By the third night, we had a little action. An adult male came into our calling station in the morning and we were able to put out the first collar. He was named "Lentswe" or "Stone" in Setswana. Lentswe seems to have moved into our area and potentially pushed out the previous territorial males Ndhuraghumbo and Gombo.
In the following days we found little evidence of lions until our final day of darting. In the morning we found fresh tracks of a male and female lion walking in the sandy road. We returned in the evening to call-in the cats. We heard a male responding to our calls nearby and a garbled roar as well. This was a very odd response. The lions did not approach, however, so we went to find them. One of the males had a collar. We found a second male mating with a female. We knew that this was a tricky situation because males can become aggressive with female if they are acting odd (i.e. recovering from chemical immobilization). So we darted both cats, placed collars on each, then transported the female 200m away for recovery. We had one vehicle sit with the male and another with the female to ensure that they each woke up safely. We sat with them all night. In the morning, the female woke up successfully in the morning. She got up, and walked back to the males to resume mating.