It's Hard to Be a Tiger

"You know you've got two fat tigers when you can pull a carcass around and nobody moves," he says.

In the past 56 hours, Ron and Julie have feasted on this large female wildebeest. About all that's left is what remains to be licked off. And the tigers' barbed tongues are well equipped to do just that.

"I'd love to weigh Ron right now," Varty remarks. "My bet is he's eaten two-thirds of this wildebeest. He's easily 400 pounds."

Ron lies on his back, bloated and stretched in the shade of a distant tree. His bulging white-furred belly heaves with each quick breath. Julie is rotund today, too. But at least she rouses herself enough to leap onto the hood of the Land Rover, further denting it in the process.

Varty looks around. His tigers are happy, having hunted successfully and fed greedily. Varty estimates that they ate some 240 pounds of wildebeest meat in two days.

But something's wrong. The vultures are missing, and the hyenas and jackals. If this were a healthy ecosystem, Varty says, they'd all be here, having their share of the spoils.

"There's no energy flow here," he observes. "The farmers have killed the energy flow. As the sun drops, we should be hearing hyenas calling and watching jackals and vultures pinching pieces of meat."

The massive sanctuary's former owners used much of the land to graze livestock. The land and the natural cycles need time to recuperate, Varty says. "Next time you come here, you'll see them."

All is quiet, serene, even, as sunsets can be. A sweet little hedgehog cowers in the sparse clumps of grass. Animals like him, as well as the dozens of bird species that depend on ground cover, take a beating when sheep eat up all of a landscape's vegetation.

A flock of endangered blue cranes, South Africa's national bird, soars onto the banks of a large pool of water. Rock rabbits called hyrax scurry in and out of an outcropping.

"The saving grace of this area," Varty says, "is that much of it's too rocky for domestic animals."

As the veld grows darker and the sky pinker, a herd of wildebeest stands silhouetted against the horizon. They seem to have no fear of strutting out in the open in front of the sated tigers. The wildebeest, nicknamed "fool of the veld," might well be able to step on the tigers' tails tonight without consequences.

Ron and Julie could attest that there's nothing foolish about these creatures. This odd-looking member of the antelope family, whose name translates from Afrikaans to mean "wild ox," thwarted at least a dozen attacks from the hungry tigers during three days of hunting. That was until one zigged when she should have zagged, and paid the ultimate price for her momentary lapse.

I've heard Varty say a number of times over this past week that there's no such thing as a lazy tiger. When they're catnapping or lolling about, like now, they're masterfully conserving energy.

Unlike days when Ron swatted at the Land Rover's tires as we drove away, and Julie traipsed along behind, neither budges as we head toward the gate and I head home.

But Ron and Julie are wise to be still. They are going to need all the energy they can muster in the days and weeks and months and years ahead. Even in the lap of a protected sanctuary, in the heart of South Africa, it's hard to be a tiger.

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