Chapter 906 The Missing Lion King
"Mensa, did you see Cecil when you were on patrol today?"
On the road almost reaching the protection center, two patrol cars happened to meet. Worried, Barry slowed down the car and shouted to his colleague on the other side.
"Cecil, let me think... well, I don't think I saw it."
In another car, Mensa, who was called by Barry, slowed down the car, frowned and thought for a while, and when he also saw Barry's bad expression and smiled, "Ha, don't worry, this kind of thing happens often. Maybe it just found a place that is not easy to be discovered and secretly met with its new lover. Cecil's energy is always good."
When Barry heard Mensa's negative answer, his worried look did not relax at all, but became more serious: "But I haven't seen it for at least six days. Counting a few days, it's been a full week."
Hearing this, Mensa's face became serious, and he realized the possible problem.
For wandering male lions, they do not have fixed territories or lion groups. They will roam in different areas, passing through different territories and interacting with different lion groups. They may die in an unknown corner during a fight or hunting.
It is quite difficult for the rangers of the conservation center to ensure that they can be found and check their living conditions during patrols.
But Cecil is not a stray lion. He is a young and strong lion king who owns his own territory and lion pride. There are more than twelve adult lions in the pride, which is an extremely large family.
The territory of each lion group is quite clear. In places where prey is abundant, it can be as small as 20 square kilometers. In areas with sparse prey, such as desert lions, they can also establish territories as large as 400 square kilometers.
The African savannah is obviously not a barren place like the desert. Food is very abundant. Less than ten square kilometers are enough for a large lion group to live and compete for accumulation.
The Cecil family has always stayed in their own territory, and it has gone through several generations of lions and has not changed for decades.
Under such circumstances, Cecil, as a lion king, actually disappeared for a whole week in his own territory, right under the nose of the protection center?
"Maybe it's just a coincidence?" Mensa pretended to be relaxed and comforted Old Barry, and made a suggestion, "Instead of worrying here, why not ask Dr. Loveridge? He has Cecil's location. Who knows, maybe it's just like I said, where it's living happily?"
"Yes, let's go and ask, otherwise I will always be worried."
Barry nodded after hearing his colleague's suggestion. Not seeing each other for two or three days could be considered a coincidence, but not seeing each other for a week was too suspicious.
The two then parked the car at the protection center and went to find Dr. Loveridge together.
Dr. Loveridge is a scholar who specializes in studying lion ecology at the conservation center. He has information on the locations of most lion kings with their own territories. If you want to know about Cecil's current situation, the fastest way is to ask the doctor.
Unfortunately, when the two arrived at the laboratory, they learned that Loveridge was not there at the moment, but had gone to Central Country to attend a seminar.
Fortunately, the doctor's field assistant Brent Stablekan was there, and Barry immediately told him his discovery.
Brent's expression froze when he heard this.
Old Barry asked quickly: "What's wrong? What happened?"
Brent hesitated when faced with Barry's questioning, but he still told the truth: "Cecil's collar has not updated data for several days."
"What? Why didn't you say so earlier!?"
Barry and Mensa were both shocked, and old Barry even grabbed Brent's collar and shouted.
Brent’s face flushed red, perhaps because of shame or the suffocation after being grabbed by the collar. Beads of sweat were visible on his forehead. “I… I thought there was something wrong with the collar, maybe it was out of battery or…”
Brent was interrupted by Old Barry before he could finish his words: "It's out of battery, Cecil's collar was just replaced last month, how could it be wrong?"
"You may bump into things in the wild, who knows..."
The more Brent explained, the drier his mouth became. His heart was pounding, but he couldn't get enough oxygen. Beads of sweat the size of beans slid down his forehead and dripped onto old Barry's wrinkled but now strong and powerful palm.
Finally, Brent lowered his head in silence. The only sounds left in the entire institute were a few heavy breathings, which hit his heart again and again.
It's over.
At this moment, Brent could only pray to God that Cecil's positioning collar was really just malfunctioning. Maybe it was broken during hunting?
Although lions almost never participate in hunting after becoming the king, that is still almost. Maybe it is just a very small probability beyond almost?
Or is it that some other lion has challenged Cecil?
Thoughts kept popping up in Brent's mind one after another, but when his eyes met the furious old Barry again, all hope was extinguished.
Zach Sheeds Barry, one of the conservation center's oldest employees.
The young people here like to call him Old Barry. Even the most professional scholars are willing to listen to Barry's opinions first when judging certain issues.
Due to his long working experience, old Barry knows every elephant group and every lion group on the grassland and he never makes a mistake.
He could easily identify the king of every lion group and the leader of every elephant group on the grassland. The animals that looked exactly the same in the eyes of ordinary people were like two completely different people in the eyes of old Barry.
Moreover, the long patrolling and feeding experience also gave Barry some kind of wonderful sense to animals. He could always easily find the king who ruled a territory, as if he had special abilities. Many animal scholars liked to ask him to be their guide.
Old Barry said he didn't see it and didn't find it, so something unusual must have happened in the meantime.
Brent knew he was in trouble, and if anything really happened to Cecil, he didn't know how his teacher would treat him.
It was not until the furious old Barry pushed Brent down on the monitoring table that Brent began to frantically retrieve the information.
But unlike general positioning, collar positioning can store a lot of information. In addition to basic location information, it also stores height, weight, heart rate, and trajectory over a period of time. This is extremely helpful in studying animal behavior and can clearly explore what they do every day.
When the last piece of information transmitted by the collar was read, a certain area on the map was marked with a red line, and the red line finally broke at a certain point.
"Where is this?"
Mensa asked quickly, he didn't remember there was such an area in the reserve.
"It's a rocky slope. I heard that it's an abandoned old mining area."
Old Barry looked at the location point on the map and recognized at a glance the place where Cecil last disappeared.
Mensa felt a little confused: "I don't think I've ever been here on patrol before?"
"Because it's no longer a protected area, nor is it Cecil's territory. Not only did Cecil leave his own territory, he also left the protected area! For a whole week!"
