Poachers Update 26/10

#PoachersUpdate: 26/10 - #CrocodileBridge field rangers had contact with 3 #suspectedpoachers this morning. During contact, one poacher was fatally wounded, 2nd suspect was arrested and the third suspect managed to escape into Moz. A.458 rifle, ammo and poaching equipment were recovered.

Kruger National Park To Apply The High Intensity Prescribed Burn

The Kruger National Park (KNP) Scientists and Rangers in conjunction with Working on Fire teams will apply the high intensity prescribed burn in the southern part of the Park on 2 - 3 September 2013. The teams will start with what is called a multiple spiral ignition on the 2nd of September at 15:30 and then perimeter ignition on the 3rd of September, also in the afternoon. Some parts of the gravel roads will temporarily be closed during the burn; in order to completely allow the ignition to end.

“The aim of this fire treatment is to determine the desirability and feasibility of researching with high intensity burns to address bush thickening at selected areas in the KNP. The data analysis indicated that we have the most suitable weather conditions to conduct the treatment around this period in September,” indicated the GM: Communications and Marketing - KNP, William Mabasa.

Gravel roads to be closed will be: S112 and S118 on 2 September; and parts of S23, S113, S114 and H3 which will affect routes towards the Jock of the Bushveld, Afsaal Picnic Spot, Gardenia bird hide, Lukimbi Private Lodge and Biyamiti Bush Camp) on 3 September 2013.

“The areas around the target sites will be cleared to ensure animals are safe and ground teams to guide tourists on alternative roads will also be available at the affected roads”, concluded Mabasa.
This is a follow-up on a high intensity burn which took place in 2010. In preparation for this year’s treatment, prior vegetation surveys were conducted such as sampling the vegetation before and after the fire treatment, collecting of data a year after the burn to look at re-growth responses, plot work – recording of all woody vegetation, information such as species, height, diameter and number of stems etc; assisting in giving an indication of the amount of fuel that is available to burn.

Issued by:
 South African National Parks Kruger National Park Communications

May Photos Part 2

Brown Snake Eagle

Male Lion

Mating Lions



 

What Lies Beneath

By Dr Ian Whyte

I was only ever chased up a tree by an animal once in my 37 years in the Kruger National Park, by a hippo that had come to graze on the lawn in my garden. Though there is little data to corroborate the reputation hippos have as being the mammal that kills more humans than any other in Africa, and i do wonder heather this reputation is deserved, I wasn’t taking any chances. It may well have been the case when humans and hippos tended to live along-side one another and potential for conflict was far greater. Hippos attacking fish boats, raiding crops or simply grazing around villages are all situations with the potential for fatal consequences to humans. These days I suspect elephants have taken over this role.  Humans and elephant populations are growing rapidly in many parts of the continent and conflict is on the rise. Be as it may, hippos remain dangerous animals capable of inflicting fearsome injuries and have been responsible for many human deaths. In most instances attacks on boats or people on the edge of the water are by mothers with small calves.  You only have to look at their teeth to understand why hippos are so fearsome.  Their huge canine teeth, measuring up to 300 millimetres in the lower jaw and 150 millimetres in the upper, grow continuously. These teeth protrude from the skull in such a way that they wear off against each other, keeping them razor sharp. The jaws open wide enough to encompass a human torso. In a bite from a hippo the upper and lower canines would probably meet inside the body, punching two huge holes right through it, almost certainly a fatal injury. Most field guides will tell you that hippos can stay submerged for up to six minutes, but rangers in the Kruger have recorded times of up to eight minutes. Once alarmed, the animals are wary of exposing themselves and will breath by cautiously allowing only the tip of the nostrils to break the surface of the water. So as not to give their position away, they do this in almost complete silence, compared to the explosive release of air normally heard from relaxed animals in the water. Hippo bulls are very territorial. They maintain a territory, usually consisting of a good pool with sandbanks for sunbathing, for many years. The territory is confined to a stretch of river and its immediate embankments, and does not extend to the grazing areas away from the river. Each territory has its associated females and calves that return to the same pool during the daylight hours. This status quo remains while the bull holds tenure, which he does for as long as he can fend off rivals. Displacement by a younger, more vigorous bull results in a upheaval in which the new contender may kill the calves sired by the previous bull. This behaviour ensures the new bulls genes are passes on into future generations and not those of his predecessor. Fighting is generally ritualised with much posturing and open-jawed displaying of the canines.  But sometimes more serious fights erupt in which males may inflict serious wounds by slashing at each other with their sharp canine teeth. These may last for several hours and are accompanied by weird vocalisations such as squeals, grunts and roars. Such battles can result in the death of one, or sometimes both, of the protagonists. Given their size, hippos have an extraordinarily short gestation period of eight months. Growth of the foetus in the womb is incredibly fast. Black rhinos, which are similar in size to hippos, have a gestation time almost twice as long, yet rhino calf weighs less at birth, about 40 kilograms, compared to a newborn hippo at about 50 kilograms. Calves may be born at any time of the year but the majority are born during the mid-summer, rainy months. When the time comes to give birth, female hippos move away from the herd and remain separated for about a fortnight. The calves are capable of going into deep water and can suckle underwater within minutes of being born. Initially the calf stays in shallow water near a shore while the mother grazes nearby. Growth of the first 10 years of life is also rapid. The average increase in weight is in the order of 100 kilograms a year, so that at 10 years old, a hippo can weigh in excess of 1200 kilograms. Males and females are similar in size, the male being only slightly larger than the female.

Wild magazine summer 2013/2013

New Initiatives Aim To Curb Poaching Crisis

The Kruger National Park remains the hardest hit by rhino poachers this year, having lost 70 rhino to mostly foreign poachers since January 1. At the time of going to print, the total number rhino poached since the start of 2013 is 102. A total of 10 have been poached in KwaZulu-Natal, 11 in North West, 4 in Mpumalanga and 7 in limpopo. In 2012, the number of rhino poached for their horns in South Africa soared to 668. This year alone, 33 poachers have been arrested, 24 of them in the Kruger National Park. The minister of water and enviromental affairs, Ms Eden Molewa, has noted with concern the increase in poaching and its confident that SANParks is on the verge of a turnaround given the initiatives presently being implemented. She emphasised the fact that rhino poaching is fought at verious levels, including field coverage, public awareness, regional engagement and even at a global level. In the upcoming Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meeting, the minister plans to engage with the regional groupings on this issue. Futhermore, she welcomed the recently announced signing of a declaration by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, banning theimport of all white and black rhino specimens. "The South African government welcomes the announcement by the Vietnamese government that the prohibition on the export, import and trade of specimens of rhino will come into effect", she says. The prohibition follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the field of biodiversity conservation and protection by Molewa with theminister of agricultural and rural development of the Social Republic of Vietnam, Dr Cao Duc Phat. The MoU was signed in Hanoi, Vietnam on December 10, 2012.The objective of the MoU is to promote cooperation between the two countries in the field of biodiversity management, conservation and protection. Particularly aimed at curbing the scourge in rhino poaching, the MoU seeks topromote cooperation in law enforcement and compliance with the CITES and other relevant legislation and and conventionson the basis of equality and mutual benefit.Officials from both countries are currently working on a draft plan of action with short - and long - term activities which include activities to curb the illegal trade in rhino horn. In terms of the decision by the Government of Vietnam, signed on January 24,2013,products derived or made from white rhino, blackrhino and the African elephant - all listed in terms of the Appendices of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) - may no longer be exported or traded. Live rhino and elephant and its products may, however, be imported for diplomatic purposes, scientific research, biodiversity conservation, zoo displays, exhibitions, non-profit circus performances, law enforcement or exchanged as specimens in terms of CITES management provisions. The decleration also states that specimens may be imported only for non-commercial purposes in accordance with the cooperative agreement between the CITES management authority of Vietnam and the CITES management authority of exporting countries, Specimens for which CITES import permits had already been granted would not be affected. Anyone caught violating the articles of the decision by Vietnamese government will be charged either with a criminal or administrtive offence subject to the nature and seriousness of the violation. " We believe that this latest development is important for South Africa will assist our law enforcement authorities to effectively deal with the current scourge of poaching" Molewa said.

SANParks Times newspaper March 2013   

Kruger floods Jan 2013

My Best Leopard Sighting - 10 December 2012 - Latest Sightings

Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (Chapter 27)( Page 2 ) His Duty

There were two small windows looking out on to the yard, but no door in the back of the building; thus, in order to get into the yard, it was necessary to go out of the front door and round the side of the house. On many occasions Tom, roused by the screaming of the fowls, had seized his gun and run round to get a shot at the thieves; but the time so lost was enough for a kaffir dog, and the noise made in opening the reed gate gave ample warning of his coming. The result was that Tom generally had all his trouble for nothing; but it was not always so.  Several times he roused Jock as he ran out, and invariably got some satisfaction out of what followed; once Jock caught one of the thieves struggling to force a way through the fence and held on to the hind leg until Tom came up with the gun; on other occasions he had caught them in the yard; on others, again, he had run them down in the bush and finished it off there without help or hindrance. That was the kind of life to which Jock seemed to have settled down. He was then in the very prime of life, and I still hoped to get him back to me some day to a home where he would end his days in peace.  Yet it seemed impossible to picture him in a life of ease and idleness--a watch-dog in a house sleeping away his life on a mat, his only excitement keeping off strange kaffirs and stray dogs, or burrowing for rats and moles in a garden, with old age, deafness, and infirmities growing year by year to make his end miserable.  I had often thought that it might have been better had he died fighting--hanging on with his indomitable pluck and tenacity, tackling something with all the odds against him; doing his duty and his best as he had always done- and died as Rocky's dog had died.  If on that last day of our hunting together he had got at the lioness, and gone under in the hopeless fight; if the sable bull had caught and finished him with one of the scythe-like sweeps of the scimitar horns; if he could have died--like Nelson--in the hour of victory!  Would it not have been better for him--happier for me? Often I thought so.  For to fade slowly away; to lose his strength and fire and intelligence; to outlive his character, and no longer be himself!  No, that could not be happiness! Well, Jock is dead!  Jock, the innocent cause of Seedling's downfall and death, lies buried under the same big Fig Tree: the graves stand side by side.  He died, as he lived--true to his trust; and this is how it happened, as it was faithfully told to me: It was a bright moonlight night- Think of the scores we had spent together, the mild glorious nights of the Bushveld!--and once more Tom was roused by a clatter of falling boxes and the wild screams of fowls in the yard.  Only the night before the thieves had beaten him again; but this time he was determined to be even with them.  Jumping out of bed he opened the little window looking out on to the fowl-house, and, with his gun resting on the sill, waited for the thief.  He waited long and patiently; and by-and-by the screaming of the fowls subsided enough for him to hear the gurgling and scratching about in the fowl-house, and he settled down to a still longer watch; evidently the kaffir dog was enjoying his stolen meal in there.

Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (Chapter 22)( Page 1 ) The Old Crocodile

We reached the Crocodile River drift on a Sunday morning, after a particularly dry and dusty night trek.  `Wanting a wash' did not on such occasions mean a mild inclination for a luxury: it meant that washing was badly needed.  The dust lay inches deep on the one worn veld road, and the long strings of oxen toiling along kicked up suffocating clouds of fine dust which there was seldom any breeze to carry off: it powdered white man and black to an equal level of yellowy red.  The waggons were a couple of hundred yards from the river; and, taking a complete change, I went off for a real clean up. We generally managed to get in a couple of bathes at the rivers--real swims--but that was only done in the regular drifts and when there were people about or waggons crossing.  In such conditions crocodiles rarely appeared; they prefer solitude and silence.  The swims were very delightful but somewhat different from ordinary bathes; however remote may have been the risk of meeting a crocodile when you dived, or of being grabbed by one as you swam, the idea was always there and made it more interesting. Being alone that day I had no intention of having a swim or of going into the open river, and I took a little trouble to pick a suitable pool with a rock on which to stand and dress.  The water was clear and I could see the bottom of the pool.  It was quite shallow--three feet deep at most--made by a scour in the sandy bed and divided from the main stream by a narrow spit of sand a couple of yards wide and twenty long. At the top end of the sand spit was a flat rock--my dressing table. After a dip in the pool I stood on to the sand spit to scrub off the brown dust, keeping one unsoaped eye roving round for  intrusive crocodiles, and the loaded rifle lying beside me.  The brutes slide out so silently and unexpectedly that in that exposed position, with water all round, one could not afford to turn one's back on any quarter for long.  There is something laughable--it seemed faintly humorous even then--in the idea of a naked man hastily washing soap out of his eyes and squeezing away the water to take a hurried look behind him, and then after careful survey, doing an `altogether' dowse just as hastily-- blowing and spluttering all the time like a boy after his first dive. The bath was successful and ended without incident--not a sign of a crocodile the whole time!  Breakfast was ready when I reached the waggons, and feeling very fit and clean in a fresh flannel shirt and white moleskins, I sat down to it.  Jim Makokel' brought the kettle of coffee from the fire and was in the act of pouring some into a big mug when he stopped with a grunt of surprise and, looking towards the river, called out sharply, "What is it?" One of the herd boys was coming at a trot towards us, and the drivers, thinking something had happened to the oxen, called a question to him. He did not answer until he reached them and even then spoke in so quiet a tone that I could not catch what he said.  But Jim, putting down the kettle, ran to his waggon and grabbing his sticks and assegais called to me in a husky shouting whisper--which imperfectly describes Jim's way of relieving his feelings, without making the whole world echo: "Ingwenye, Inkos!  Ingwenye Umkulu!  Big Clocodile!  Groot Krokodil, Baas!" Then abandoning his excited polyglot he gabbled off in pure Zulu and at incredible speed a long account of the big Crocodile: it had carried off four boys going to the goldfields that year; it had taken a woman and a baby from the kraal near by, but a white man had beaten it off with a bucket; it had taken all the dogs, and even calves and goats, at the drinking-place; and goodness knows how much more.  How Jim got his news, and when he made his friends, were puzzles never solved. Hunting stories, like travellers tales, are proverbially dangerous to reputations, however literally true they may be; and this is necessarily so, partly because only exceptional things are worth telling, and partly because the conditions of the country or the life referred to are unfamiliar and cannot be grasped.  It is a depressing but accepted fact that the ideal, lurid--and, I suppose, convincing--pictures of wild life are done in London, where the author is unhampered by fact or experience. "Stick to the impossible, and you will be believed: keep clear of fact and commonplace, and you cannot be checked."

One good photo of mating lions

The below photo of two mating lions was taken on the H10 close to the camp of Lower Sabie

A lioness and Male Lion in the act of mating.