Mhudi

by Sol T Plaatje

  Commercial pressure and competition means that everyone is now chasing the Big Five as a de rigueur minimum – with the addition of wild dog and cheetah as the cherry on the top of a Big Seven Cocktail. There’s every likelihood that soon black rhino will replace their white cousins on the big five podium. While I agree this does make for memorable viewing, it should not be the standard by which you rate your experience, because the operative word here is ‘enjoying’, not ‘chasing’.

  I wasn’t nicknamed Mario Andretti in my impatient youth for nothing, so I speak from experience when I say, I really do believe you miss a lot by racing around to get the big ones. I know I did – been there, done that, spent too much time rushing hither and thither to see what was under my nose.

  Here is a small piece of advice I would like to pass on. Slow down, take time to enjoy the myriad creatures that the reserve has to offer. Taking birds as an example, there are over 342 species of birds recorded on Olifants. That’s not to mention the enjoyment to be had from simply taking in the richness of the flora, never mind the fauna. This area is also rich in geology, a relatively unknown dimension of the reserve waiting patiently to be explored.

  If you have the luxury of being able to spend more than a couple of days in the bush, and you don’t have unrealistic expectations, your satisfaction and enjoyment are guaranteed.

  Even if you have a relatively quiet drive or two, pause a moment and reflect on what you have seen; there is every chance you will return home after a day’s game viewing, content and satisfied with a three-and-a-half-pounder rather than being disappointed because you didn’t get the five-pounder.

  Oh, and never forget that the five-pounder is still there, waiting to be ‘caught’ another day.

  Bring ’em Back Alive …

  Based on a September 1997 newsletter

  In the days when Jim Corbett ‘brought ’em back alive’, he captured wild animals from India and Africa, crated them and shipped them to zoos all over the world. Due to the methods of capture and the subsequent stress, mortality rates were horrific. However, because the supply of wildlife appeared abundant, even unlimited, and there were no chemical capture options at the time, the dangers and tragedies were an acceptable part of the process, calculated risks that ‘came with the territory’. Things have changed. Capture and translocation have become technically advanced sciences and the loss of an animal today is a rare occurrence.

  Our dominant rhino bull was reported to be on Umhlametsi, a reserve south of the Balule boundary line. Apparently one of their cows was in oestrus and had lured him and their resident bull into conflict for her favours.

  The dispute happened to occur right on the fence line. The contest, with a combined mass of over five tons of rhino smashing repeatedly into the fence, resulted in the support pole snapping like a toothpick. The wire parted to open a gaping hole through which our bull went and then he proceeded to chase the Umhlametsi bull to the far corner of his erstwhile territory. With the competition now safely out of the way, our hero then moved into courtship mode and spent a few happy days in the company of the rhino cow and her young calf.

  Although our system is an open one, this occurrence was on our extreme southern boundary, which effectively took the animal out of our area. This meant that unless ‘ownership’ could be proved, the rhino would be lost to us. Under normal circumstances, unless historical factors had to be considered, I would not have given this crime of passion a second thought. After all, this is a natural process that these animals have always followed and will continue to follow.

  Present boundary constraints, however, coupled with the fact that our bull had a ‘criminal record’ earned by killing a bull from the Klaserie a couple of years ago in a similar territorial dispute, meant we were obliged to take remedial action. We had to remove, or at least make a concerted attempt to remove, our rhino from the neighbouring area to prevent or minimise the possibility of there being the further loss of another valuable animal.

  Despite repeated efforts at enticing the rhino with bales of fresh lucerne, he refused to come back through the gap in the fence; he was in love and would not leave his new-found mate and her youngster. I knew the manager of Umhlametsi well, and with his co-operation we were able to look at alternative means of getting our rhino back, alive. Not able to contract a capture company at such short notice, we decided to go ahead with the equipment and manpower available.

  Early one cool morning in September, I had our CAT 966C front-end loader move into position on the boundary in the vicinity of the area we knew the rhino to frequent. We then sent our trackers in to physically track down and find our bull, with instructions that when they located him, they were to radio in and gave us his exact position, and then to stay with him.

  Meanwhile, in Boy Scout mode, I had packed everything I thought could possibly be needed to move this huge animal, including rope, water, conveyor belting and other paraphernalia. I then proceeded to the airstrip and picked up Dr Gerrit Scheepers, our local veterinarian who had succumbed to my wheedling and flown in from Phalaborwa.

  After a few final checks that we really did have everything necessary for the operation, we climbed into the Land Cruiser and drove to our fence line, the border with Umhlametsi.

  To keep noise levels down we kept the darting team to an absolute minimum of just the vet, a tracker and myself. It’s one thing to track a rhino and get a glimpse of it, but to get into position and correctly place an immobilising dart required a greater degree of stealth – and more feet means more twigs to snap.

  It wasn’t long before we located our bull resting in the shade, about 20 metres away from the cow and her half-grown calf, both of whom were also in the mood for a siesta. The only movement discernible was the constant flicking and periscope-type twisting movement of their ears, on the alert for any unnatural sound, and in response to the persistent and irritating flies. Despite a careful and stealthy approach, we were caught out by a shift in wind direction which presented them with the faintest whiff of man. That was enough to get them on their feet and moving off at a slow trot into thicker bush.

  Which was exactly what we didn’t need.

  Persisting, we followed them, keeping a low profile by half crouching and half hobbling through the bush. At times we were reduced to leopard crawl. This uncomfortable approach paid off and Gerrit was able to get a dart into the bull, without him knowing where it came from. Nine minutes later, the 3 mg of M99 gently put him down, not two metres from where he was darted.

  ‘Just think,’ Gerrit said with a smile. ‘We’re getting paid to do this.’

  I was about to give him one of my dissertations on quantity versus quality and conservationists’ remuneration, but decided the time wasn’t right. By now the vehicle had arrived, bringing along the water we needed for cooling the rhino as well as the cooler boxes containing refreshment for us humans and the veterinary medicines respectively. I covered the rhino’s eyes with a towel after smearing an antibiotic lubricating ointment onto its eyeballs. Some blood pressure muti was injected, the dart removed and an antibiotic sprayed into the needle wound. We also took this opportunity to microchip and ear notch him.

  Gerrit was quite taken with the rhino, and said that in all his years of working with rhino, he had never seen such a magnificent specimen. Msimbi, which means ‘iron’ in Zulu, was clearly the largest-bodied bull rhino he had ever worked on. I felt a sense of pride and was happy that in a relatively short space of time, Msimbi would be physically back home while Gerrit would be winging his way back to where he belonged.

  As a matter of interest, where the distance you need to move a white rhino is relatively short, you can ‘walk’ it from point A to point B. This is done by reversing the effect of the original full knockdown dose of M99 with M50/50 and then administering a new, very much lower and critically judged active dose of M99. In this condition, the rhino will still be groggy, but stable enough to stay on its feet and allow itself to be ‘walked’. It’s a fine b
alance to keep the rhino tranquillised enough to allow itself to be manipulated and directed without too much stress, with professional manpower using blindfolds and padded rope leashes to lead the animal gently to its destination. It’s surprising just how far you can ‘walk’ a rhino, but in our case the distance was just too great, so an alternative travel plan was devised.

  Forty minutes had ticked by since the rhino went down, and as it was getting hotter, we kept him wet and cool while we waited for the front end loader to arrive. Once there, the loader operator, Phillip Mathebula, skilfully manoeuvred the bucket into position. With the combined efforts of us pushing the rhino over whilst the bucket dug underneath and scooped up some six inches of soil to help cushion him, he was gently cradled in the bucket with rubber matting strategically placed to prevent any risk of chafing. After a few quick checks to see that he was relatively comfortable and secure for his journey back to Olifants, we moved off in the direction of the boundary fence.

  It wasn’t long before we reached the fence line, and a pair of sturdy side-cutters quickly took care of the wire barrier. Driving through the gap, we then selected a soft, sandy spot in a small riverbed a couple of hundred metres or so into the reserve, and as gently as we could, we laid the rhino down back on his own turf.

  Gerrit now administered the antidote, known as Narcan, or M50/50, which, I’m told, is the same stuff they use to neutralise the effects of opiate derivatives like heroin and morphine in human drug addiction. M99, incidentally, is a powerful synthetic morphine, literally hundreds of times more concentrated than the stuff humans use, so strong that a scratch from a dart needle can kill a man. Consequently, whenever Gerrit goes to work on Olifants using M99, the antidote M50/50 is always at the ready in my top shirt pocket and there’s always some M50/50 in the fridge down at the office. This extremely powerful substance is classified as a schedule seven drug, therefore you won’t find a trace of M99 anywhere except under the strictest professional supervision, for obvious reasons.

  While the antidote was weaving its magic, Gerrit whispered something in the rhino’s ear, something only he and the rhino will ever know. He does this every time, saying it’s his special time with the animal. Within a brief 30 seconds the indignant bull was up on his feet and on his way. He knew exactly where he was and slowly headed back to his old familiar territory. We then repaired the fence, breathed a sigh of relief that all had gone well and headed back along the railway line road. A movement in one of the drainage dips caught my eye, so, slowing down and peering into the dark culvert, we saw three male lions just lying there in the perfect spot to avoid the midday sun.

  This sighting rounded things off nicely, a fitting end to a productive morning in anybody’s book, including this one. This incident happened nearly ten years ago. According to everything I’ve read on white rhino, dominant bulls can expect to maintain their position for six to eight years. Maybe the Zulus could recognise his potential when they named him, because he certainly lives up to it. He was the dominant bull when I arrived at Olifants 16 years ago, and apparently he still is! He is living proof that size counts.

  Poachers Caught …

  From an October 2002 newsletter

  Poachers were giving our field rangers a really hard time. Moving in from Masheshimale near Phalaborwa, these reprobates had less than ten kilometres to cover and they were in the ‘pantry’, so to speak. On foot, they could cover this distance in a couple of hours, and once back on their home turf they simply melted into the population. Initially they were operating on the extreme limits of our reserve, adopting the favoured hit-and-run tactic, which meant that they would be gone before we could make plans to apprehend them.

  Worse, as their confidence grew, so their forays took them deeper into Olifants, an indication of this fact being the evidence of a crude overnight camp that our game guards found. They were getting excessively confident and had become really cheeky, we thought at the time.

  Normally, poachers are no strangers to discomfort and discipline, both being key to their success, and they leave virtually no evidence of their passing. They travel very light, carrying only the very bare necessities. This overnight camp indicated to us that complacency may have started to creep in, or, driven by greed, they were starting to take risks. We needed to take advantage of this by giving them a little more rope, until we were ready to pounce on our poachers.

  When a large animal the size of a giraffe is snared or they manage to procure more than they can carry, a team comprising mostly women will be brought in to help transport the meat. As many as twelve people have been caught in a single group of poachers, each person carrying approximately 25 kg of meat on their heads in plastic fertiliser bags. With these loads, they’re slower, easy to track and their escape routes are more predictable. In more remote and larger conservation areas, poachers usually make a temporary base and air-dry the meat, reducing the weight by more than 60 per cent. However, they don’t get the time to do that in our area.

  Vultures, and to a lesser degree, short-tailed eagles, are the field ranger’s greatest ally in the fight against poachers. The presence of these birds circling over an area invariably indicates predator activity and the whereabouts of a carcass. As a matter of course we routinely follow up on these unpaid ‘spotters’ to obtain kill statistics for our predator/prey relationship studies. They also help us find any unclaimed carcasses from recent poaching activity, which may be lying rotting in a snare. It was by vulture watching in an area that we suspected was being targeted by poachers that our anti-poaching team was able to home in on a group of them.

  This gang had been plaguing us for months, getting more brazen as their self-confidence and greed grew to the point that they began setting more snares than they could monitor. Slowly but surely they began to get ahead of themselves. Consequently, the ‘eyes in the sky’ found dead animals the poachers had missed or couldn’t keep track of. What these birds do for us is to narrow down the area of activity or kill zone, helping us to lay an ambush or to know when to start moving in stealthily.

  I was in the process of writing a brief update regarding the poaching situation for an upcoming committee meeting, when I received a call from an obviously excited Jabulaan, the head of our anti-poaching unit. ‘We have caught the poachers who have been giving us problems on Seekooigat,’ he exclaimed.

  I listened with mixed emotions, relieved, yet frustrated, as I knew what little effect arresting them would have on the overall poaching situation. The amount of valuable anti-poaching time wasted in the courtroom as one hearing gets remanded to the next, was frustrating and even infuriating. Nevertheless, I couldn’t lose sight of this achievement. It was the culmination of months of dedicated hard work by the team and had paid off in a solid arrest. We needed to follow through, no matter what frustrations lay in store. What Jabulaan told me next, however, made the blood drain from my face and gave me a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘We shot one of them,’ he said.

  My reaction was one of fear of the consequences of this action, no matter its justification.

  Nowadays, the authorities view shooting a person, any person, criminal or otherwise, in an extremely serious light and the first docket they open is one of murder. Plus, it had been shown on several occasions that most magistrates see poachers as just trying to make a living and that their rights are as important as everyone else’s.

  Fortunately, Jabulaan’s dramatic outburst wasn’t the whole story. He went on to tell me that in order to stop the poachers, who, after eight warning shots still wouldn’t stop running away, he shot at their legs and that one of the poachers had been hit. Dry-mouthed, I asked if the man was seriously injured. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sure he is fine, because we used the shotgun and not a rifle.’ Apparently a few SSG buckshot pellets had hit him in the lower legs and thigh, causing painful flesh wounds only, but this was enough of a shock for him to know our game guards meant for him to stop when they said so. Nonetheless, our tea
m having to use firearms in an anti-poaching operation put a different complexion on the entire situation.

  This incident highlights the seriousness of the matter and is not to be taken lightly. This sort of action is forced upon private anti-poaching units because the provincial authorities are financially strapped, slow to react and less than committed to prosecute. The increasingly brazen audacity of the poachers is a concomitant reflection of the ineffectual enforcement of present legislation and the leniency of punishment meted out to offenders. Most poachers are back in business within days of being released, or worse, immediately after paying the paltry fines usually imposed. In this case, the police and the courts were most co-operative with us as the gunshot victim was also guilty of a number of conventional crimes and had eluded justice for some time. However, that positive reaction was not the norm.

  It is this very frustrating situation that makes us resort to one of two approaches.

  The first approach seems indigestible, but it’s an option given the pressures that exist, that you just allow anarchy in the bush to reign and ‘turn a blind eye’ to the carnage involved other than employing a ‘mop up’ routine.

  This means relentlessly following the poachers hoping to pick up and remove each snare shortly after they lay them and thereby avoid the involvement of confrontation and arrest. The second approach involves taking the bull by the horns, making an authoritative stand and protecting that which has the right to protection. I believe our game guards did the right thing under the circumstances and they acted within the law. For once it was not important whether these poachers were convicted or not. I knew that the word would now spread amongst the poaching community – leave the game on Olifants alone, their game guards mean business!

  Whatever time this buys us, it is more than we would have bought if we’d passively mopped up behind the swine who wreak so much death and destruction on our wildlife. Best of all, though, is that the many animals that would have died a miserable death in wire snares will be spared for now.