22 August - Tree clearing (and Animals)

Today one of the groups was due to visit an animal rehabilitation centre this morning while the new people were to get a lecture on rhinoceros poaching prior to heading out on the reserve. Due to some local strikes, that it seems had become violent, the centre had to postpone the visit and so we all headed out to the reserve to carry out some 'alien' vegetation removal. Today it was a large copse of black wattle, a tree introduced in South Africa to help drain marshland in an effort to reduce mosquitoes. We spent a tiring two or three hours chopping down trees of various sizes, working at various levels of organisation and effectiveness, before heading off for lunch by a small lake, the second one we visited as the first had two hippopotamus in and was hence best avoided.

After lunch we went in search of cheetah using a hand held tracking device that detects a transmitter in the animal. Although we found its general location we failed to locate it despite an hour or more of driving around so we headed back to the accommodation for our rhinoceros briefing prior to dinner. Interesting poaching facts: poaching is not illegal in South Africa and poachers can only be charged with minor infractions like trespassing or having illegal weapons; the practice of removing horns does not work as poachers will still kill the animal to avoid spending time in future tracking an animal that has no value to them; and in Kruger National Park there are twelve poaching teams estimated to be operating each day. Although poaching in absolute numbers is dropping in South Africa they still estimate that at current rates the rhinoceros could be extinct by 2025.

Our 5pm dinner and the fact it gets dark by around 6pm makes you think it is so much later than it really is and this week I have found myself thinking about going to bed before realising that it was still only 7.30pm. Tonight I fought the desire and after eating had a couple of beers sitting under the stars around a fire we had built in the fire pit that it seems had not been used for ages.