Greetings to you all! I hope you have all had a good start to 2010. Apologies for not getting my newsletter out to you in January – I honestly had writers block. So I have decided to do a joint one, and I have so much to share with you!
On the Reserve, the heat has carried over from December, and we haven’t had the rain we had hoped for. It has been exceptionally hot and we have all struggled – especially the buffalo, as you will see from my photos in the gallery for this letter. One of our buffalo bulls was so hot and bothered, he thought he could maybe sneak into the office for some cover from the hot sun! Seeing that it wasn’t that much cooler in there, he headed off to the swimming pool and bathed around for a good 30 minutes. Ahhhh!
We also had a lot of action in and around Bukela’s water hole & pool. With the Reserve being so dry, the Lodges have been a firm favourite for green grass & cool waters. See the gallery for some great pics of our many and varied visitors.
Despite all the heat, nature keeps on doing her thing, and this months we had three new arrivals on the Reserve. The first little fellow we got a nice shot of was a precious little Black Wildebeest, that was just as interested in us, as we were in him. See our snapshot of him in the gallery: he can only have been a few weeks old when this was taken.
Aside from this very sweet new arrival, we also had 2 baby Buffalo born this past month. Sadly, one of the mothers died during child birth and were left with a tiny new born buffalo to raise! Well of course, everyone on the reserve pitched in to make sure the baby survived. First of all, we managed to get the baby into a safe boma, where we could take care of her. Then we started to bottle feed! We were given plenty of advice by our Resident Vet on the Reserve – William Folds - on what we need to feed her with, and how we should be doing it.
She took to the bottle no problem, and what an experience that was: the photo in the gallery shows Stu, our Head Ranger, holding the bottle so that she could push against his legs to feed, in the same way she would with her mother.
After a few days of this, and some creative thinking from the team, we decided to bring in a professional: we borrowed a cow from one of the Land Owners, Giles Gush! And so our baby buffalo got a foster mum!
At first the cow was wary of all this and kicked a little – baby buffs don’t feed the same way as calves, and the cow was not used to the manner in which it fed. But after no time at all the buffalo learnt how to take the milk from its new Mum and fed to the side, like calves do! They have since bonded beautifully and the baby is feeding properly. It is a very precious sight I have to say! See our gallery pics of baby and foster mum. We will keep them together until the baby is big enough & strong enough to go out and feed alone.
We are having arguments on what to call her, but I like Shona, and if I have my way it will stay! We try our best not to get attached to any of the animals, as they are wild after all – but when you have helped bottle feed a new babe – you simply can’t help giving it a name!
Getting back to the mother that passed away... Our Resident Vet on the Reserve also runs a Vet’s Course. His students come from far and wide, and are usually 3rd year students that have come to the bush to learn about the wild animals first hand. If there are any procedures to be done on the reserve, William and his students are called in to take over. In this case, the team did an autopsy on the female to find out the cause of death. The autopsy revealed that our female died simply as a result of complications during the birth. I’ve put a photo of the start of the open-air autopsy in the gallery if you’re interested. As you can see, every animal on this Reserve receives amazing care from this team, from a wound to an autopsy.
We also called William & his students to come in and dart one of our young buffalo, a 15 month-old who was limping. After a week of keeping an eye on her, she seemed to be getting worse. If you look at the pics in the gallery, you will see in the background the rest of the heard waiting for the baby. Its mother did try 3 or 4 times to get in close to see what was happening, but somehow I think she knew her baby would be ok, as she didn't get aggressive. The baby is blindfolded to limit her stress during the procedure. It calms her down and stops her seeing all those people surrounding her. You’ll also see on the right of the pics some guests who were lucky enough to be allowed to watch the procedure, which for them was one of the highlights of their stay. After seeing everything they wanted & hoped to see, this was just the cherry on the top!
William took blood samples from the buffalo, as he thought it was possible that she could have ingested metal, and toxins were forming in her leg & making it swell. She was given antibiotics and set free to return to her herd. The blood samples were sent to Port Elizabeth and will be checked for toxins, or anything that will give us a clear picture of what she may have ingested.
Then a last story involving the heroic Vets! We had to dart one of our black rhinos, as his transmitter had stopped working. These transmitters are vital to our conservation and anti-poaching activities, as they not only provide data for various research projects, but also help us to ensure that our rhino are not at risk from poachers. You’ll see that the rhino is also blindfolded to keep him calm, and what you see around his horn is tape. We then pack ice on top of the horn to keep it cool. The darting was very successful and done very quickly. Again, our guests got to be a part of the whole procedure, which went down very well!
Our Hlosi Kids Safari is also doing very well and our junior guests seem to love their time with us. In our gallery you’ll see photos of our kid’s co-coordinator Amee on a look-see short walk, showing the little ones tortoises, and tracks. They love this “mini safari” – and all fall in love with Aimee!
In preparation for the World Cup, we’ve also been engaging in a little football practice – see our photo of our staff playing a football match with Hlosi guests. This "pre-World Cup qualifier" match pitched the soccer skills of some of our most talented staff members against a world-class Dad & Son guest team, and much fun was had by all!
Besides all that, we have done lots of other fun things with our little guests, which included baking their own pizza for dinner, face painting, games & reading good night stories too them whilst Mum & Dad enjoyed their evening meal in the Lodge.
We've included some other snaps of our animal visitors and neighbours in the gallery just for a smile.
In closing – thank you to all our Agents, for sending us fantastic guests. A special thank you to our Italian Agents – we have had lots of Italian guests these past 2 months, and we are really loving having them here! It’s also allowed Stuart (our Head Ranger) to keep up his Italian.
Until next month, we say goodbye!
Take care
Kerry