“The idea that the two lions were going in as a team yet exhibiting these dietary preferences has
never been seen before or since.” – Nathaniel J. Dominy
Tsavo National Park is one of the most beautiful areas on earth. It is situated in Kenya where it
serves as the country’s largest park and is home to many thousands of wild animals. It is a sanctuary for these animals where vast areas allow them to roam freely across a 22,000km squared area that is monitored by security and anti-poaching personnel. Now, the park is split into two sections. The reason the park is split in two is the reason Tsavo is famous today. Despite its grandeur and beauty, the decision to run a railway track through the centre of the national park gave rise to Tsavo’s most famous residents. Aptly named ‘The Ghost’ and ‘The Darkness’ two lions that ate alive construction workers of this railway for sport over a period of nine months.
For years slave traders had transported slaves and their wares through Tsavo in order to get to
Mombasa on the opposite side of what is now the national park. Here fairs and events were held.
For the duration of this time slaves that were sick and unwell or slaves that were deemed surplus to
requirements were killed and thrown from the horse drawn wagons and left to die on the trail.
Often they would be thrown from the wagon still alive and left to die where they landed. The lions
learned to eat human flesh by scavenging the bodies. This is where the lions of Tsavo first got the
taste of human flesh. Lions in the area began to recognise the human behaviour of the slave traders.
They became familiar with the patterns of the slave traders and realised that if they watched this
trail for long enough, they would get to eat. Thousands of people used this trade route and
therefore the lions had ample opportunity to eat with the minimum of fuss. The lions of Tsavo are unique in that they are the only species of male lion that are entirely maneless. The reason for this is that Tsavo is incredibly hot and humid. The lions that inhabit Tsavo have evolved to have no mane whatsoever and therefore this makes them easily identifiable. Due to the vast distances that people needed to travel in order to get to Mombasa and the length of time it took, a decision was made by the British Government who ruled the country at the time to build a railway from one end to the other. This work began in March 1898 and was led Colonel John Henry Patterson.
A team of Indian workers led by Patterson arrived in Kenya to build a bridge over the Tsavo River, as part of the Kenya-Uganda Railway project. The project, it seems, was doomed from the start. Tsavo means 'place of slaughter' in the local language. This slaughter referred to killings by the Maasai people, who attacked weaker tribes and took no prisoners, but it was still a bad omen nonetheless. Patterson and company had only just arrived when they noticed that one of their men, a porter, had dissapeared. A search quickly uncovered his mutilated body. Patterson, fearing that a lion had killed his employee, set out the next day to find the culprit. Instead he stumbled upon several other corpses, all men who had disappeared from previous expeditions.
Almost immediately, a second of Patterson's men disappeared. By April, the count had grown to 17 men missing. Unfortunately this was just the beginning. The killings continued for months as the
lions circumvented every fence, barrier and trap erected to keep them out. The chaos didn't end
until December, when Patterson finally stalked and killed the two lions that were culpable for the
killings. It wasn't an easy hunt. The first lion was shot and killed on the 9th of December, but it took
Patterson three more weeks to deal with the second. By then, Patterson claimed, the lions had killed
a total of 135 people from his crew. This story became so infamous that a movie was made of the
events title ‘The Ghost and the Darkness’ Val Kilmer played the part of Patterson. Patterson had the lions skinned and made into two separate rugs that he used in his home. They remained there for 25 years before he sold them to a museum for $5,000, they were then repurposed by a taxidermist and are now on display in the Fields Museum in Chicago. Initially the lions were enormous animals, 3 metres long. However, by the time the skins were bought they were in terrible condition. The taxidermist did a fantastic job but the lions on display are a fraction of the size they were when alive. However, Patterson also kept their skulls and these were in much better condition. These too are on display. Due to scientific advancements, tests were able to confirm that the lions killed and ate at least 35 people. As 35 different sets of DNA can be accounted for in the DNA strands of hair from the lions. That is not to say they didn’t kill more, but they for sure ate 35 men. Chemical tests of their hair keratin and bone collagen confirmed that they had eaten human lions had eaten 11people. The other had eaten 24.
That doesn't mean the deaths weren't significant, or that what Lt. Col. Patterson called a “reign of
terror' wasn't just that. The tests on the Tsavo lion bodies confirmed that one of the lions in particular preyed on humans, revealing that half of its diet during the nine months before its death
consisted of human flesh. The rest came from eating local herbivores. The researchers did, however,
support the narrative that the two lions worked together as a killing unit. They theorize that the two
males came in together to scatter their prey, something most lions normally only do when hunting
large animals such as zebras. So, why did the lions start killing people in the first place? A study revealed that the lion that ate the most people had dental diseases, a poorly aligned jaw and damage to its skull and a large abcess under of its teeth. It may have turned to humans out of desperation as they are easier to catch and the meat is softer. Meanwhile the time of the Tsavo killings followed a period of decline in other prey, mostly of elephants. That's when humans entered the picture and became an easy replacement. It was this perfect storm of events that turned these two particular lions into ‘The Ghost’ and ‘The Darkness’ the infamous man-eating lions of Tsavo.
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