Our year started off in a somewhat unusual fashion, when we were asked to participate in a somewhat unusual operation – the partial amputation of a grieviously damaged front leg belonging to a male bushbuck, thought to have been caused by a fight with a younger male. He had played in, and provided our area with numerous offspring over the years – the thought of his unbearable suffering from the compound fracture was just too much for the owners of Musango Island Safari Camp to bear, and ‘Operation Bokkie’ swung into action, withpermission from the relevant authorities. We do not have the training to carry out such a delicate operation, so our local vet, Dr Panashe stepped up, whilst we provided the aneasthetic . It was a rather grisly operation, given the number of blood vessels which had to be severed and closed off, and our Conservation Manager hoveredslightly greenly in the background, before his skills were needed again, to bring Bokkie around. We had absolutely no idea how he would cope with the loss of a limb, and were, to be honest, very worried about the chances of himsurviving – but once again Nature confounded us, and Bokkie has made a remarkable recovery, compensating in agile fashion for the loss of his leg, and back to working hard to provide more baby bushbuck to carry on his sterling genes!
Darting ‘Bokkie’;Mark keeping a wary eye on proceedings;Bokkie recovering nicely and getting his appetite back! Thanks to Musango Island Safari Camp for the images.
Our last newsletter saw us rejoicing over the good rains we received in December, and ,in retrospect, rather prematurely rejoicing over the apparent dimishment of ‘El Nino’ ,the weather phenomenon which brings drought in its grim wake. We had minimal rains in January, no rain at all in February, and then a sudden flurry of storms in March, which brought our season total up to 653mm – a low figure, to be sure, but we were very lucky compared to other parts of Zimbabwe, where crops have failed entirely, and animals face a long dry winter. The last rain showers we had – accompanied by heart catching thunder and lightening, will have made the differencebetween a potentially dire dry season, and one in which we hope most of our wildlife will pull through.
Vervet Monkeys playing in a puddle after the late rains in April
Our war against poaching continues unabated, with some battles won, and some lost. As the effects of the aforementioned 'El Nino' start to bite, there will be hunger this year due to large scale crop failure. This buffalo cow, found by a patrol two days ago, and the cable snares recovered nearby, tell a tale of a battle lost. The sad thing is, over 90% of these snared animals we find are rotten - scavenged by hyena and vultures, as we see here. No meat is taken by the culprits. We can't quite get our minds around this - one can understand if the meat was harvested for consumption, but to let it rot is difficult to comprehend. We can only think that snares are set up en masse and the meat poachers can't be bothered to check on them regularly? Whatever the case, we will be out there patrolling 24/7, 365 days of the year, to combat this threat.
And finally, an update on our extremely unpredictable and at times, most frustrating Bumi Lions!Tariro, our last remaining lioness, very distressingly, lost three of her five cubs, due, we think, to Human Wildlife Conflict. It was always going to be a big task for Tariro, bringing up such a large family on her own, and we did expect her to lose one or two of her cubs, but three is a lot and, as the surviving pair areboth males, our hopes of a new pride forming here at Bumi are once again dashed.
The three males, whom we call “The Bumi Boys’, have formed a very strong coalition, and travel widely between Bumi and the Matusadona National Park – not staying for longer than a night in any one spot,as can be seen from the photo below – all this in one month! (In between guarding aircraft on the Bumi Airstrip...) Tariro wishes to have nothing to do with these boys, though, for some mysterious feline reason, which is a great pity, as the nucleus of a pride is right there – hence our frustration with these cats!
