God Shiva detail from Hindu temple near Grand Baie, Mauritius

We just arrived back in Antananarivo after a very long delay on our already red-eye Air Madagascar flight out of Mauritius. We had the most incredible time during our week of R&R and I now (hopefully) am fully recovered from my long battle with brutal parasites! We kept ourselves happy and busy, snorkeling along the reefs, catamaran sailing for dolphin-sightings, gorging on Indian food, visiting temples to honor the Hindu god Shiva, and much more.

The population of Mauritius is overwhelmingly Hindu, made up of descendants of sugar cane laborers from India brought over by the British after the abolition of slavery, Catholic Creole-speaking descendants of Malagasy and other mainland African slaves (we visited the Mauritian National History Museum and saw some shocking exhibits on the treatment of slaves by Dutch East India Company missionaries and later French and British colonists), Muslim immigrants, and others. Sprinkled all over the towns and cities of the island–in remarkably happy simbiosis–are Hindu shrines, Holy Virgin Mother idols, and mosques. Such a wonderful sight!

We spent a lovely weekend with a Hindu Mauritian family in Floreal (friends of Erik’s and now dear friends of mine), learning all about life for the average Mauritian on the island. We have been extremely impressed by how far communities there have collectively come in such a short period, by means of very hard work, openness to free trade, and by investing in high quality public education and other services. Much as I adore Madagascar, it seems it might learn some valuable lessons on successful rapid economic growth from its Mascarene neighbors.

This is not to say that all is rosy on the island. From a biodiversity standpoint, Mauritius is moot compared to Madagascar (Dutch, French and English sailors, slave traders and plantation owners, along with the menagerie of monkeys, rats, dogs, cats and deer they introduced on the island, devastatingly caused over 90% of Mauritius’ animal species to go extinct, including the famous dodo bird and the giant land tortoises that once roamed the island in herds, sparking Darwin’s imagination.) Tragically, 9 out of 10 endemic species were wiped out within a period of around 300 years of human disturbance.

For vacationers interested only in white sand beaches and turquoise blue waters, Mauritius is a paradise. For biologists, it seems the island is written off as a “paradise lost”. Regardless, we were very happy there and our trip made for wonderful diversion before I continue on with my third year of work in Madagascar!

ABOVE: A 17th century map of Madagascar that also shows the Comoros islands to the northwest and Reunion (then called “Bourbon”, an island in the Mascarenes group that also contains Mauritius) to the southeast. This map, in which the width of Madagascar is underestimated, the Masoala peninsula drawn one-third of its actual size, and the island of Nosy Mangabe documented as enormous in a tiny Bay of Antongil (perhaps overestimated due to it’s value to Dutch slavers as an access port) was used by pirates, slavers and traders of old. Thousands of slaves were abducted from Madagascar and shipped to Mauritius to work as laborers, pillaging the native forests of Mauritius for their valuable hardwoods and slaving for colonists in sugar cane plantations.

CASELA NATURE PARK, Mauritius

Have you ever wondered how to make a cheetah purr? We found out this week.
Note: big cats are NOT native to the island, they were transported to Mauritius from captive breeding programs in South Africa and are carefully monitored in a special outdoor facility.

There is an incredible animal park called Casela in Mauritius where
visitors are able to see a number of the island’s rarest endemic
birds. Since 2007, a group of three South African/Mauritian handlers
has been rearing 4 baby cheetahs and 6 lion cubs (all from captive
breeding programs in South Africa and/or rejected by their parents
after birth–this apparently happens pretty frequently with lions).
The lions are now 18 months old and the cheetahs a bit younger than
that. It is possible (if you meet a strict height requirement and sign
your life away so to speak) to, in a group, take the lions out for an hour-long
walk and accompany them while they wrestle, play, climb trees, visit
the river and have a drink, and generally enjoy their freedom for a
time. It is also possible to spend half an hour playing with the four
(now much grown) cheetah cubs.

The black “tear lines” that surround and extend under cheetahs’ eyes help them to see well when hunting prey in environments with intense sunlight. They are also just plain adorable.

Being so close to cheetahs is an indescribable experience. They are
highly endangered today, a very ancient breed of cat (older than lions
and tigers, we were told) and just the most beautiful and majestic
creatures there are. These four (about 14 months old) were loving and
playful, actually enjoying the attention from us. A rub behind the
ears induced magnificent purring and gurglings from the two females
with white-tipped tails, that I fondled for about half an hour.
One of them licked my hand for a moment (must have tasted of lion from
our walk earlier that morning) and her tongue was rough and dry as
sand paper. I walked out of the outdoor pen with kitty hair all over
me—BIG kitty hair. It was unreal.

These four cheetah cubs were meticulously selected for their genetics and come
from stock as diverse as possible, with such a small remaining
population left in the wild. The same is true for the genetics of the
six lions. In the future (lions take 5 yrs to reach sexual maturity,
cheetah females are highly selective and thus more complicated to
breed), the facility hopes to produce offspring that will breed young
(having no interaction with humans, raised hunting their own live prey
on the private park grounds) who may be reintroduced into the wild, in
certain areas of east Africa where land grab farmers have severely
reduced lion populations in recent years.

We got to go for a walk with and even pat and stroke two of Casela’s lions on the rump a few times. The wildlife park has done an impressive job recreating continental African savanna, complete with dried grasses–the lions would just
completely disappear in it at times, a little unnervingly–and thorny acacia bushes, guinea fowl, wild pigs etc. (This recreation was not particularly difficult or damaging to native island biodiversity. The area is practically barren, except for planted non-native trees and introduced bird and other animal species, due to colonial-age pillaging of the magnificent
ebony forests that once stood on this part of the island).

According to the Casela nature park handlers, these lions are, at 18 months, only 1/3 their adult size! These are some BIG kitties. I’d love to go back in a few years and see how they’ve grown. The lions’ fur was rough to the touch on their backs and hind quarters and their paws were magnificently large and awkward. Tails are long and stiff, less flexible and silky than I had imagined them to be. Just magnificent.

The shaggy mane on this “adolescent” one and a half year old male is just beginning to grow and looks at bit awkward still.

We got to accompany the lions while they freely wrestled in the grass,
climbed trees, freaked out flocks of guinea fowl, and sniffed their
surroundings after the rain (in the company of several handlers armed
with chickens as treats, for positive reinforcement, of course). One
expects to have a survival instinct kick in at any sudden move by a
lion freely lurking just feet from you, but I at least felt completely
at ease. It’s all a matter of ego, as the handlers explained. These
are big kitties that don’t know they’re big. They’ve been trained
since they were little cubs to understand that anyone carrying a
(symbolic) stick is a human who is top dog (or, in their case, top
cat) and not fair game for wrestling with or sneaking up on, as young
lions do with their buddies.

An incredible experience that I’d recommend to everyone!