South African Travels, Day 4

Today was another early day, but, fortunately for me, I slept through the night. We met at 5:30 AM again for breakfast before heading out for Lydenburg, a city in Mpumalanga that was about an hour and a half away from our place in Nelspruit.

On the way

The country was beautiful, but the road... not so much. I'm not sure we missed many potholes, which was made much worse by the fact that we were probably driving about 60 MPH through them. The van pitched around the road as it tried to dodge holes and other vehicles... it was terrifying, to say the least. One of our vets road with Derik in his truck, and apparently they took the much better scenic road up through the mountains. Our driver had been told that the road was impassible that morning due to fog, so we were stuck being bounced everywhere. We did, however, get to stop for a quick break in a very picturesque town... no idea what it was called.

When we arrived at our destination, I could not believe my eyes. Sprawling before me was one of the most beautiful pieces of land I have ever seen. There were hay fields butting up against wild lands that climbed up to cliffs overlooking the valley. There was a river, complete with a waterfall, cutting through the middle. The main house was surrounded by these beautiful pine trees that had needles hanging down in clusters.

Pretty pine trees

Suffice it to say, I found what my little slice of heaven will look like one day. Should Heaven be divided up in slices, of course.

We unloaded from our van at the main house. It no longer has anyone living in it, nor do any of the other houses on the land, due to the South African government taking it over to turn the whole place into farm plots. So sad. Such a waste. Our purpose there was to sedate and move every animal on the property to other game farms, as the government would not take care of them.

We started with 5 Impala (2 males, 2 females, and a baby) that were enclosed in the area with the pine trees and main house. Derik, possibly the best shot in the world, would crouch down, line up his shot, and somehow manage to dart each Impala, one by one, as they ran through the trees. We did this one at a time; an Impala would be darted, we'd wait for it to go down, then we would run over, pick it up, carry it to the trailer, put protectors over its horns (to protect the other Impalas from them), reverse the sedation, and load it into the front compartment of the trailer.

Carrying Impala

At first, everything was going smoothly, although the Impala become increasingly agitated as we moved them. Unfortunately, one of the females got too flighty and ran head-first into a fence- breaking her neck. Everyone was really upset to have lost one, especially when it was discovered that she was the mother of the baby. Derik was confident that the baby was old enough to be weaned, however, so hopefully it was old enough to survive. The men at the farm (who had lived there before being moved, I think) that were watching us move the animals had the dead Impala processed so quickly that I did not even know it was done until I looked over and saw it. Nothing goes to waste.

We got the other 4 Impala loaded without incident, and then we had to move on to two different groups of Blesebok out in the hay pastures- one group of 5 and one of 3. Derik got into a helicopter with Ben (possibly the best pilot in the world) and darted them from the air while we collected them with the help of trucks. When I first saw Ben fly, I thought I was going to throw up. He would be going one way and then suddenly swing the other way while the momentum kept him going the first way for a few seconds; he would hurtle along mere feet off the ground; he would fly in directions that I did not think were possible according to the laws of physics; it was insane. And all the time, Derik was hanging out the side of the helicopter with his dart gun, not missing his targets, hanging in by a single strap.


Seriously, the world's most incredible people live in South Africa.

Derik darting from the air

Heading out to collect Blesebok

Riding with sedated Blesebok

Once we got these guys loaded, it was time to move onto the big guns. In class the day before, we learned about something called a "net boma"- basically, it is this big elaborate net system that a capture team strategically sets up so that it is invisible to the animals. A helicopter collects and drives the animals into the boma, sounds a siren, and two people run towards each other with the first set of walls, trying to get it closed before the animals can run back out. Different bomas work different ways- some are set up so that the helicopter drives the animals straight into a trailer, some have a series of walls that are closed, and some, like ours, allow the helicopter to drive animals into nets, where they are trapped until we can get to them, sedate them, and untangle them.

We originally were supposed to be capturing a herd of black wildebeest, but the helicopter pilot was having trouble cutting them away from a group of zebra that apparently wanted to go with them. The decision was made instead to capture a small herd of Blesebok first. Since there were only a few, my group did not get to participate in catching them. We waited for the black wildebeest instead. It was at this time, however, that a zebra stallion became a problem- apparently he was suffering an identity crisis and thought he belonged with the wildebeest. As it would be a horrifically bad idea to capture a zebra in a net, it was decided that Derik would dart the zebra from the air and we would ride out and pick it up to transport it by itself.

At least it was a "tamed" zebra

Once the zebra was removed, we resumed our positions waiting in the boma for the siren to sound. The helicopter took off, and we braced ourselves. But then, it came back, and it was decided that Heath, our photographer, would go up in it to take pictures and video:

Sorting animals by helicopter

My precious

The wildebeest were again not cooperating, so they decided to drive more Blesebok in, instead- which was fine with me, because I had heard many tales about the wildebeest not having the best of tempers.

We got our photographer back before, however, which was great- because for the second round we had lost several people (not tragically, they were just doing other things), so there were many opportunities for pictures to be taken that we could go back and blackmail people with later. This time, there were at least 12 Blesebok run into the nets. I remember watching them all sprint by from my hiding place and thinking "Oh ****" as I realized how many we had.

The siren went off, the runners went to close the curtain, and we were off to capture some largish animals with horns that were panicked and trapped. My partner, Pat, grabbed a huge guy and told me that he had it, I could "go catch the baby over there". I immediately agreed that perhaps a baby would be more my speed, and I went into the net to grab it. Of course, there were several other adults trapped around it that I had to dodge while I tried to get my hands on the squirming little gal. At one point, one of them was definitely breathing on the back of my neck- fortunately it had been sedated and therefore did not choose to make use of its horns or teeth.

Dr. Culp sedating mine while I watch out for Dr. Brown's

Dr. Derr helping me hold her down!

Let me tell you: I may have only had a baby, but those 5 minutes that I wrestled that baby were some of the longest moments of my life. When Dr. Culp went to sedate her, she jumped, and not very much of the sedative went in. Dr. Derr then came over to give her the rest of the injection and attempt to help me hold her so that I could untangle her from the net. She was jumping and head butting and scrambling, all things that made the process quite difficult. I somehow managed to get her out, but then she was like GAME ON I'M OUT OF HERE. And I was NOT going to be the one person who lost their grip on their animal, especially when mine was merely a baby. There were a couple of times that she slipped out of my grasp, but I was back on her faster than lightning. At one point I had my arms wrapped around her neck, holding her up against me.

I finally got a good enough grip on her to where she was standing semi-quietly, and Cobus walked over and said, "Do you have her?" At that point she chose to leap straight up in the air, taking me with her. He merely murmured "No you do not" and then walked over and grabbed her other side. Together we walked her to the trailer, where one of the helpers took over.

Looking back, I think she struggled more than any of the bigger ones. In comparison, at least, they all seemed to walk pretty quietly. Figures!

Afterwards, I was shaking from the exertion and covered in blood from the injections, so much so that one of the vets asked me if I had been performing necropsies. The gloves that Cobus had let me borrow were ruined, and my shirt and arms were coated. But it was simply awesome getting to participate in something like that.

As evening approached, the wildebeest got smart and hid from the helicopter in the trees. Cobus decided that it would soon be too dark to be able to do much else, so our group loaded up to head back home, while Derik, Ben, and a few other guys holed up in one of the abandoned houses for the night.

We took the scenic mountain road on the way back and were treated to a gorgeous storm cloud in the distance:

Not unlike Texas

Cool bands of color through the cloud

A good part of our journey home was spent under that cloud, in the storm, but the views that we could see before it got dark were awesome. I saw the most beautiful bolt of lightning from high up in the mountains looking over a city. It was like something out of National Geographic.

At one point, we did get caught in very thick fog on the way back- so thick that we could not see the road or the car in front of us- and it was quite scary. But it only lasted for a couple minutes, and then we were out of it.

I went straight to bed without dinner that night, because I was so exhausted. It had been much cooler at our location that day than it had been with the rhino the day before, but it was also a lot more physically exerting. It was decided that Rebecca, Stephen, and Kim would ride with Cobus back to Lydenburg the next day to work on capturing the remaining animals, while the rest of us went to Kruger National Park to see the wildlife. I passed out and slept straight through another storm... which is saying something, since I never sleep through storms anymore after the tornado of last year!

Tomorrow will bring some exciting sights- stay tuned!

*All pictures except the first were taken by Heath Culp of Poodledog Productions