Lion Swims Zambezi River - Pg3

At that stage the carcass was still fresh and there were no immediate signs of injury or cause of death.

A rudimentary autopsy by Ian Stevenson of Conservation Lower Zambezi, a volunteer group set up to assist the Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) in combating poaching, soon revealed the sad reality - the elephant had died of internal injuries caused by a poacher's bullet.

The poacher's aim had been poor - instead of killing the elephant immediately, the slug from the AK47 had caused internal bleeding and a slow death.

By the time the elephant eventually collapsed and died, the poachers were long gone, leaving empty-handed.

In the process they'd deprived an elephant family of one of its members and the park of another cherished resident.

After Ian and the ZAWA rangers had completed the grizzly task of cutting open the elephant to establish probable cause of death, and then removing the tusks, it wasn't long before nature took its inevitable course and the scavengers descended - first the vultures, then the hyenas.

The smell of meat had also drifted widely enough to be picked up by a hungry lion many kilometers away, triggering the big cat's hazardous swim across the Zambezi River.

Footnote: Steve and other camp staff later saw the lion feeding on the remains of the elephant, so its journey was not in vain.

Technical details: All the pictures of the lion swimming were taken with a Canon EOS 350D and Canon 100-400mm IS lens. To achieve highest possible shutter speed for shooting hand-held from the boat, ISO was set at 800. This allowed a shutter speed between 1/1500 and 1/2000 at maximum aperture of F5.6. Focal length was 400mm, equivalent to 640mm on a film camera.

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