Peter Allison - How to Walk a Puma

While others did their best to buff and polish surfaces—which the monkeys immediately befouled—Mick and I took Roy out for his morning round. Mick was leaving the park in the next few days, and wanted to spend as much time with Roy as possible. Adrian was thrilled to have a day off the trail which he could spend lazing at the tourist aviary, a dull job but one that involved no hills or bites—unless you were outwitted by a macaw.

I was in lead position, which meant the rope went directly from Roy’s collar to my waist, with sturdy carabiners holding it in place at both ends. Though the rope was ten metres long, it was never willingly fed out to full length, and my aim was to keep it coiled in my left hand with a little over a metre granted to Roy for most of the walk, more when we went down steep hills, much less as we approached his ‘hot zones’, as we called his regular, inexplicable-to-all-but-him places of attack. Mick stayed as close to my heels as he could without tripping me, close enough that if Roy did jump me he would be there straightaway to lead him off once I had dislodged his claws.

The walk started well; I even thought that after two weeks maybe Roy was getting used to me, and perhaps I was getting better at judging his moods and reading his body language, anticipating his jumps and sliding my hand down the rope close to the collar to block his turns. My knee still suffered regular abuse, but not as often as at the start of my tenure. So it was with confidence that I tackled one of the toughest parts of the trail, which involved dropping a full body length onto a narrow ledge, then immediately leaping onto a well-polished log that traversed a sheer rock face, using the momentum to jump again onto moderately firmer ground. This was followed directly by a run and jump onto a rock, requiring a well-timed grab at a tree to stop sliding down a ledge. Three paces later came a tight squeeze between two vertical rock faces, made worse by the slippery surface underfoot where water pooled. This was one of the first times I remembered to get close to Roy straight after the gap: this was important as he always attempted a left turn at that point, even though the trail went right.

‘Pete? Mick?’ came a voice ahead of us.

Roy instantly froze, his ears swinging forward and locking. The voice belonged to Bec, who worked with a puma named Sonko. Sonko was fat, and Roy Boys delighted in pointing out his bulk, not so subtly hinting that Roy was the real puma. As well as being fat, Sonko squeaked like a baby alligator. People who worked with Sonko invariably claimed Roy was a bit soft. Which he wasn’t. He was just pretty. Nevertheless, a rivalry existed between Sonko’s handlers and the Roy Boys, and insults were often exchanged.

‘Yep?’ Mick shouted back.

‘Sonko is lying down, hasn’t moved for half an hour,’ Bec called to us now.

‘Kick him!’ shouted Mick.

Sonko’s volunteers treated Mick’s suggestion with the disdain it deserved, and we were at an impasse. Pumas are solitary by nature and two male pumas never get together casually to discuss sport or girls. They only come together to fight for land. The two pumas’ trails overlapped in many places, and the points where they crossed almost flowed with the urine unleashed by these two alpha males as they felt the need to counter the territorial markings of the other. For Roy and Sonko to meet could be catastrophic, so we needed to do something—fast.

Roy, Mick and I stood at the top of a steep gully with smooth river rocks at its base. The other river bank had more vegetation, but not too far up it linked with our trail again. If we cut down the bank then scrambled up the other side, somehow coaxing Roy ahead of us, we would overtake Sonko without the pumas coming face to face.

I turned Roy back in the very direction I’d just denied him, and his pace immediately picked up. Every day he aimed for this route, and every day he was refused. As we reached the river bank he moved even faster, and my boots scrabbled for purchase on the moss-covered, rounded rocks. Roy’s four points on the ground made him far more sure-footed than me, not to mention that he had evolved for such terrain and I have a noted lack of coordination.

‘Try to steer him up the bank here,’ called Mick, but the rope had played out, and swinging my arm to the right barely influenced Roy’s path.

Roy continued on faster still, and with no way of slowing him down I was forced to let out more rope, even though over half of its length had already slid painfully through my palm. To this point the river bed was level, but ahead was a downward slope, and a trail used by some of Inti’s other animals.

Then, over the sounds of jungle insects and the ever-present, strangely electronic burbling of a type of bird called an oropendola, came a sound I hadn’t imagined hearing here. It was children singing. It was the orphans singing to Jane Goodall! I realised, struck by a sudden horrifying vision of meeting the woman who’d been my hero since I was a boy, and Roy biting her or some child that fate had already mistreated. I upped my pace considerably, trying to catch up to Roy so I could grab his collar, Mick still right behind me even though the going was now just as tough for him.

But Roy was faster, and hit the slope at a sprint, his intent ominous. The rope pulled tight, and even though Roy weighed less than me I was pulled clean off my feet, landing face down and head first before being dragged sideways, injuriously to both pride and skin. By now, Roy was already over the crest of the hill, and as I reached it I clutched at a wrist-thick tree, gripping with all the strength of my left hand and yanking us to a halt.

I looked down the slope at Roy, who glanced back, his face set in the expression that meant he was about to cause mayhem. He jerked his body sideways with such incredible strength that the tree, still in my grip, was torn from the ground, and then he started dragging me along again. The sensation was like being dumped by a wave, but without the cushioning softness of water. I was smashed against rocks, bounced over stumps, and burnt by the friction of dirt and sharp grass tussocks. My body was soon so battered that I had no idea which part of it suddenly connected with a rock and somehow, mercifully, bounced me upright for a brief moment.

I took a running step but immediately lost my balance again, the rope at my waist yanking me at an odd angle. To my right was a tree, this one far larger than the one I’d grabbed previously, probably about the thickness of a telegraph pole. Grabbing it one-handed was out of the question, so with the last iota of strength available to me I launched at it bodily, hoping to plaster myself like a skydiving koala against its rough bark. As with many of my athletic endeavours, I missed the mark and sailed wide. However, this left the rope bent around the trunk in a U, with Roy’s momentum on one side and mine on the other. For once my weight counted, and Roy’s advance was brought to a crashing halt as the rope pulled tight, while I was slammed against the tree, causing sharp and sudden pain to my wrist and other areas. I fell to the ground again, using the tree and my heft as a brake, and watched Mick run past me to calm and collect Roy.

Before I could decide not to, I stood up. Wincing, spitting out dirt, I joined Mick and the still wide-eyed Roy.

‘You can walk?’ Mick asked, genuinely incredulous.

‘Since I was about a year old, actually,’ I replied, most likely in shock.

‘I was sure you must have broken something.’

‘Not sure that I haven’t.’

In fact, I thought it might just be adrenalin keeping me upright, but I wanted to get Roy away from the orphans before that could be confirmed.

It turned out that my misadventure had resulted in only bruises, abrasions and welts, and I was well enough to attend the dinner in honour of Jane that evening. I put on a now unaccustomed shirt so Jane wouldn’t have to see the damage I’d incurred in attempting to protect her, but she seemed grateful when I told her, in as offhand a tone as I could manage, of the day’s events. She appeared tired, not surprising considering she is in her seventies and still travels three hundred days of the year to promote conservation.