle full of people. It was my worst nightmare.

From that point two and a half years ago, I set up my life so that I could go on projects all over the world and come face to face with every wild animal my heart desired. I would then rush home and live my Manhattan lifestyle — fancy gyms, a huge loft apartment, trendy dinners, media parties, etc. It was the most truly polar-opposite lifestyle anyone could live. But I made it work.

I went on living that way for some time, until the relationship went away. That’s the polite way for me to write, we broke up. At the time the one thing that I really needed was to spend time with my close friends and family. I hadn’t lived in Canada since 2000. So I picked up the remainder of what was my city life and moved to Toronto. I bought a house with two of my best friends and began trying to make up for lost time. I continued to go on animal projects, but came home and focused on family and friends.

Now, I just left some of my friends/just left some friends and am sitting on a train to go see my parents. Every thought of a lion has me wondering how I got here. I am a two and a half year city veteran, happy as hell and wondering if I am still the same person I think I am — a person who feels most at home in the wild, with wild animals.

Well, ready or not, we’re about to find out!

A Discomforting Lack of Nature

2008-06-01T15:00:00-04:00

I am really getting anxious now. There has been lots of planning and talking and getting ready for this project, but I am still in the city. I am done with cites and large groups of strangers and a general lack of nature. I haven’t had a relationship or interaction with a non-domestic animal in weeks. It’s getting so bad I have to go to the park to see trees. I sit there and watch all the dogs interacting just to get a tiny fix. The feeling of being cooped up in the city is like having a nervous itch. I walk around with this itch and know the only way to scratch it will be to get out in the bush. I can feel myself creating distance between me and my friends and family and everyone around me. The more uncomfortable I get, the more introverted I become. All this while, I am sitting wondering what the lions I meet are going to be like.

Will They Like Me?

2008-06-10T15:00:00-04:00

Every time I sit down to write, I want to start with “It’s almost time to go.” I’ve been sitting around feeling like life is on hold until I get out to meet my lions. When you live a lifestyle like mine, you are always about to leave. Sometimes in days and sometimes in months, but you are always about to leave. Not that I’m complaining, but at times that feeling overwhelms you and makes it impossible to do any of the usual things that one might do. There is no need to buy that bookshelf to put your books away or hang those paintings; it’s pointless to date someone that you see a future with, because in the end you are leaving.

The thing that I find most interesting about my preparations to go is the mental relationship I feel like I have with a pride of lions that I don’t even know. I know all the stats — i.e., I know how big they are, how many male and female, where they live, and so on — but I don’t know them. So every day I wonder what each one will be like and worry if they are going to like me. It feels almost like I am in the second grade and am changing schools.

I guess it’s odd, but my largest responsibility to prepare for this project is to be ready for an attack. I spend hours every day in the gym working out to fight off an attack. I spend hours a day planning for the “what if” scenarios, but my biggest hope is that I am accepted and liked.

Freaking Out About Lions

2008-06-23T15:00:00-04:00

Well, that’s it, it finally happened. I had my first panic attack of the project. I was up all night last night freaking out about lions. I expected to get panic attacks, because in the past during dangerous projects I have had the same. It’s funny, I am always asked if I’m scared with the animals and generally speaking I never am. It’s usually after I am in a dangerous situation that I start thinking about the things that could happen and that causes me to get scared. It seems now that I am a bit older, and much more experienced, I can get my mind into those terrible “what if” situations without ever being in one. Too much knowledge is sometimes a bad thing.

If I had to explain my panic attack, I would call it a partial mental breakdown. I say partial because the whole time that I was absolutely gripped and crushed by the fear of what I have gotten myself into, I knew and even verbally told myself “When I wake up tomorrow, it will all be fine.” When I did, it was.

This project is based so much on my confidence. When I get face to face with one of the world’s best predators, I have to know in my head that I can deal with it. That confidence is based on years of experience, and a mind that can focus on a goal in such a way that every detail has been contemplated and accounted for 100 times.

These panic attacks go straight for my confidence. The minute I think that I may not have trained hard enough, figured out a good-enough plan or know enough, or even if I lose faith in the very essence that I believe all animals operate on, that’s when the whole house of cards falls down. That’s when I start to think that a project like this is going to be the end of me. That will be when I pack up and go home.

Thankfully, I feel better.

It's Almost Here!

2008-06-30T15:00:00-04:00

I saw pictures today of where I might set up camp. Holy cow! I’m so excited that it’s almost here — I almost get to start this journey. I have been planning this since before Christmas. I am short of breath, I am so excited!

That, and I have a cold.

The Journey Begins

2008-07-02T15:00:00-04:00

WE ARE HERE!!! It's hard to explain the feeling of arriving at a place that you have been planning to come to for so long. It’s not my personality to want to go somewhere and have to wait. If I want to get somewhere, I usually just go. This has been planned and talked about and waited on for eight months or so. It feels so good. The hard part now is not just running out to find the lions; there is a lot of set-up and planning to do before I can safely meet the cats.

First things first: finding a camp site. I am looking for is a bit of open ground so that predators and elephants don’t have too much cover to just appear in camp, plus a bit of water to help with daily life (not to mention it will help attract some animals to camp). I want to make sure it's in a part of the park that the lions frequent ... and I guess I want it to look nice — I'm living here for about six months!

All the fear, sense of danger and safety planning aside — this is exciting!

Panic Attack No. 2

2008-07-05T15:00:00-04:00

OK, so I should have written you yesterday, after my first night in the tented camp. I was just too busy. I had to run around all day, and then when I finally found the camp it was much harder to set up than I had expected. So the first night I was in the camp, a male lion roared about 30 feet from my tent. It was five minutes to 11 p.m. I know, because it woke me up and I spent the rest of the night lying awake wondering what I had gotten myself into. Yup, that's panic attack No. 2. I feel like the panic that time was from being cut off from humanity so abruptly. You take for granted, even as a loner like myself, that you can call or go and see someone or even sit in a restaurant and see strangers. All of the sudden I'm alone and with no access to anything. I don't even have a vehicle when I'm sleeping out here.

Oh, did I tell you it is freezing at night here? Yeah, that's right — below 0°C at night, and I'm in a tent wishing I had company. Guess what else? I saw a lion today. The grumpy Gus charged me, though. I was in the truck, so it wasn't so bad, and she had no intention of doing anything. I will fill you in later; my battery is dying and it is freezing. My fingers can't type anymore. It's 8 p.m. and I'm already in bed!

A Lonely Yet Exciting Life

2008-07-08T15:00:00-04:00

(The only way I know the day or date is because when I type the month the day comes up. I've already lost track of the days.)

Well, it's been a few days now. I feel like I am finding my feet here. You can see that it's been three days since I wrote. I have to send my computer out of the tented camp to get charged, and it just isn't high on their priority list these days to get it charged and sent back. I'm just happy that they don't prioritize my food the same way. I have been eating pretty well. I am a pretty simple eater, so I have been throwing some meat over the fire and some potatoes in the fire and it's been nice. Let's see if I can catch you up.

I have been getting used to being alone out here. I was really shaken up that first night, and things have been getting better each night. In fact, I can even say now that I am sitting at the camp all alone and enjoying it! I'm living a lonely, yet exciting life right now! They conflict, but seem to be working out enough for me to be smiling most of the day.

I've met some of the cats. I saw a female the other day — the snotty thing charged me! But she was a pretty lion, and I wanted to hang with her right away. Just before I saw her I had driven my production crew's truck into a huge antbear hole ... stupid. The next day I saw a few more of the cats, and once again another female charged me, along with one of the males ... jerks!

The next day I went for my first walk. It was premature, because I hadn't been viewing them from the safety of the Jeep at all. I had no idea how they would take to me, but I was so anxious that I had to start getting on ground level and seeing what I was dealing with. I have to tell you, these animals are fantastic! I think we are going to make great friends! Funny, that's what I always think. I've never met a lion I didn't like. I wish I could say the same for the lions. I guess I am an acquired taste (and I don't mean that in the culinary way).

So, in summary, I've had some fun. I am listening to Eddie Vedder's Into the Wild soundtrack. It seems to be even better written when you are listening to it with ears that can understand some of the feelings he is expressing. I promise to send some photos soon!

Peaceful Moments

2008-07-10T15:00:00-04:00

So, I have had a lot of action around my camp these days. I think the lions like my new place as much as I do. I had a lion hanging out in the same thicket where I have, well, my men’s room, let's call it. They seem to be fine with me here, and I am fine with them there.

I am having quite a few peaceful moments these days. I am really starting to like all the alone time that I am getting. I went and laid next to a bank on the opposite side of the dam to where my camp is. As I laid there, animals would come up to the dam for a drink. Most of them didn't even know that I was there. This morning I went on a walk by myself. It's nice to have a chance to go on walks and not take the crew. Without the crew, I find that I get to focus on whatever I feel like and I don't have to wonder if I am boring people with the rantings of my lunatic thoughts.

I am really starting to get a bit frustrated with the lack of lion-Dave interaction. I am not getting any help on the tracking front, and I am not getting any better. I only seem to see the lions when guys on the crew have found them and call me in. This is a huge place, and finding individuals is not easy.

My cold is still not better. I have been coughing up a lung each morning. I'm pretty sure that I have some kind of chest infection. I guess not having a doctor around the corner is part of the whole experience. I have some old antibiotics that I am taking to try to fix it, but I am not feeling much better. Between how I feel and how I am starting to look, you would think that I am in pretty rough shape. My beard is getting long, and I have no intention of even bothering to try to shave. My hair is a bird's nest and is really starting to look gross. The term clean has morphed into the term clean enough. I bathe while standing in a dirty muddy pool ... Clean enough isn't that clean. However, considering all that, I feel pretty good!

Guilt at Dawn

2008-07-10T18:00:00-04:00

Another chilly morning — I've woken up before the sun. As I sit here drinking my coffee, I'm really loving the slower-paced life I have begun. I have just been sitting here, though, feeling a bit guilty about some of the things that I have put upon some people. What most hits home about what I have happily left behind — such as mortgages, emails from my BlackBerry, conference calls, and the general to do's around the house — is that those things haven't stopped; I just pushed the responsibilities off to someone else. That just dawned on me today, and the guilt hit me just shortly afterward. All the things I hate the most I pawned off onto someone who loves me enough to do it.

My poor father gets to deal with all my personal banking, including making sure the mortgages get paid and credit card bills are dealt with, as well as anything else that comes up. My unlucky friend and business partner, Oloff, has to deal with all my work finances and business-related communication. Two of my best friends, Kerri and Miles, whom I have a house with in Toronto, get to oversee all my house renovations and make sure all the chores are done around the house, etc., and so on! The funny thing is that my life runs better when they are dealing with all those things.

Anyway, the crew is here. I get to go walking now. Write later!