National Geographic: African Odyssey Page #3

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by dirty laundry.

Maun Office Services is their

contact with the outside world.

It receives and stores mail for

people who live far out in the bush.

I found it. I've given it to him.

Whenever you get a minute,

we've just come to pick up our mail.

Okay. Behind you is a box

with the word "Owens" on it.

And a big box after it.

And that's all yours.

What was the date on that?

Oh, her Look.

These are all our telegrams.

Oh, golly. Okay, wait a minute.

Hey, Tony.

You want to come and join us?

Why don't you join us?

I've got something in the oven.

Now this is a birthday card

from my mother.

I know it.

Yep, and it's fat.

What? It's fat?

It's fat.

She usually sends vitamin pills.

Why is she sending fat?

Oh, look. Pictures of home.

That's fantastic.

Oh, that's great.

Cut off as they are

for months at a time,

these bundles of mail

are precious links with home.

Through letters they share in

their families' triumphs and despairs.

Back at camp again,

Delia and Mark are on the prowl,

still hoping to find some of the

lions they studied four years earlier.

The cubs seem to sense

that something is wrong.

Delia and Mark have

darted an old lioness.

They can tell by the tag in her ear

that she is one of the

lions they studied before.

The lion's whisker

pattern will tell them more.

Here's one of our old friends.

There's just a shard

of an ear tag left,

just a pin with a little bit of

color on either side right here.

Mark, do you know who this is?

This is Happy.

Happy?

This is Happy.

Darted first April 9th, 1978.

I can't believe it.

What a story behind her.

One reason we called her Happy is

because we recorded her with

more males than any other female.

She'd from one male to the other.

I can't believe it. She's a beauty.

Oh, you old bag, you.

Finding Happy is an important link

to their early research.

She helps them learn how prides

in the Kalahari form and break apart.

Her presence in the same area

demonstrates just how crucial

the riverbed habitat

is to the lions' survival.

Roger, ready to copy.

To Mark Owens, a telex from...

Back at camp, Mark gets a call from

his radio contact in Maun.

Okay. Well, we've got a problem.

We received a telex message by radio

yesterday that Immigration

in the capital has rejected our

request for a residence permit,

which, of course, we need to carry

on our research here.

So we're going to fly off to Gaborone

and try to see what the problem

is and try to sort it out.

It's obviously most disturbing.

Before returning to the Kalahari,

Delia and Mark had talked to

government officials and had been

assured all was in order.

Delia and Mark would not

return to the Kalahari.

The Botswana government would

expel them from the country.

The trees at their camp had sheltered

them from desert winds

and shaded them from

the lethal sun of summer.

While they lived here,

they made important scientific discoveries

and developed plans that they hoped

could save wildlife

in the Kalahari for future generations

As soon as we entered

the office, he said,

You have until 5 o'clock to get out

of the country.

And I said, Well, what about our camp?

And he said,

If you're here after 5 o'clock,

the law will take its course.

We just feel like we've been

thrown out of our home.

And it was like somebody had died.

It was really, honestly,

like someone very close to us had

died and we were mourning that death.

A few days later, friends of

Delia and Mark fly into the camp

to pick up their research data

and vehicles.

I believe this is

a tragedy for Botswana.

I can't imagine that any good could

come out of people like

Mark and Delia being restrained.

They're so dedicated and they have

the interest of the country

and the people so much at heart.

The Botswana government

refused to give the

Owenses any reason for their expulsion,

but almost certainly it concerned

their protests over a massive

die-off of wildebeest in the Kalahari.

In 1979 at the beginning of a long

drought in Botswana,

Mark had discovered thousands of

wildebeest migrating northward.

In long drought periods these antelope

must have access to water to survive.

Instinct, perhaps,

tells them there are perennial sources

of water to the north.

But now herds of cattle are

grazed in the same area.

Disregarding the impact on wildlife,

the Botswana government

has built fences because some

veterinarians believe

that wildebeest can infect cattle

with foot-and-mouth disease.

The wildebeest were cut off.

As they traveled north,

their natural route was blocked.

Thousands died on the fences.

Following the scent of water,

those with enough strength

pushed on around the end of the fences

into an area made desolate

from overgrazing by villagers cattle.

By the time the wildebeest

did reach water,

many were too exhausted to continue.

Survivors had to trek 50 miles

each day between the water

and woodlands where they could graze

and escape harassment from poachers.

Day after day hundreds more died.

Although wildebeest

have not been shown to transmit

foot-and-mouth disease to cattle,

villagers were told

that they must not let the

wildebeest mix with their herds.

Since 1979 more than

Only 30,000 remain.

Horrified by the disaster,

Delia and Mark alerted

the Botswana government.

When little was done,

they wrote articles and a book

reporting this wildlife disaster.

For a year Delia

and Mark tried to gain reentry.

Although the government would

eventually offer to readmit them,

the Owenses would decide that,

in the face of bureaucratic hostility,

they could no longer be

effective conservationists in Botswana.

We came to Africa to find a chunk of

what Africa always used to be

a wilderness that was untouched,

a wilderness that we could protect

by conducting basic research

and devising a conservation program.

Besides losing the science,

we've now lost what was our home

and what was our reason for working.

And we wanted so badly

to conserve this area.

I just hope it won't now be lost.

I can't think of anything else

that has affected me as much

personally as the

loss of the Kalahari has,

and I just hope that...

I hope the world won't let it pass.

Delia and Mark are determined to

continue their efforts to

conserve wildlife in Africa.

They ask themselves

where they can be most effective.

Okay. Search for a new study site.

It's fairly depressing as to

how many countries are off

limits to us for a variety of reasons.

Mozambique has a civil war going on,

so we can't go to Mozambique.

And similarly

South-West Africa/Namibia

in the north is torn with civil strife.

We've been warned not to go to

Zaire because of some populations

over here that are

still attacking people.

There are supposed

to be still cannibals there.

So we basically are limited

to south-central Africa,

and the country that seems to

offer the most promise is Zambia.

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