The Journey Begins

July 02, 2008

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!

Comments

[Lee McC]

About the Timothy Treadwell comment.
It is most tragic that the young woman was killed as well as Treadwell. At one point of the report it was speculated that the fish and game or park services had transplanted a problem bear to that region. the video of Timothy and his encounters with one animal that mysteriously showed up in the area would certainly support this speculation. Note too that Timothy was the one who made this report. When a bear loses its fear of man, as is the case with people fed bears in the parks, it is a well know fact that the park service relocate them. Timothy had numerous encounters with the park service officials. If relocation of a bad bear is the case that bear could have been the cause of the killings. It is indeed a tragic situation and I suspect the case is probably still under investigation, at least it should be.
I hope Amie's family is adjusting well to this tragic death. My suggestion to them is to have an investigation to a possible relocation factor, and had Timothy been advised of this prior to the incident. If this is case, there would be a lack of conscientiousness on the part of park services.

[Lee McC]

I greatly enjoy watching Dave and listening to his experiences. I especially like his program "after the attack." I don't know if You have or haven,t had close calls in Africa, "into the pride" or not. as far as Scott's comment is concerned, it seems that he missed the part where you had official park service people there with you, or am I mistaken? I can only guess that they are trained in the way of the wild, Is this not so? anyway keep up the good work. I like it.
Lee McC. PS. My email is out of whack right now I hope to see a reply on the Blog here.

[David g williams]

I like the way he is so great at what he does the things that inspyer me the most because when I get older I want to be just like him and plus I like animals and I know how to teat them when delling with them and trained ones.

[David g williams]

I like it so much that was the best store I`ve ever raed in my hole intier life.p.s and thank you for your letting me tell you what I feel about this store.

[scottquach]

Dave,you need to look at the big picture! Do you realize your ignorance is endangering lions? While you are filming this tastless show of yours, you are never in "real" danger are you? Try being out there with lions ALONE! Now, thats a film worth watching! What you are doing is playing games with lions for t.v. which will and maybe already has gotten lions killed. I know a little about film making, editing, cut scenes, bloopers etc, You only show what you want the people to see.How many times were you almost cat-chow, and they had to shoot the lion? not with the camera? my advise to you, leave the LIONS ALONE!You can't control nature, Who do you think you are? I no longer watch Animal Planet because of your selfish actions and stupidity. From Tacoma Washington ...Scott

[Justin]

Dude, Possible Danger indeed

[scott quach]

Dave,you need to look at the big picture! Do you realize your ignorance is endangering lions? While you are filming this tastless show of yours, you are never in "real" danger are you? Try being out there with lions ALONE! Now, thats a film worth watching! What you are doing is playing games with lions for t.v. which will and maybe already has gotten lions killed. I know a little about film making, editing, cut scenes, bloopers etc, You only show what you want the people to see.How many times were you almost cat-chow, and they had to shoot the lion? not with the camera? my advise to you, leave the LIONS ALONE!You can't control nature, Who do you think you are? I no longer watch Animal Planet because of your selfish actions and stupidity. From Tacoma Washington ...Scott

[Arturo]

im from Peru, and i found this news from a local diary in Lima, this use your name to credit the found of a new creature, can you tell me if this for real???

http://www.elchino.com.pe/hoy/indice.asp?strname=chEspecial101

[muranod]

Great blog!

[D. W. Duncan]

I haven't read anything about this yet. It's only a possibility, and is certainly a delicate subject, but the reason for the attack on Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard may have been initiated by the smell of blood brought about by Amie having a period. If this is a possibility, shouldn't it be made known to people going into areas of possible danger?
D.W. Duncan