Mhudi

by Sol T Plaatje

  In the next chapter, I deal in more detail with this issue and the events that led to a sustainable solution.

  Lion Update

  Based on an October 2000 newsletter

  There is no doubt that the most sought-after animals on the reserve are lions. Understandably then, due to the ever-changing demographics of the population, continual updates on the status of the reserve’s lions are a welcome addition to the newsletters. But there are times when the news is not so welcome.

  Until recently, the Greater Olifants region had a relatively stable population of approximately 28 resident lions, which basically consisted of two core prides, one of which was more centrally located within the reserve and was therefore regarded as the resident pride, and a second pride that ranged over a wider territory which occasionally overlapped on the periphery of the resident pride’s range. Nomadic lion movement and interlopers increased this figure to over 30 on occasion.

  The resident pride was known as the ‘Klaserie Gang’ or ‘Klaserie Pride’. Associated with this pride were the two dominant males that recently moved in from the Klaserie, and had already made their presence felt in no uncertain way. Reports from our anti-poaching patrol unit indicated that the previous pride male who was ousted in the recent shake-up was moving in the quieter north-eastern region of the reserve accompanied by two loyal females. There didn’t appear to be a concerted effort by the two new males to chase him any further; they seemed confident that he no longer posed a threat and they tolerated his presence on the periphery of their newly won territory.

  The second pride, known as the ‘Rusermi Pride’, broke up and formed two loosely connected groups. One consisted of three young males and the former two dominant females of the pride, one of whom still had three cubs in tow. The other group comprised two younger females, presumably the sisters of the three young Rusermi pride males. They have been seen on occasion with their three young brothers on Olifants North, but it appears they may feel safer across the river.

  These two sub-groups hunted as individual units and were comfortable with each other’s presence, albeit at a distance. When they occasionally did meet, the greetings were never hostile, mainly due to the fact that even though each group did their own thing, essentially they were members of the same pride. In a lion’s world, everything revolves around territory, which as we all know is often defended to the death; it is as if nothing else matters.

  Just how strong this territorial imperative is, was clearly demonstrated one morning when one of the shareholders who was watching the three young males from the former Rusermi pride, called me in. He was concerned about one of the males who had porcupine quills embedded deeply in his armpit area and asked me to have a look at him. By the time I’d made my way from the office to lodge 10 and lifted my binoculars a couple of times to get a closer look at the lions, the two new Klaserie males were already on the scene and were aggressively chasing the three younger males.

  These two males had made their way clear across the reserve to locate and target the young lions. Their determination was further evident from reports received from members all along the river who watched as the lions systematically and single-mindedly drew the ‘battle lines’, walking right past their lodges in broad daylight. The lions showed no fear of the curious onlookers as they marked territory and roared repeatedly, making sure the three interlopers knew that they had over-stepped the boundaries of tolerance and would be severely dealt with if they were ever caught on the wrong side of the river.

  A female and her three almost fully grown cubs, whose territory includes Wild Dog Pan and Nature’s Valley, sometimes travel down onto the river floodplain at the point where the Mohlabetsi River flows into the Olifants River. This group appears to be rather secretive and so is not often seen. They appear to be predominantly resident on Venice, and according to the warden in that area, who comes across her occasionally, she never responds when hearing other lions calling. Instead she and her cubs make a hasty retreat in the opposite direction.

  Another lone lioness with which I became intrigued was one whose pug marks I had often seen on top of my running shoe tracks from the previous day’s run; it was like we knew each other but had never met. At four o’clock one morning, on my way to drop off the kids in Hoedspruit, I finally managed to get a visual of her. This enigmatic lioness turned out to be a relatively small yet beautifully proportioned animal, I would guess that she had not yet had cubs, and judged her to be about three-and-a-half to four years of age.

  Her favoured area included the Dinidza river road along to the clubhouse and past Idube Pan, into the Pel’s Loop area and then back again, pretty much covering half of my old running route. I say ‘old’ because since the riverine area has become so popular with the elephant breeding herds, I have had to do a territorial shift of my own and find a safer route to run, so my lady friend and I don’t share the same path anymore. Funny, I really miss her presence.

  Not long after this, Jetje Japhet told me that a lioness with three tiny cubs was seen under the deck of their house on Dinidza. At least she wasn’t alone any more, I thought.

  Besides having to compete for territory with other lions, lions often come into direct competition with man for space, mostly with negative consequences. Bad news travels fast, and we were understandably shocked to hear that our resident pride of lions crossed the Olifants River into hostile territory and were shot. Except for three sub-adults, the Klaserie pride was completely wiped out by one of the so-called cattle farmers leasing the state-owned farms.

  This property, of some 2 500 hectares, and which is leased from the government for R2 000 per annum (no misprint), is designated for ‘cattle farming’, so he claims to be ‘defending his livelihood’ when shooting large predators which he claims deprive him of an income. Prior to this, a number of our shareholders concerned about the situation wanted to engage the problem proactively, to the extent that they committed themselves in writing to compensate for any cattle killed by ‘our lions’.

  The only stipulation was that our game scouts were to verify that the lions responsible for any death of cattle were indeed lions that emanated from our reserve. This was conveyed to the lessee, who ignored the offer and went ahead with his lion culling programme anyway. Legally, there was nothing that could be done, until the antiquated laws governing this activity were reviewed.

  They say, ‘The big wheel turns.’ In the next chapter, which unashamedly focuses on ‘revenge’ in its title, you will see how.

  Shortly before the pride crossed over into the area where the lions were shot, we darted one of the young males in order to treat an old wound to his hind leg. Zoletil, the drug used to immobilise lions, has no antidote, and once darted, an animal can take up to six hours to recover from its effect. This is a dangerous period for an animal in this condition to be left without being monitored, but this turn of events and the characteristic limitations on the drug were instrumental in saving his life, as it turned out. Once the Zoletil had worked through his system, he picked up the trail and got to the point where vocal contact could have located the rest of the pride. Unbeknown to him, the rest of his pride were being systematically destroyed at this point; I believe the males were shot first, then the females and finally all but two of the five-month-old cubs. When he called, there was no response from his family; nor would there ever be. The remaining two cubs which had managed to escape being shot died of starvation two weeks later.

  He may have thought they had gone back into the Klaserie Nature Reserve, because a couple of weeks later I saw him again inside that reserve on the other side of the fence, which was still up at that stage. This time, however, he was seen in the company of another young male and a darker coloured sub-adult female. Shortly after this, the trio moved back, crawling under the fence and onto the Olifants area, where they filled some of the vacuum left by the Klaserie pride.

  It took a while before the soft dust on the roads revealed the unmistakable signs of lions on our
reserve again. The emptiness without their presence was depressing, but the vacuum was slowly filling, and it wasn’t to be long before a pride established itself again.

  Typical of a vacant territory, prospective inhabitants begin to crawl out of the woodwork and stake their claim.

  Since the slaughter of our pride across the river, besides the three that crawled in from next door, the following lions have been reported on the reserve.

  One large male mating with two adult females – this trio often seen on the railway line road from the steel train bridge over the Mohlabetse river to the Sable Dam turn-off. They appear to spend most of their time in the south.

  A group of sub-adults comprising two young males and three females is seen in the Olifants area on a fairly regular basis.

  A single female with three-month-old cubs is in the Palm Loop area, not too far from the wild sage thicket

  Understandably, the demise of our lions was an extremely bitter pill to swallow. We had become accustomed to seeing them on the reserve; we almost became reliant on them. While our emotions were clouded with anger and frustration at the helplessness of the situation, there was a faint lining of silver on this cloud. In particular, we knew that in an open system such as ours, this vacuum would be filled sooner or later, and the absence of lions would only be temporary.

  The absence of the pride was not entirely negative. Some good did come of the tragedy, notwithstanding the opportunism of the other predators in the absence of lion, but the collective impact of other predators on the wildebeest and giraffe was relatively small. Although there was no means of showing it at the time, the evidence is now plain – when last did the Warthog Pan wildebeest herd raise a single calf beyond the juvenile brown colour? Well, they now have four youngsters sporting adult coats. Other herds boast up to five calves, young giraffe can be seen everywhere, and the waterbuck are regular visitors on the floodplain again.

  Cheetah will spend extended periods in a relatively small area when there are no lions in the vicinity to threaten them, and particularly when there is sufficient prey to hunt. This was evident in the recent temporary absence of the lions, when a group of cheetah confidently took a number of young wildebeest, as well as making a sizeable dent in the impala numbers. Cheetah do not appear to have as much of an impact on the wildebeest calves in this area as lions do; they tend to focus mainly on impala. The exception was one individual, a large male cheetah that accounted for two calves in a week! Despite this toll, we never recorded him taking any calves older than the brown stage, so it appeared that if they could grow to that point of development, their chances of survival were substantially increased.

  Hyaena took full advantage of the situation – but then, don’t they always? A fully grown wildebeest of the Warthog Pan herd was killed by these underrated predators at the bottom of the airstrip. It was unfortunately an adult cow with a youngster, so its unweaned calf stood around waiting for the inevitable, its fate sealed.

  I believe that the threat to our lions from the hostile territory to the north will continue until cattle are removed from the area across the river. In the latter half of winter, when the Olifants River levels are very low, the cattle wade onto the sand banks in the middle and at times cross onto our side. We have chased them back across the river a number of times. On one occasion they were a mere one kilometre from the office! This is too much temptation for any lion to resist, so they give chase, and at half the speed and twice as tender as anything the lions are accustomed to hunting, the result is usually a foregone conclusion.

  There are wheels being set in motion to try and get the lease of the farms north of the river in friendlier hands. The authorities have been made aware of the situation and will be seeking more justification from the lessee for killing the lions, and making sure he understands that he also needs to construct protection kraals for the cattle at night.

  It would take a vehement protest and commitment from us to eventually get the cattle removed and veterinary exemption status for this area officially declared. Ironically, the lion issue would not be catalytic in this decision; it would be the Cape buffalo and its associated veterinary and economic implications.

  The Olifants River has always been regarded by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism as a natural boundary for wildlife. This may have had some merit in the early days but since then more than half a dozen dams have been constructed upriver, which facilitates thousands of megalitres of water being extracted daily for agriculture.

  Today, this perennial river would cease to flow in winter if it were not for the release of water from the Blyde Dam to supply its primary user, the mine in Phalaborwa. So, many years ago, prior to the rape of this river, it may indeed have held enough water through the dry months to either prevent or limit the crossing of wildlife from one side to the other. This situation has now changed completely, but the veterinary and conservation laws have not. The reserve supplied irrefutable photographic evidence of buffalo’s total disregard for the river as a boundary or barrier, which helped convince the authorities of the predicament.

  The background to the veterinary risk is contained in the area’s history. Foskor Mine, the state-owned farms north of our reserve and some of the farms along the Selati River all farmed cattle. Disease-carrying buffalo grazed on the same veld as the cattle and drank from the same water points. This inevitably led to physical contact between the wild and domestic animals which greatly increased the risk of a foot-and-mouth outbreak. With this in mind, some reactions from our officialdom may seem initially to be soundly based on historical facts.

  We heard through the bush telegraph one day that the Veterinary Department was planning to destroy a herd of 70 buffalo that had crossed the river into ‘cattle country’. This unilateral decision couldn’t go unchallenged, even though I knew how seriously the department viewed the potential foot-and-mouth disease risk this posed. I believed their decision was a knee-jerk reaction without thought for a long-term solution.

  I could not stand by while our buffalo were routinely slaughtered whenever they crossed the river to feed during the winter months, something they had been doing for years, long before I arrived here 16 years ago.

  I sent a letter to the Minister, and got the media involved. The authorities then convened a series of meetings co-ordinated by the Department of Environment and Tourism (DEAT) as well as the various interested and affected parties, including the farmers, Balule Nature Reserve, the mines and the state veterinarian based in the Kruger National Park. Our objection as conservationists was not to the culling of 70 buffalo per se, with there being well over 400 buffalo on the reserve, but that the removal of these buffalo would merely create a vacuum that other buffalo would fill. This would perpetuate the need to destroy more of these animals ad infinitum, and the authorities would still not be any closer to solving the foot-and-mouth problem.

  Pulling a trigger is to some minds how problems like these are sorted out, but all this does is treat the symptom without addressing the cause, so we just couldn’t allow this ‘open season’ attitude to manifest itself without some attempt at a long-term solution.

  It is amazing what power the media wield. They succeed where all others fail, particularly when it comes to getting bureaucrats to ‘pull finger’. Four high-level meetings and less than ten months later, the following transpired:

  Foskor, one of the two big mining companies concerned, erected a veterinary approved fence along the relevant boundaries at a cost of close to R400 000. (Hats off to those guys.)

  None of the herd of 70 buffalo had to be shot.

  The Department of Land Affairs will erect a boundary fence on the relevant state-owned land (still to happen).

  Olifants River Game Reserve has electrified the Grietjie boundary with state-owned land.

  The elephant and buffalo on the northern side of the fence were chased into our reserve, totalling six buffalo and five elephant. Any remaining after this were destroyed, so in reality only t
hree stubborn old buffalo had to be shot in the Selati River.

  Olifants, Foskor and Palabora Mining Company have undertaken to do regular patrols on the boundary fences.

  A process is underway to register the state-owned properties as ‘buffalo country’.

  And now for the really good news … all the cattle have been removed!

  Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?

  Vendetta …

  Based on a May 2004 newsletter

  Many Olifants shareholders will remember the anger and frustration they felt when they received the news report confirming that eleven of our lions had been shot. The lessee of the neighbouring state-owned land and his associates systematically killed these lions with the official backing of the Department of Environmental Affairs in Phalaborwa. In his motivation for the destruction permit, the lions were listed as being a threat to his livelihood. If only the authorities had taken the trouble to look at the seven emaciated cows that constituted this man’s supposed livelihood, a permit would not have been issued and instead, the Animal Anti-Cruelty League would have been notified. The poor cattle were in such pitiful condition that death by any means would have been an act of mercy. They were obviously kept on this property for one purpose and one purpose alone, to be used as an excuse to hunt predators that could be deemed a threat. In terms of the Act’s definition of stock-killing predators, everything was legal and above-board. So, you can imagine the sense of utter helplessness and failure I felt at having my hands tied by an outdated law. This law, which is still enforced, and which governs the relationship between stock farmers and predators, was devised by farmers, for farmers. It is filled with loopholes so big you could drive a high-suspension Land Cruiser through them with ease.