The last two days have been incredibly busy, especially when trying to juggle elephant watching during the day and social functions during the night. I will start at the beginning... obviously.
Yesterday morning started bright and early at 7:15am. Heike picked us up and we decided to head north to Mpalane for the day to try and find the orphan elephant herd. The northern area of the reserve is usually restricted to Heike but because of our research projects we were allowed to enter the property. After stopping at the Homestead to take a radio signal we made our way into Mpalane and were driving for approximately twenty minutes when we made our first black rhino sighting. There are fifteen black rhino in the PGR, 10 of which are mature adults. The black rhino is a critically endangered species in Africa due to severe poaching. Black rhino horn is especially valuable in Asian countries because it is believed to have medicinal uses (Not sure why though as rhino horn is made of hair). Currently, a kg of black rhino horn is worth 34,000 pounds. The PGR has implemented a program to maintain its black rhino population, hunting them on the game reserve does not occur. The female rhino we saw also had a newborn calf with her as well as her adolescent son. It was less than an hour before we sighted our next black rhino in the thicket.
We continued on our way and stopped to take a signal for Lucky, a bull elephant that is usually trailing the orphan herd. It was 9:50am at the time... it took an hour and a mechanic to fix the truck before we got the truck started again. That hour of my life may have been the longest. Not only were we parked in a thicket with very little visibility, it was also boiling. I managed to burn my shoulders while sitting in the back of the truck. In instances like these I would have usually snacked to distract myself from boredom, but due to having taken my malaria pills at 9:00am I still had an hour to wait before I could eat again. Malaria pills have turned out to have interesting side effects... but I will get into that another day when I have nothing to write about. We drove deeper into Mpalane and made our way into a valley where the Pongola River flows. This river is the main water source for the orphan herd so it was just a matter of time before they showed up... or so we though. After two hours of cruising the truck along the riverside and through the surrounding thicket and approximately an hour of repeating one line from Katy Perry’s song “E.T” in my head the orphan herd finally emerged on the opposite side of the river (12:02pm). The reeds along the river were tall enough to completely disguise the herd. The orphan herd is made up of 14 individuals with 5 adult cows. The youngest calf, Luke, was born in December of last year. His mother, Curve, is the oldest cow in the herd at 28 years. We spent the next hour identifying the members of the herd and learning how to recognize them using their ID kits.
Around 1:00pm we spotted Lucky down river from them. Lucky is an interesting character as he has been rejected by both herds. He was also the only calf present when the original herd was translocated from Kruger National Park. His mother, Antares, is the matriarch of the main herd. When he became a mature bull he was forced out of the herd and has basically been a loner ever since, rarely being allowed to socialize within either herd. Having watched the orphan herd for an hour we decided to head upstream to get a better view of Lucky. As we made our way closer we realized that another bull, Asiphephe, was with Lucky. Unfortunately for Lucky, Asiphephe is the dominant bull. Asiphephe nonchalantly made his way to where the herd was and after greeting a number of the cows started to mock fight with one of the adolescent male calves. Mature bulls only usually associate with the herds when they are in musth and are seeking out oestrus females. When they do enter the herds they also play an active role in mentoring the younger bulls. It took 45 minutes for Lucky to make his way toward the herd, but before he could even get close to them Asiphephe was on the defensive and chased him off. At 2:21pm the two bulls where gone and the herd was making their way back through the reeds and into the thicket. At this point we called it a day and prepared for the hour or so drive back to our cottage.
Two more black rhino were spotted on our way back, Nesibindi and Dondo. Nesibindi gave us quite a scare when he started to charge the vehicle, but luckily he stopped approximately 50m from us. Dondo, which means “chief”, is the oldest (23 years) and largest rhino on the reserve.
We finally made it back to our cottage and were informed that the guys from the neighbouring camp invited us to their Braai to celebrate their completion of their program as well as Andre's fourth year at the PGR. The theme for the Braai was to wear “something funny”. This was difficult as the only clothes I have with me consist of very boring neutral clothing. So, having nothing to wear, I decided to wear nothing. Sporting a towel wrapped around me (with strategically placed safety pins), flip flops, and a shower cap, the five of us made our way next door with Heike when she picked us up. K, our research coordinator, arrived an hour before we left, thus, bringing our number up to 5. We arrived at the camp to the smell of Impala roasting on a spit and Kudu sausage being cooked on a bbq. Everyone was wearing ridiculous outfits mostly consisting of underwear over pants, mosquito nets, and animal skin capes. The Braii was a blast and the food was amazing. I met people from all over the world and had some great laughs.
This morning I was up at 6:00am to shower the smoky smell out of my hair and to take my malaria pill an hour before breakfast. I also had a chance to finally wash some laundry. The cottage has two large sinks in the backyard for washing clothes and a large rack to hang clothes on. Luckily the Vervet monkeys here don’t have a preference for stealing clothes like the ones in Intibane. We were off by 7:30am and headed to the Homestead to take signal from a high point. We couldn’t get a signal for the orphan herd so the plan was to head south again and find the main herd. Along the way we received a very strong signal for the bull Kohlewe and decided to wait along the road in case he emerged from the thicket. At 11:30am we finally gave up and continued on our way south. When we turned off the gravel road onto one that would take us to the floodplain it only took fifteen minutes for us to spot our first elephant. With the arrival of K we were finally able to start our data collections consisting of 15-minute focal sampling as well as 30-minute scan sampling. Watching elephants all day becomes boring fairly quickly especially since they spend most of their time walking to and from water or resting in one place. I was surprised to discover that focal sampling alleviates some of the boredom because you can focus your attention on one animal and at times are recording changes in behaviour every few seconds. About half an hour before we were finished our sampling we finally had the chance to see Ngani, the largest bull elephant in PGR. Ngani is 42 years old, 3.4 metres tall at the shoulder, and weighs over 7000kgs. The other elephants are dwarves in comparison to him; the next largest male is Shayisa at 3.0 metres.
Other then watching elephants all day, I also acquired my first injury (aside from the 7 spider bites I woke up with after my first day). Unfortunately I didn’t suffer some cool ailment like getting buffalo thorns in the face while zipping past a tree in the truck, or from being attacked by a rogue warthog or porcupine. Nope, instead this morning after breakfast I managed to mangle my little toe on the corner of the doorway going into my bedroom. Aside from having to limp around a little I paid it no attention since it was so lame. It wasn’t until around noon when I took my boot off to uncrinkle my sock that Abbey noticed that my sock was covered in blood. After an assessment and thorough cleaning I have concluded that no bones were broken but that toe will never, ever, look the same again. This is just perfect since I will now probably rival Natalie for grossest toe in the world.
Eight hour “work” days consisting of sitting in a safari truck staring at bushes and the odd elephant give a person a lot of time to think. In the past I have spent unnatural amounts of time contemplating life and such. I spent at least two hours today thinking about my plans for the future and came up with absolutely nothing. I did realize that I may be slightly anal... but only because it bothers me when people don’t use appropriately sized Tupperware for their food. A cup of noodles or “pasta” does not belong in a one litre container. You may laugh, but I know that some of you out there agree with me... Kaitlyn... One can also become entertained by the simplest things after having zero brain stimuli for hours. For example, when warthogs run their tails stick straight up, hilarious. When you come across guinea fowl in the truck every bird will run frantically in directly in from for kilometres before taking flight versus just strutting into the thicket along the road, even funnier. The four of us, now five, usually spend our nights catching up on reading, journaling, or uploading the pictures we took throughout the day. The sun sets at 5:30pm here so by the time we have finished work for the day we are all dead tired and starving. It is just after 8:00pm here and I am in my pyjamas and ready for bed. At the rate the days are slowly passing the next 49 will last an eternity.
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