Aaron Self

Liuwa is one of four cubs at the African Lion and Environmental Research Trust, or ALERT, and African Impact branch in the Victoria Falls area. She and her siblings are animal ambassadors of a sort who are the first stage in a five-part reintroduction process that plans to repopulate areas with lions from a captive population.

A good portion of volunteer days is spent watching the cub's do nothing. There are the occasion spats and walks but lions prefer to spend most of their time sleeping.

This unusual creature is a wild hybrid of a Red Hartebeest and a Blesbok. He lives in Antelope park, an almost 10,000 acre reserve in central Zimbabwe and the birthplace of African Impact and ALERT.

Wildlife and people share the land around the Victoria Falls area fairly harmoniously. The animals are protected from most hunting by strict laws because most of the tourism money that comes into the area is from wildlife encounters or safaris.

A young boy plays in the shell of a van in northern Zimbabwe. African Impact and ALERT partner with this village as an educational tool to teach volunteers about Zimbabwe culture and to help the village craftsman sell their wares.

Zebra is a favorite meal for the cubs and was donated by a local hunting reserve. Most of the lion cub's meals are donated meat from hunts or fresh roadkill.

Feeding time is a voracious affair as the cub's bolt down as much meat as they can as fast as they can. In the wild, they would normally have to go for days without eating so the caretakers mimic this by feeding them every two to three days.

Vultures have played an unwilling conspirator in the decline of lion populations across Africa. Farmers and ranchers have lost livestock to lions for thousands of years and up until recently the only way of retribution was to hunt the culprits with spears, bows or guns. In the past few decades however the availability of various poisons have become readily accessible. Vultures circle over lion kills waiting their turn to pick the carcass clean. People will follow the vultures to the kill, scare off the birds and then poison the meat intending on killing the lions. Unfortunately the poison will kill not only the lions, but the vultures and any other creature that feeds on the kill as well. Lion and vulture populations have plummeted in recent decades due to this.

Sibling scuffles are also fairly common among the cubs. More often than not Liuwa, left, is the antagonizer and her brother, Lekker, is a prime target.

Elli Suarez is a volunteer for African Impact who has traveled all the way from Hawaii to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to be a part of their community project team that helps at the local old folks home, orphanage and schools.

Elders at the local senior home have a hard time walking up and down the stairs outside their homes. Volunteers from African Impact will add onto the steps to turn them into gentle ramps to lessen their burden.

AS5 is one of five cubs who has almost reached sexual maturity and will be among the first batch of lions for reintroduction in the wild. He and his sisters will more than likely be separated and relocated to separate reserves around Zimbabwe. This is the final stage in ALERT's program and the culmination of almost five years hard work.

Hundreds of feet of netting must be carefully examined and repaired by hand after each fishing expedition. Debris along the ocean floor or fish forcing their way through weak points create holes that must be patched before the next trip out.

A young man has the hard job of lifting the front end of the canoe while almost thirty other men from the fishing community pull from behind with ropes to bring the large craft ashore.

Everyone works hard to pull in a net off the coast of Ghana on Tuesday, March 30, 2017. Even the youngest crew member, Bernard Mate Batu, 9, pulls alongside his elders. He and the other men on the boat all start young when they learn how to fish, most begin around age 6.

Young men clean plastic containers that carry fish from the boats, measure fish quantities or are used to display fish for market. Hundreds of these plastic containers line the shoreline of Tema Port, the largest marina in Ghana.

The best fish are kept for the families of the fisherman or will be sold in the market the day they were caught. Most of the unsold fish will be smoked and dried for later consumption, which could be a few days or months down the road.

Swarms of Turns and Gulls circle above the nets as the fishermen bring in their nets. The birds will skim the surface, snatching the confused fish that come to the surface looking to escape from the encircling net below.

A canoe owner waits along the shore as men bring in the craft from its mooring past the breakers to load up supplies for the days' expedition to their fishing grounds.

Hunting guide Greg Nign, left, leads the line of hunters through the fields looking for birds hidden in the vegetation. The line plows through most obstacles so they leave no path unfollowed while hunting their birds.

Rich Flanagan swings a net through the captive flock of Chuckers for the morning hunt early Saturday morning March 10, 2017. Hunts vary in size and can range from only a few birds to hundreds depending on what birds have been purchased.

Hunters, dogs and guide take a quick breather in the middle of their hunt. They have been walking up and down hills all morning through brush looking for pheasant, quail and chucker to shoot.

Quail are released into Monigold's Upland Bird Hunting Preserve about an hour before the hunters come out to find the newly released birds.

Hunters, guides and dogs mark their routes as they move through the fields on a cold winter morning looking for birds to shoot.

Multiple dogs encircle the hiding place of a doomed bird as the hunters close in. Once the guides give the call the dogs will flush the bird from its hiding place and hopefully, it will fly straight upwards where the hunters can get a proper shot at it without hitting the dogs.

Zeke the Labrador Retriever flushes a Chucker from its hiding place by barreling through the grasses it had sought refuge in.

A poorly placed shot turns a pheasant into a cloud of feathers. Normally hunters aim for the birds head to preserve the meat but this pheasant was shot at almost point blank range and turned into confetti.

Birds that are brought down by the hunters at Monigold’s are retrieved by dogs like Gwen and are then gathered up by their guides to be counted and cleaned at the end of the hunt.

Rich Flanigan guts and cleans the birds that have been shot, which are then bagged for the hunters to take home, ready to be cooked.

Labrador retrievers have been breed to the ideal bird hunting dogs. They have soft mouths, even temperaments, unabated enthusiasm and fur that repels water.

Charlie Chappell is a retiree who lost his home to the destructive force of hurricane Irma. Flood waters ripped out the bottom floor of his house on Big Pine Key and the winds took the top floor walls and ceiling. His roof was found two houses over in a neighbors yard and his boat was ripped of its mooring, overturned one hundred yards away in the canal behind him. Charlie will continue to search the rubble for mementos and anything salvageable until the state tears down what is left of the structure.

"Its not a matter of if it will happen, its a matter of when" says Charlie Chappell regarding hurricanes and their destructive capabilities.

Camp manager Taylor Hunt and Program Director Cliff Freiwald of the South Florida Boy Scout Council stand in the remains of the camp meeting hall. The only intact piece of the building is the roughly one hundred thousand pound concrete slab that was the foundation. The flood waters picked up the slab and with high winds twisting the walls the entire structure crumbled.

Over a month after Hurricane Irma made landfall multiple electric companies work around the clock to bring power back to the middle keys. Many lines were damaged during the hurricane and need to be repaired or replaced.

Charlie Chappell walks through the destroyed upper level of what was his home on Big Pine Key searching for mementos and anything that can be salvageable.

Charlie's home was not the only one to be destroyed during Hurricane Irma's pass through Big Pine Key. A house just up the road is missing half of its structure from the crashing waves and the two homes adjacent to Charlie's have extensive damage from when the winds picked up his roof and smashed it into them.

Trash and debris cover the Florida Keys, ranging in size from this tiny children's shoe all the way up to cars and large boats.

Charlie Chappell examines postcards he recovered from the remains of his home on Big Pine Key. The postcards are from his mother's trip to see the empire state building in 1912.

Hurricane Irma heavily damaged man-made structures across the Florida Keys, most of which are still in the process of being cleaned up and repaired. Meanwhile the well adapted native plant and animal species have already started to bounce back.

A boat sits capsized near route 1 across the road from the boy-scout reservation on Scout Key. The boat has been featured by numerous media outlets as the vessel was wrecked on an easily accessible piece of shoreline with a little parking lot just in front of the ruined watercraft.