Bullfight & Anthrax
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Once more, the Turgwe hippos have moved into a new stage of their lives. For the last few years they have been through more changes than in the previous decade, but thankfully all seem to accept these new times with calmness and no particular problems.Robin, the bull who took over the family after my beautiful Bob died, has just recently lost his territory to Tembia, the much younger bull.
I have a personal interest in Tembia, as his mother, Lace, (who sadly died earlier this year) conceived Tembia when I gave daily food to the hippos during the horrendous drought of 1991/92. He was the first calf born after that terrible period and his father was most definitely Bob. He was born on June 16th 1993 and I have followed his life since that day.Although Tembia is very young to challenge a much older and stronger bull, he has his father’s genes, being very courageous. He is still growing but will be a huge bull I believe.Robin also has a disadvantage, in that his right front leg is slightly twisted from an old injury, possibly a fight with another hippo. I think that it is because of this injury that he cannot utilize his full strength, so through this weakness Tembia managed to take over the family.
The change-over began with obvious fights at night; nothing serious but Robin would have scratches on his body the following day. At the time I was not sure who he was fighting. The scratches, although quite large, were in no way life threatening or too deep. They always look far worse than they are. He was a little bit stiff in his sore leg and one day was limping quite badly, but the next day he was back to normal, and still managing to move around without too much problem. I believe he fathered three of the new calves born this year, so although he has this twisted leg it has made no difference to his ability to mate the females. I have also seen the most horrendous wounds on wild animals that clear up quickly, sometimes in a matter of weeks. If we or a domesticated animal had a wound as bad, I am sure we would never survive as well as the wild animal.
This is actually one of my bones of contention with people who hunt animals. Often a safari hunter will say, “Oh, we take out the old and the useless”, as their genes are no good. Well, I am afraid, that apart from the fact that I am totally against hunting, I cannot agree with that. Old animals have many things in their favor. They have the experience that comes with age, plus often they are the biggest of their kind due to their age. Bob was a very beautiful hippo and the largest bull in the Turgwe River and he was a very old hippo. Injured animals do survive. In fact they often recover from wounds that one would not think it at all possible for them to recover from. I have seen vervet monkeys cut to the bone either by a predator they have managed to escape from (like a raptor) or from fights with baboons. I have seen Mystery hippo with a cut on her head that stretched from her eyes down the middle of her forehead to nearly her nostrils. It was so deep that air bubbles were escaping from her perforated sinus when she submerged her head. Yet within a few months all that was left was a tiny thin scar. Wild animals have to be tough, in order to survive; nature has given them the means to be able to recuperate quickly and effectively. In many cases, like wild cats (leopards, lions, etc.) and wild dogs (African painted dog) as well as apes, they lick their wounds. I have watched Boon, the troop leader of the vervet monkeys, lick a wound on his arm. It was so bad it showed the bone and bled profusely. Within three weeks of his daily licking the fur had grown over and you could not even see the wound. Yet a sport hunter would shoot an animal with a problem, saying they were doing it a favor! Well, I disagree.
Jean-Roger and I rescued a young female waterbuck from a snare. She had been in the wire for such a long time that her neck was totally twisted and she had a huge lump where she had been caught by the wire. Yet two days after we had got her out of the wire noose, she arrived below our home. She was still walking badly, with her head twisted into her body, but she had not only walked three miles-she was grazing with her head in that awkward position. She hung around near our home for the next week and slowly she walked with a straighter neck. Eventually she moved away, but I am sure she now has had her own calves and is quite fine.
On July 31st, I found both Robin and Tembia together in Bob’s old weir pool. Tembia had cornered Robin who was under reeds near the bank. The hippos had been using the weir pool as their birthing pool. Mystery had given birth to Zen there in May. Then later, Surprise and Abe brought their day old calves, Chubby and Tsakus, to the weir pool. For the month of July, the whole family, with Robin in charge, had used the pool. This pool is right next to our house and is where Jean-Roger worked in 2001/2002, removing accumulated silt so that the hippos had deep water to live in. The hippos had actually avoided the pool for a tremendously long time after Bob died, but Mystery brought them all back there after she had Zen.
Anyway, on this particular day there were only the two bulls present. Tembia was being very dominant by pushing himself up in the water and performing the odd gape with water being thrown about. He kept Robin under the reeds for a few hours. Whenever Robin came out, Tembia would lunge at him. I caught it all on video but the fight never involved the drawing of blood. It was all a question of Tembia showing he meant business by his stance, and only once in three hours did he actually try and cut Robin with his lower canines by lunging at him with mouth agape. Robin then lunged back and a lot of water got thrown around and they clashed their jaws together. Eventually dusk fell so I could no longer watch the two of them and had to leave. That night it was very quiet; no roars of angry hippos, or for that matter any hippo calls at all. I was not sure what was going on.
The following day I found no hippos at the weir pool, so I walked on to their other normal area, the Owl Tree pool, about 500 meters upstream. There I found Tembia with 7 other hippos from the family group. That evening, the whole family, except of course Robin, were with Tembia.
Abe has always favored Tembia and was actually living with him when Bob died. I believe her calf Tsakus was sired by Tembia. She was right next to him in the pool and the rest of the family seemed quite interested in him. I was worried for the two other older males. Storm, who is Cheeky’s son, is old enough to be chased away from the group, being over seven and a half years of age. The other male is Kuchek, Mystery’s son, but he is only three and a half years so there is less chance of him being chased out. Then there are the three new male calves, which I believe were fathered by Robin. Having not had this kind of event occur before in the 14 years that I have studied these hippos, I was not quite sure what the eventual outcome of a new bull taking over would be. Robin had stepped into Bob’s territory after his death but only Storm had been attacked, then accepted by Robin. Still, Robin did chase him every now and then, but Cheeky would always retaliate and chase Robin. There had been no new calves when Robin took over. Sabi and Hope were over a year old, and both females.
Much to my pleasure, the family accepted Tembia and he did not attack any of them. In fact, they appear much calmer with Tembia than they have been with Robin. In the meantime, Robin disappeared. For the next 12 days I worried. I was afraid he had been fatally injured and I just hoped it was not the case. Then much to my joy, on the 12th of August, who should I see one morning walking just below our home in the rocky part of the riverbed, but Robin. He was perfectly okay, no extra cuts on his body and his leg was as always, just a bit twisted, but he was walking fine. He then stayed sleeping just in front of the house near a dead tree for most of that morning. For the next week and a half he lived below our home. I would see him each morning lying on the sand and then he would disappear. I assumed he was in one of the channels which run in the bed of the Turgwe River in front of the house. Although these channels are too shallow for a whole group of hippos to live in, there are small areas where one or two animals can tuck up next to the bank and fully submerge their huge bodies to keep wet.
As it was still cold in the mornings, all the hippos were sleeping on land and we were just lucky that Robin chose to sleep below our home so I could watch him. On the 20th of August I heard hippos calling their lovely hippo call, which, although the reference books call it a honk, to me is more like a deep laugh. I found Robin just a little bit downstream from our house grazing grass; next to him were Mystery and her two sons Kuchek and Zen, her new baby. She obviously had decided to join him for the day. The following day she was back with Tembia.
Robin moved back to the weir on the 22nd August and has stayed there since then. He calls to the others and they answer, but at this moment they stay with Tembia. I just hope that the two bulls will accept their close presence, and that Robin will be able to stay at the weir without Tembia chasing him off. It would be nice if one or two of the females would join Robin but this might make Tembia attack him again.
In the old days I used to have two bulls in this area: Happy and Bob.
Happy lived at the weir pool and Bob lived about one mile downstream at what is called the Measuring weir. That part of the Turgwe River is now taken over by these people who invaded this area and the hippos avoid the two permanent pools in the river there. So the only deep pools at this time of the year are the two near our home. They are a bit too close together for two bulls to live there without challenging each other, but maybe due to Tembia’s youth, as well as Robin’s leg problem they may just do this and things will be much easier all around. We will just have to wait and see how the hippos will conduct themselves in the immediate future.
In the meantime, the four new calves are growing well and now Hope and Sabi, the 2002 calves, are allowed to play with them all. It is wonderful watching the young hippos playing, although at a later stage in their lives all the little males will be using this new game as a serious means of defense or attack. Now, though, they are just babies and having fun. Even the older male, Storm, likes to play with the calves, his best playmates being Bobin and Zen (both males).
Things here in this wildlife conservancy sadly have now taken a far more sinister turn. Last week, at the north of the conservancy, there has been an anthrax outbreak. In one area, next to a river called the Msaisi, 300 animals have already been found dead in just three days. So far, the worst affected are the antelope, with kudu forming the bulk of the carcasses found to date. There is also a mixture of other species: Bushbuck, a giraffe, a couple of civet cats, bushpigs, waterbuck, eland, but so far no elephant nor rhino have been found dead. There are no hippos in that area, as the river is mainly dry with only very shallow water at specific spots.
Anthrax is a highly contagious virus, which kills animals and man and spreads mainly through the wind-blown spores from a contaminated animal; or from the soil where an animal has died and another animal grazes grass in that specific spot. It can remain dormant in the soil for up to ten years or more. The spores of anthrax are the hardest of all bacterial life to destroy. It attacks all animals and man but is commonest among the herbivora, which include hippos. In 1987, an outbreak in the Luanga Park in Zambia killed over 4000 hippos. They have the largest concentration of hippos left in Africa but the disease killed from 5% to 56% of the hippos in each family group.
As the crow flies, the infected area is about 20 miles from us, but since it is anthrax it is a very, very upsetting and worrying time for us all. The people living in the north are working non-stop to try and contain the disease. This first involves locating all dead animals, which is no easy feat as there are thousands of acres of bush land. They are working from the ground and the air to locate the animals. Once a carcass is located it is covered and then if possible buried (but that is not always possible, as it has to be at least 6 feet under the ground.) In most cases they have to burn the dead animals.
If I think too much about what is happening in the north of the conservancy, I feel physically sick. One’s tummy aches and one just feels so helpless. I wish I could help the animals and the people battling to contain the disease but I am too afraid to go to the north and then bring the disease back into our own area. As it stands, it will take a lot of prayer, hope and positive thought for that dreadful disease to remain in the north and not to spread. Obviously, I pray for it to stop but the vets say there is not too much chance of that. It may be with us until the rains come and we will need quite a bit of rain to flush it from the rivers and the soil. It is all too horrendous to think about. I have spoken to two of the ladies who live in that area and it is awful. The one family, as well as all their employees, have already had inoculations against the disease. They have also inoculated their pet animals, such as horses, dogs, and cats and they are trying to keep all of them from wandering.
Here, I have pet goats as well as our pussycats,all the other animals that live around our home, and, of course, the hippos. We ask you all, whether you believe in prayer or not, to do whatever you can do, to bring hope to the animals here- for the disease to be contained, and for the animals to survive it. I ask you to especially pray or think positively that these hippos will survive.
There is the possibility of inoculating the hippos and we are organizing that as I write to you. It is not as easy as it sounds, but we do have a very experienced ex- National Parks Warden called Clem Coetzee who is going to do the exercise. It will involve shooting the vaccine at each hippo through a dart gun. We now have to purchase the necessary equipment and are going to try and buy him a specific dart gun from South Africa. This is a quiet dart gun which should induce no stress factor for the hippos when it comes to noise. If they are afraid, they will bombshell from their pool and then make it impossible to dart them. Clem tells me we do not need to do the new babies as they are too young. Perhaps Bobin, who is the oldest at seven months, will need vaccination, but we will wait to see when Clem gets here.
It is worrying, as it is never easy to do this kind of thing to wild animals, but Clem is one of the best in the country so we must just hope all will go well. I do not yet know the cost of all of this but I believe it will not be cheap. If I could ask every one of you to help us with even just one pound, or one dollar donation towards this exercise, you would not only help maybe save these hippos’ lives but the gun would remain with Clem to help inoculate other animals as well as these hippos. Any donation, however small, will help the hippos and the other animals to have a future. If you do decide to send a donation, either send cash or a cheque through registered post, whichever is easiest for you. We will probably inoculate our own pet animals against catching anthrax, but again will wait a little bit as goats are so sensitive to injections. To inoculate these hippos is a difficult decision to make as they may lose a bit of trust in me if anything goes wrong. Yet 11 hippos have died already in another part of the Lowveld and hippos are so prone to catching it. Vultures are one of the main carriers of the disease and vultures drink from the river as well as bathe in it, yet they themselves are immune to the anthrax.
We constantly seem to face stressful events but this in many ways even outweighs the previous invasion problems and the daily poaching. Anthrax is deadly and it is such a quick and awful virus. I ask everybody reading this letter to think of the animals here and help them survive this new danger.
Like everything that has occurred of late, one has to look for a positive and bright note and try to remain above the easy route of depression and fear. To give you a good example on how better things can happen-About four weeks ago these people had set fire to the bush yet again. We could see a huge fire on the horizon and of course were worried, as it was heading in our direction. Now in August one never gets rain, it is the main month of our dry season and the most windy. We knew if the fire reached our area we would have to try and put it out. Thanks to a strong wind that day, the fire had moved tremendously quickly and in the evening we could see it was coming perilously close to the small gomos (little hilly mountains) about half a mile from the house. So Jean and I spent two hours trying to stop the fire. Our one employee Silos was on days off, so there was just the two of us. We could not call in our nearest Humani Ranch neighbors , because it was a public holiday so we knew most of their own employees would be off and probably a bit drunk! Also the land the fire was burning on was part of the land belonging to the owners of Humani, which had been stolen by these people. The original land owners are not supposed to go on their own land anymore. So for them to come and fight the fire with us could have caused more problems.
For 2 hours Jean-Roger and I back-burned and beat at the flames. To do this you go to the nearest dirt track close to the approaching flames and you set fire yourself to the grass which is on the side of the oncoming fire. You then beat out the fire closest to the track so no flames jump it, and you let the rest burn towards the approaching bush fire. You use branches, if that is all you have, to beat at the flames, and it is not only tremendously tiring but you inhale a lot of smoke.
For two hours we fought and contained it along a mile long section. At the end, both of us were covered in soot; I had 11 blisters on my hands and Jean had singed all the hair on his own hands as he had been lighting the fire.
Even though fire is an awesome and beautiful-looking sight at night, it is one of the most deadly things for the animals. Once the bush and the trees are burnt there is nothing for them to eat. The only things that seem to benefit temporarily from a big fire are the birds, which surround the burnt veld in search of insects. To witness a big bush fire and then to see the devastation it leaves after it has burned itself out, is one of the most horrendous things one can see in nature. Normally a fire is man-induced and often it is even deliberately set.
By nine that evening Jean called it a night. He reckoned we could not stop the fire to the east and all we could do was hope it somehow burnt itself out before reaching us. Well, I went home and I prayed. I asked for the fire to stop at specific areas. We went to bed exhausted and at 4.am, there was a miracle. It was raining! We only received 5mm of rain but that small amount stopped the fire. The most incredible thing was that when we went in the morning to check all the areas, I found that the fire had stopped exactly in the three areas where I had asked for it to stop. How is that for the power of prayer? So again, I pray that this anthrax will stop and that our area here and these poor animals will survive. They have had so much to put up with in the last few years, that anthrax really would be the last straw.
Karen Paolillo, Hippo Haven, Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe. 31st August 2004.Any donation or assistance for these hippos and other animals can be sent to: Karen Paolillo, Turgwe Hippo Trust, P.O Box 322, Chiredzi, Zimbabwe. We thank you in advance. Please register your letter.
