Alex Braczkowski

So it's not just seeing a lion once a week up in a tree somewhere.

This is every day, usually around 8 or 9 a.m., they climb and they come down at about 6 p.m.

Exactly.

Pretty much.

Yeah, there's sort of three hypotheses that seem to be floating around.

The first is that they're trying to escape biting flies.

So in a lot of East Africa, there's a fly called a tsetse fly.

It's pretty gnarly in terms of its ability to sort of bite you and cause discomfort.

So that's the first one.

The second is that they are trying to get up there to sort of establish a vantage point.

And see their prey.

And the third one is, which I like, is the getting up high to escape the heat of the day.

And if you look at koalas, koalas do this.

So it's about a degree or two cooler, about 30 feet up in the trees.

So when they climb the big fig trees in Ishasha, you know, I resonate with their hypothesis the best.

But no one really has evidence at this stage.

Well, in East Africa, you know, the temperature variations along the equator are not very vast.

So even in winter, in winter, in inverted commas, it's still pretty hot.

The only time they do come down almost immediately is when it rains.

And the reason they're coming down when it rains is because the branches get slippery.