You’re a photographer hungry for that elusive shot of a lion drinking water out in the wild Kenyan kingdom, but you’ve discovered that it isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds.
You KNOW that you’re in their stomping grounds…you can see their fresh tracks with your own two eyes, but they somehow always manage to stay completely out of sight despite patiently and endlessly lying in wait.
After eight full months trying repeatedly to capture the precise moment when a great cat is poised and ready to quench its thirst (to no avail), your patience is wearing thin and you realize that it’s now or never.
You’ve already dug trenches and built photographic hides (which unfortunately enabled blood-thirsty Tsetse flies to have their way with you) -- frankly, you’ve done everything that you could think of, but it’s time to do something even more drastic to make it all come together.
This is precisely the type of never ending challenge that presented itself to 32 year old photographer Greg Du Toit and the impetus for his decision to plunge into the very Nguruman Hills waterhole that he was hoping to capture his regal animal subjects drinking from.
Recognizing that the murky water would provide an excellent camouflage opportunity for his body as well as his scent, the only thing visible would be his head and hands as they tightly gripped his Nikon F100 camera every day for 3 hours daily (totaling 270 long, bug-bitten hours).
From that auspicious vantage point, Du Toit soon witnessed a plethora of diverse wildlife indulging in liquid refreshment, including baboons, many types of birds (such as Egyptian Geese, African Hawk Eagles, White-throated Bee-eaters, Lanner Falcons and Khori Bustards), Warthogs, Bushbucks, Waterbucks, Impala and Reedbuck.
Still, he was about to give up all hope of catching any feline drinking to their heart’s content when out of the blue, a honking and hissing of a pair of clearly alarmed Egyptian Geese made way for two muscular adult lionesses with piercing yellow eyes who seemed to make eye contact with him.
The photographer found himself gripped with a combination of pure elation along with sheer panic and an adrenaline rush of the highest order as he snapped frame after frame of the drinking duo – but their apparent awareness of his presence made him anxious enough that he made his escape out of the water and into the refuge of his Land Cruiser.
The resulting images – which are now featured in the March issue of BBC Wildlife Magazine -- were clearly worth Du Toit’s extreme level of patience and determination, but he ended up paying dearly (health wise) by experiencing multiple infections that doctors say were the absolute “worst test results that they had ever recorded”.
If you’re even just the slightest bit curious what the photographer succumbed to, read on for all the gory details, but bear in mind that Du Toit asserts that “it was worth it 100 per cent and I would do it all again, worms and all.”
What a sport!
Hook Worm
For the most part, hookworm larvae are able to access their host as they walk barefoot through fecal contaminated areas. Being infected with this particular type of parasitic nematode is not apparent right off the bat, but once an allergic reaction at the site of entry rears its ugly head, the victim may generally experience gastrointestinal discomfort as well as diarrhea, nausea, weakness, shortness of breath. Somehow, the pernicious little buggers manage to travel from the site of entry all the way up through the vascular system, lungs, and into the trachea where they are swallowed and then swept into the digestive system and intestine, fulfilling their destiny as parasitic worms that can live in a human being’s gut for up to 5 years (and in some extreme cases 15 or more years). Du Toit says that the worm that infected him “was actually visible under the skin of my foot and would move at night. It became a game to find the worm in my foot each morning.”
Bilharzia
Also known as “snail fever”, this parasitic disease is marked by exhaustion, abdominal pain, fever, cough, the enlargement of the liver & spleen, and a few additional skin-related lesions that are annoyingly embarrassing. The photographer told the Daily Mail: “it's caused by a type of flatworm which had spent part of its life in water snails and the other part in my liver. It left me weak and in bed for weeks.”
Malaria
Contracting this female Anopheles mosquito-borne infectious disease not once but twice, Du Toit was one of the lucky ones who was able to fight it (considering that several million people die each year). Malaria parasites incubate in the host’s liver for a period of several weeks and then manifest fever and headache-like symptoms as well as shivering, anemia, convulsions, vomiting, excessive perspiration and joint pain. Those who are very unlucky can succumb to very unpleasant consequences such as an enlarged spleen and renal failure, leading to coma and eventual death.
Lisa
said on May 03, 2010