Mhudi by Sol T Plaatje

Author:Sol T Plaatje
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781868424658
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Published: 2011-07-07T04:00:00+00:00

A Stressful Time of Year

Based on an October 2002 newsletter

Have you ever witnessed the social interplay between wild dog pups and their sitter? When the rest of the pack leaves the den to go hunting, it is usually the alpha female that is saddled with the unenviable task of puppy sitting. The pups appear to have inexhaustible energy and are also mischievous by nature. This, combined with their natural curiosity, causes them to constantly wander off and explore. It is at these times that they are extremely vulnerable to predation and I suspect that were it not for the puppy sitters, we would probably not see any wild dogs at all.

The task of running around constantly chasing these happy wanderers back to the safe perimeter of the den is not an easy one. The little reprobates are hell-bent on going where they shouldn’t. I often wonder if border collies are such fantastic sheep herders because they have the same coded-in desire to keep pups (and sheep) in the safety of a den? Not only do wild dog pups wander off endlessly, they bite playfully at the sitter’s hocks and being almost always hungry, jump up and nip painfully at her nose and mouth, demanding food. Those puppy teeth may be small, but they are as sharp as needles, just like a genet’s. I’m sure you will agree this can test even the strongest resolve.

Wild dog pups are not the only creatures that need herding for their own protection. The following shows that desperate times call for desperate measures.

Every year, from August to October, the natural order is stress. The last couple of months leading up to early November rains and hopefully the start of the rainy season, are always the most stressful for our animals and their custodians. As the grass gets denuded under the relentless mouths and hooves of the herbivore biomass, the bulk grazers, particularly buffalo, will wander great distances in search of food regardless and unaware of the dangers that moving off the reserve poses. This search for ‘greener grass’ exposes them to the dangers of poachers’ snares and unscrupulous hunters who concentrate their efforts in the area north of the river, a favourite winter feeding ground for our resident herd of buffalo.

Another scourge that threatens our wild buffalo herds and ultimately our responsibility to contain foot-and-mouth disease, are the fly-by-night buffalo breeding projects that have popped up all over the lowveld. A few of these projects illegally ‘recruit’ wild buffalo, absorbing them into their breeding programmes. The animals they can’t use, like adult bulls, are hunted by trophy hunters, and the younger bulls are used for meat. One such breeding project on our boundary was suspected of supplementing its numbers in this way. In one season, a herd of over 40 buffalo just disappeared. This herd had a particular cow with unique horns. She was subsequently seen and photographed on the other side of the fence inside this buffalo breeder’s property. This proved beyond doubt that

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