The weekend was amazing. Our friend Elize works for Mantis Collection, who co-own Shamwari Game Reserve, with Dubai World. Shamwari is a 5 star Game Park located only 40k from Addo. We stayed in a private house on top of a hill overlooking part of the reserve. The house was colonial to its bootstraps including full size snooker table. From the lush manicured lawns we gazed over a herd of zebra, blessbok (so called as they make a noise like a sneeze) and wildebeest. During our game drive we watched white rhino including a baby and saw a brown hyena – very rare. We dined magnificently on Kudu and generally enjoyed a weekend of luxury. Come Sunday evening it was time to return to our rudimentary living at Addo. The week was full of exciting and interesting activities.
After two days of “Fence Patrol” (which nearly drove Nikki to distraction from boredom) we joined the Rhino researcher for a day and drove (well – bumped) through the most inaccessible areas of Addo high in the hills. The purpose was to collect the results of a number of hidden cameras which had been placed in strategic locations near waterholes and along game trails. The purpose of the camera traps was to monitor herd and their movements, especially in areas where there were predators and no predators so that the “before and after could be compared. The results of such research will help determine the optimum number of predators to release in a new area. It was surprisingly exciting downloading the photos to see what had passed by over the previous 48 hours.....a sleeping rhino, a secretive aardvark, wandering kudu, quizzical baboons were all revealed. It was like spying on a private world. Jordi, the researcher squealed with delight when a photo showed a particular female rhino whom she had not seen for 2 years and thought had died or been poached - it even had a new baby. We helped collect rhino dung from which tests reveal pregnancy, testosterone levels and even stress - these were carefully packed away like precious jewels.
A night of “hyena calling” was also on the agenda. We left camp to enter the park at around 6.30pm – complete with warthog carcass and lion/hyena recordings in our buckie. Hyena calling is where you “call” the hyena to a carcass tied to the ground, with the aid of hyena, warthog and lion call recordings, and so the hyena should start getting used to being near a vehicle which will make darting easier in future when the animals are collared. The sunset drive was super with elephant, buffalo and kudu sightings. We drove around 30kms into the game area where the hyenas were recently sighted and hammered our stake into the ground to which we tied our delicious looking carcass. Out came the audio equipment and the cacophony started – squealing hogs, calling lions and cackling hyena – what a racket - it certainly resembled nothing that we had ever heard in the wild. We shone a huge beam around the vehicle to spot the fruits of our success – nothing. It got later and later, and colder and colder...eventually we decided to make a move back to camp. And then Stuart spotted her - the lioness.....striding slowly towards our vehicle where she sat down, by the side of the buckie just a metre from under our noses, and she waited.....waited....kept looking back to whence she came.... and waited some more. Occasionally she sniffed the air no doubt catching a whiff of the hog carcass...or maybe it was the small pool of blood still in our buckie that we forgot to wash off! Ten minutes later our lioness moved to the back of the buckie, still sniffing the air, still looking back into the bush. Again she waited and waited. At this point, with her so close, we started to get a little concerned that she might not be sniffing the carcass and be preparing herself to pounce into our vehicle after the blood, but these creatures see the vehicles as solid objects, regardless of the open top, so maybe she was just a little confused as the truck did act as a wind break between her jaws and the hog. Much to our relief she got up, walked around the buckie and headed for the carcass around which her jaws were finally set – no doubt much to her relief. We observed her for some time and then out of the bush sprang her three adolescent cubs, bounding toward their dinner, happy to have mum off a night’s hunting. At this point, frost bite had almost set in and we headed back to camp, again treated to lion, owl and elephant sightings, oh...and a flat tyre that we changed very quickly, luckily some way away from the feasting carnivores.
The week ended with a sedate morning horse ride at Nyati where we viewed eland, blue crane and elephant and an afternoon of elephant identification with Kendal, our elephant researcher. Almost all of Addo’s 420 elephants are known by name and their herds are classified by a letter of the alphabet, with each ellie’s ear notches marked so that they can be easily identified. There is nothing easy about it, as we discovered when faced with the “B” herd at Rooidam – some 80 elephants. Not knowing where to start we were just satisfied to watch them frolic in the water. We did however manage to find Ariadne’s week old newborn which we named Zsou Zsou – logically a member of the “A” herd!
After two days of “Fence Patrol” (which nearly drove Nikki to distraction from boredom) we joined the Rhino researcher for a day and drove (well – bumped) through the most inaccessible areas of Addo high in the hills. The purpose was to collect the results of a number of hidden cameras which had been placed in strategic locations near waterholes and along game trails. The purpose of the camera traps was to monitor herd and their movements, especially in areas where there were predators and no predators so that the “before and after could be compared. The results of such research will help determine the optimum number of predators to release in a new area. It was surprisingly exciting downloading the photos to see what had passed by over the previous 48 hours.....a sleeping rhino, a secretive aardvark, wandering kudu, quizzical baboons were all revealed. It was like spying on a private world. Jordi, the researcher squealed with delight when a photo showed a particular female rhino whom she had not seen for 2 years and thought had died or been poached - it even had a new baby. We helped collect rhino dung from which tests reveal pregnancy, testosterone levels and even stress - these were carefully packed away like precious jewels.
A night of “hyena calling” was also on the agenda. We left camp to enter the park at around 6.30pm – complete with warthog carcass and lion/hyena recordings in our buckie. Hyena calling is where you “call” the hyena to a carcass tied to the ground, with the aid of hyena, warthog and lion call recordings, and so the hyena should start getting used to being near a vehicle which will make darting easier in future when the animals are collared. The sunset drive was super with elephant, buffalo and kudu sightings. We drove around 30kms into the game area where the hyenas were recently sighted and hammered our stake into the ground to which we tied our delicious looking carcass. Out came the audio equipment and the cacophony started – squealing hogs, calling lions and cackling hyena – what a racket - it certainly resembled nothing that we had ever heard in the wild. We shone a huge beam around the vehicle to spot the fruits of our success – nothing. It got later and later, and colder and colder...eventually we decided to make a move back to camp. And then Stuart spotted her - the lioness.....striding slowly towards our vehicle where she sat down, by the side of the buckie just a metre from under our noses, and she waited.....waited....kept looking back to whence she came.... and waited some more. Occasionally she sniffed the air no doubt catching a whiff of the hog carcass...or maybe it was the small pool of blood still in our buckie that we forgot to wash off! Ten minutes later our lioness moved to the back of the buckie, still sniffing the air, still looking back into the bush. Again she waited and waited. At this point, with her so close, we started to get a little concerned that she might not be sniffing the carcass and be preparing herself to pounce into our vehicle after the blood, but these creatures see the vehicles as solid objects, regardless of the open top, so maybe she was just a little confused as the truck did act as a wind break between her jaws and the hog. Much to our relief she got up, walked around the buckie and headed for the carcass around which her jaws were finally set – no doubt much to her relief. We observed her for some time and then out of the bush sprang her three adolescent cubs, bounding toward their dinner, happy to have mum off a night’s hunting. At this point, frost bite had almost set in and we headed back to camp, again treated to lion, owl and elephant sightings, oh...and a flat tyre that we changed very quickly, luckily some way away from the feasting carnivores.
The week ended with a sedate morning horse ride at Nyati where we viewed eland, blue crane and elephant and an afternoon of elephant identification with Kendal, our elephant researcher. Almost all of Addo’s 420 elephants are known by name and their herds are classified by a letter of the alphabet, with each ellie’s ear notches marked so that they can be easily identified. There is nothing easy about it, as we discovered when faced with the “B” herd at Rooidam – some 80 elephants. Not knowing where to start we were just satisfied to watch them frolic in the water. We did however manage to find Ariadne’s week old newborn which we named Zsou Zsou – logically a member of the “A” herd!
No comments:
Post a Comment