I was in the Maasai Mara with Dr Ludwig Siefert, a lion specialist, who was demonstrating the use of audio playback in deciphering lion communication. This involved the two of us standing with our heads poking out of the top of his jeep, under the cover of night, pumping the sound of a dominant male’s roar into another lion’s territory, an audacious way to pursue scientific enquiry and which struck me as the feline equivalent of screaming, ‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough,’ outside a rough pub at chucking-out time.
