The White Rhino Saga by Ian Player

Author:Ian Player
Format: epub
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Published: 2013-08-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Consolidation

We caught our next rhino in the Cigqayana area of the Corridor. Sven Persson and Jimmy Anderson from the South African Tourist Corporation were with us to make a film of rhino capture.

I went after a young fifteen hundred pound male we nicknamed Billy.

I walked down the eroded bed of the Mcacaso stream stripped to the waist in the heat. There was almost no wind, which made stalking difficult. Billy and his dam moved into thick bush. Vision was so poor I had to get seven paces away before being able to aim. I was about to fire when the cow roared loudly and made a rush at me. She had probably smelt the horses or thought I was a bull. As she charged I fired quickly at Billy, saw the dart go in, then fled. Billy ran, bumped against a tree and broke the dart needle. I climbed the hill and told Toni.

‘Let’s hang on a while, perhaps he got enough of the drug to knock him down,’ Toni said.

We lay among the boulders at Itsheamabunu (Dutchmen’s Rocks) and watched the rhino. They moved out into a clearing and began grazing, unconcerned by the earlier disturbance. On calm, windless days and nights it took a lot to disturb the rhino. Scent played so important a part in their lives that a man’s scent on a windy day was like a physical blow to them.

Three quarters of an hour later, Toni gave me another dart. I banged the gun while creeping up to Billy – this must have set the dart off. When I fired there was a spray of drug and the dart missed. This was the last 10 c.c. projectile we had.

Toni made up a 5 c.c. dart and I shot Billy in the leg. Eighteen minutes later he was down. He only ran a hundred yards so the horsemen had an easy day. The cow ran off making that strange call peculiar to the white rhino. She circled and came back to the calf. She smelt it all over and became agitated when it wouldn’t rise. One of the horsemen went near but she swung round and charged.

‘Great, great,’ I heard Sven Persson grunt as his camera whirred.

The presence of the cameraman had subtly changed the atmosphere of rhino capture. Hair was slicked back, and people seemed to be taking more chances. Willing hands were in evidence wherever the camera focused and everyone worked furiously while the camera churned. But within a week the glamour of being film stars quickly waned. The continual re-takes irritated everyone. Sven Persson had become deeply interested in the whole capture but as soon as he approached with his huge Ariflex 35 mm camera slung across his chest, there was an exodus of rangers. Then we drove him to distraction, by hamming it up unmercifully. ‘You blady swines,’ he shouted angrily in his Swedish-American accent, ‘I hafn’t efen got permission to make the film yet. You nearly get me killed and now you act like hams.

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