Day 25 – Letaba
Day 25 – March 19
See pics here.
Up bright and early again. This morning was not very eventful – for some reason all the animals seemed to be hiding, or at least staying out of our sight.
Forgot to mention that yesterday we visited the Elephant Museum here at Letaba. It is quite an incredible set up, with elephant skeletons, elephant mounts and some of the largest tusks from elephant giants here at Kruger. It was also here that we learned a little more about rhino poaching, and how prevalent it still is in the park and in Africa in general. From 2008 to 2012 – just four years – over 1600 rhinos have been killed for their horns. The most rhinos were killed in 2012, proof that the problem is worsening. The horns are wanted by eastern asian cultures as ingredients in potions for anything from headache cures to increased libido claims. Let me stress that numerous scientific studies have shown that there is no truth to any of these claims, and the rhino horn is no more medically significant than your own fingernail. These wild, majestic animals are being slaughtered for human greed.
The rhinos that we had seen in Sabi Sands were White Rhino. These are much larger than the Black Rhino that we had not seen. We were told that we likely would not see Black Rhino, as they tend to stay away from humans now due to the poaching issue, and happen to be much more aggressive than White Rhinos.
We were told that most of the poachers are coming in from Mozambique. We learned that there is extreme poverty there, and when people are offered R100,000 (about $10,000 CAD) they risk their life to return with a rhino horn. Really, who can blame them – when you have nothing, and a family to feed, what do you have to lose? Such a sad situation.
It just so happened that when we returned from our morning drive, we were approached by a lady who asked us, first, if we were South African, and secondly, if we know anything about rhino poaching. She had been wishing to speak with south Africans, but since we appeared to know a little about the topic, she asked our permission to interview us. She and her son were producing a documentary about the issue – she was originally from Austria, had lived in Vancouver and was now living in Cape Town. Her son lives in Johannesburg. (As an aside, we asked about safety living in South Africa, particularly Johannesburg, and she immediately said there were no problems, then he gave her a look, and she said, “Oh yeah, there was that time you had a pistol held to your head”. Personally, that is plenty to keep us from living in Johannesburg!) It was her view that if South Africa had some sort of Free Trade between themselves and Mozambique, that the problem may be solved. She said that at one point South Africans were deliberately removing the horns of rhinos under medical conditions to try to dissuade the poaching, but found that the poachers would still kill the animals out of spite. Personally, we don’t think free trade is the answer. We think there are two issues to be dealt with. Firstly, until the issue of poverty is dealt with in Mozambique, people there will continue to choose poaching as a potential ‘way out’. We liken it to the drug trade in Mexico and the border fence that exists between Mexico and the USA. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the ridiculous myths that exist regarding the rhino horn must be stopped. The cultures that proliferate these ideas must be educated and those responsible for the continuation of the poaching must be brought to justice. It seems that the ivory trade has been brought under control – the world has been educated about this and now, elephants abound in Kruger (some would say there is even an overpopulation of them). Is it possible to do the same for rhinos?
PM Drive
This afternoon we decided to drive to another rest camp, Olifants, and explore the area around it. We had decided not to spend the night at this camp, but still wanted to see the area. The Olifants river is one of the rivers that runs through Kruger, and this rest camp offered a beautiful view of it, albeit quite a distance from it (the camp is on a hill that looks out over the river). Again, it was a quiet drive – we saw some impala, zebra, 1 giraffe and some elephants right before the camp. Good thing we are birders, because when there is no ‘big stuff’, there are always birds! It was during this drive that Jim had quickly pulled out his scope to see a bird, and proceeded to nearly knock Kristin out with it (okay, that may be a bit of a stretch) but he did draw blood from her elbow because of it.
Just before dusk, the skies in this park are dotted with bats. Although we had seen bats before here, it appeared that there were many more flying around this area than others. They also had a few bat boxes up around camp, and the camp itself had a slight odour of bat guano, as did the bridge over the river not far from the camp gate. We had recognized this smell on another bridge earlier in the trip, but had not been able to place it until now. If you haven’t smelled it before, bat guano is a sickening smell, with a hint of sweet to it. Not pleasant at all.
Night Drive
We decided to go on a night drive with the Kruger staff, and hoped that our slow drives today would not be indicative of what we’d see in the evening.
We showed up to meet the truck in the dark at 7:30pm. The park trucks are large, and can carry about 20 people. They are equipped with a few hand held spotlights that passengers are expected to use to find wildlife. The guide is the driver, and his/her function is to drive, and provide information about wildlife when we find it. Jim had sat where there was a spotlight, so he was responsible for spotting. A new spotting was spring hares – there were a bunch of these funny-looking creatures (rodents actually, not hares) who literally seemed like they had springs in their legs the way they bounced around. And remember how impressed we were back in Dulini when our tracker spotted a chameleon in the dark? Well, Jim spotted not only one, but TWO chameleons in the dark! Impressive! Perhaps the most exciting find was when the driver took us to a hyena den just beside the road. They had taken up space in a culvert just at the road’s edge, and the hyena pups were out playing as their parents lazily kept an eye on them. There were lots of pups, and they were various ages – one being much less furred than the rest. They were so cute to watch as they romped about with each other. We learned that the parents will find a new den every 3 months or so, because they do not want the parasite load to get too heavy in one spot. A good choice to do a night drive!
Kristin
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