Christmas Newsletter
It is nearly Christmas, and as I write this, I wish every hippo supporter and all those who care about animals, a very Happy Festive Season. I hope that wherever you are in our world, you will spare a thought for an animal in need over this holiday period and help it in any way you can.
People often send me what they think of as small donations, apologizing for it being so little. In the third world, a pound, a dollar or a euro, goes much further then you can imagine, so no donation is ever too small. When things get tough for us on the ground, it is people like you that are actually our backbone. You are the people who not only support the animals in their habitat, but booster the flagging morale of those of us trying to achieve things, often against tremendous odds.
Of late for me there have been sad days, but I always find myself picked up by letters from strangers, writing kind and warm words. This gives me that extra edge, to carry on with this life I have chosen. One of the sad events that happened just recently, was another hippo found dead.
This time, it was a tiny male calf, Gem, the second son of Odile. Gem was born at the end of May and actually came into my life when I was also so very sad. Storm, a male hippo only months away from maturity, had been killed. Storm lost his life in a fight. Hippos in the wild often die from wounds they receive in serious fights with other older, stronger males. In Gem’s case he was hardly six months of age and I am not one hundred percent sure how he died.At the time I was actually missing two young male calves. Gem the very youngest and Chubby, the most popular of all the Turgwe Hippos, who is two and a half years of age. Chubby, thank God, is alive and well but was missing for over three weeks. I believe his mother could be about to give birth and so his older sister Sabi took over his care. For he is now back next to Hippo Haven, in Bob’s old weir pool with Sabi, as well as his amazing grandmother Abe. She is looking after him and her own daughter Tsakus as well as her other grandson Bobin. Surprise remains four miles away with the others in the Mokore River. So fortunately Chubby is fine and I did not have to write and notify his foster parents that he had met the fate that poor Gem has.
All that was found of Gem were his bones, as a crocodile had already eaten him. By asking all the game scouts, I finally was notified that they had seen the body of a young calf in the area where those people invaded in 2001. The same area where Storm’s body was found and Wish, a mature female, all since these people moved there!
In Storm and Wish’s case, I was ninety percent sure that their deaths were from natural causes, i.e. fights with other hippos. In the case of Gem I will never know. His mother Odile is one of the most protective mothers of the entire group; her first calf Bobin was so well looked after by her that even now he is still with the family and taken care of by his grandmother. He was never chased away from the group. Odile has recovered from the loss of her youngest son and only yesterday Bobin, who is now nearly three years of age, was in very close proximity to her, which has not happened for over one year. Perhaps she will mother him all over again; only time will tell.Gem though had but a short life.
He arrived at Bob’s old weir pool one week after Storm had been killed and now he has gone.
On examining his remains we could find no sign of him having been poached. In that when these people kill an animal and cut it up to take its meat, they leave cut marks on the bones from their machetes and knives. On Gem’s remains, the only marks were from the teeth of crocodiles.Yet he could have been snared and when they found him they just dumped his body in the shallow pool. We will never know. I have to hope that was not the case. I can accept any natural death as that is all parts and parcel of the order of things. Yet the deaths of the animals in this Conservancy, since those people invaded this wildlife land, have eaten a huge hole into my heart and psyche.
In the small area only, where we have two game scouts patrolling, we recover over 100 wire snares a month. It is an area of only about six kilometers in length by three kilometers in width. This Conservancy has been invaded over approximately a third of its one million acres. Try to imagine how many wires are put out there each day, killing the animals.
If you live here and drive around the areas where these people have put their huts and cleared the wild bush of its natural tree coverage, you now see only dead land, no wild animals, only their own domestic stock. All of these people have cattle and are very well off compared to the average Zimbabwean. Where does their income come from? Not from the crops they have not grown, but from poaching. Now too, they sublet their lands to other people from affluent areas for them to come in and poach.
We even caught a poacher a week ago from Mozambique. He had heard there was land available where he could take his pick of the wild animals and kill as much as he desired! He was cutting up a young male bushbuck, which he had snared literally opposite the Mokore safari camp, in the invaded land. This is what occurs in the Save Valley Conservancy as I type.
People come here not to plough the land for need of food for themselves and their country, but to plunder and destroy for money. I would take a very moderate guess that in the last five years, over twenty thousand animals have died just on the one property called Chigwete next to Hippo Haven, a land of 35,000 acres, and I could be way under in my estimate.
So of course, when a young calf like Gem is dead and is the first young calf to die in the sixteen years that I have studied these hippos, I cannot help but feel that these people are responsible. As I have no proof though, I make myself believe it was a natural death.
Hence, at a time when my heart is hurting, when I wonder if I am mad to continue to believe these animals here have a future, along comes a letter from a supporter. This lady had only just written a first time letter with a donation. The donation of course was absolutely wonderful, but it was her words that keep me focused.
So I would like now, at Christmas time, to just say to everyone who has taken the time to read this newsletter and who may actually be a hippo supporter or has sent donations in the past, thank you. Two little words which can never express how much your help does mean to me.
Now, as the optimist that I am, I would like to just give you a bit of news of the last couple of months. As you will see in the photographs, the elephants have moved here. We normally have a group of bulls and one herd that pitch up here every October. Funnily enough, always just before my birthday. They utilize the hippos’ thickly bushed island and they eat the riverine vegetation, which is still green at that very hot and dry time of the year.
This year though, it has been different. They came at the normal time. First to arrive were five bulls, then the herd of around thirty animals, but they are still here and it is nearly Christmas. This is a little bit worrying as some people are talking drought this year, as our weather tends to follow Australia, where they have been having problems.
Yet I still feel we are going to get good rains and perhaps the elephants are here because our area is quieter and actually much safer for them. In that the island is not a place that man should enter. It was in this island that the poacher was killed. The area upstream of Hippo Haven has no invaders, and although we have the poaching everywhere, safari hunters don’t utilize it either.
As they are now hunting elephants in this Conservancy for so called “sport”, of course the elephants prefer areas without that kind of pressure. I am totally opposed to sport hunting in any form, but to kill an elephant is to me probably the biggest crime that a man can do. That people derive pleasure from shooting such an intelligent, sensitive and family orientated animal, leaves me aghast at man’s, and believe it or not sometimes woman’s, ignorance and cruelty!
Yet for years I have somehow managed to keep the hippos away from man’s gun on a sport basis, so I have to remain silent and not antagonize the sport hunters. I can only hope that at some stage they meet the judgment they should receive for such a cowardly act.
Killing an elephant, or for that matter any animal, is actually so easy when one has a high-powered rifle. You can approach an elephant to a matter of feet if you are downwind and hidden behind trees and such like. It is no achievement to kill such a magnificent beast; it is actually far more of an achievement to get close to wildlife and not upset nor affect them, and then walk away with perhaps just a photo as a memory.
The policies of hunting in this Conservancy are not something I have ever agreed with. Yet, to be totally honest, the people who invaded this land have killed a much higher number of animals and are far less discriminating than the sport hunters. In that the wire snares do not choose the animal they will kill, they take all species. The packs of hunting dogs that the poachers use can bring down any animal and exhaust even an animal like a leopard, thought to be so dangerous by the sport hunting community.
Man on foot in numbers can hunt even the most lordly of them all, the lion. The Masai in Kenya-Tanzania use that as an initiation test for their young warriors. A group of men go after a lion or a pair of lions, and through their sheer number can kill even this amazingly strong and ferocious predator. Killing is actually such an easy thing to do. Conserving, caring and having the conviction to save an animal’s life is a much harder and tortuous route that one can take, and is only followed by a few!
Anyway for whatever reason the elephants are still with us. It has been wonderful to have them around. The hippos might not agree though, as the elephants do tend to dominate all. When they arrive at the pool, nine times out of ten the hippos escape from the water, running into the island, as they are afraid of the elephants.
The elephants have gouged mud baths into the side of two of the smaller pools. Their large bodies have shaped the edges of the riverbank into a saucer of mud. This is later thoroughly enjoyed by warthogs, who gladly enter and cover themselves from head to toe in mud.
For me walking and following the spoor of an elephant herd is awesome. The scents around you are pure elephant, their tracks leaving deep imprints in the soil. Their mounds of dung steaming and smelling so sweetly of the earth and the grasses they consume.
A lovely Australian girl, now a good friend called Tammie Matson, stayed here many years ago as a volunteer for a few weeks. She is now an accomplished scientist with a PhD, as well as a published author, but once while staying here, she could not stop laughing at me.
We were standing at night by the small fence that surrounds Hippo Haven, fence that is only used as a boundary marker. I was inhaling the scent of the hippos, who had just passed by the fence and deposited a large heap of their dung. Tammie could not stop laughing saying “Hey Karen I don’t believe it! You enjoy the smell of a hippo scat!”
Now, many years later, I am sure she has as many peculiarities as I do. She works in the Namibian desert. When you live in the bush, where there is no pollution, no artificial scents, your own senses are so much more sensitive, and tiny, tiny things can give one pleasure, even hippos’ dung. So having over thirty five elephants around has been a delight for the olfactory senses, as well as the eye!
On the hippo front, back in August Tembia, the young bull who had taken over the family after Storm was killed and Robin had moved to the Mokore, found himself in a terrific fight with Robin. Robin reappeared at Bob’s weir pool and attacked Tembia. This time the fight was really ferocious compared to the one I caught on my video, “Hippo Haven”. At some stage I feared for Tembia’s life but eventually he backed down from the larger and stronger Robin and left the pool to Robin.
I found Tembia a couple of days later, cut in a few places and definitely feeling pretty unsettled, but thank God in one piece. He has not, to this date, come back to claim the pool and the habitats used by the family. Instead, he has returned to his old area about three miles upstream called Majekwe weir. There he is visited regularly by Abe and her family and sometimes by the other females.
Robin has gone back to the Mokore River, but about once a week he comes back here and checks on the family and makes sure that Tembia has not returned. I believe that Tembia will not challenge Robin again and will remain in his old area for quite some time. He was lucky to have not been badly hurt in that fight and has learnt a valuable lesson, I hope.
On a working basis Jean-Roger had to go away and actually earn us an income this year. Our own personal savings were nearly down to zero, after him having had to remain here at Hippo Haven without working for the last five years. The people who invaded our area would definitely hurt me if Jean-Roger were not around, hence forcing him to stay here all those years.
At the end of July he went all the way to Kyrgyzstan in the ex USSR, to return to his profession as a Geologist. His mode of transportation, a horse called Torpedo, as well as fantastic colleagues and a scenery to kill for -mountains and space- gave him a much welcome break from the pressures we daily face here. The monies earned will keep us in food for the near future.
On my side I had to sadly have a “minder”. We felt that if I remained here alone with just Silas, the young African man who we employ, my safety would have been questionable. The people that invaded here are bullies and when wishing to be aggressive come in large numbers and go for soft targets. I am a tough woman, but against an angry mob, maybe not so tough!
I did not know the “minder” John, and it was very difficult for me to cook, clean and have to basically care for a person who I had never met before, who was neither a volunteer here for the animals, nor a friend or acquaintance.
John must have served his purpose, as thankfully during that period Jean-Roger was away nothing too bad occurred. We did have the usual hassles, but these I ended up dealing with.
Game scouts cahooting with the enemy, having beer with the poachers and coming back to Hippo Haven totally drunk. Poachers killing, as always. Fires being set to intentionally burn the bush, and so on. On one occasion when John and I were on a short patrol around Hippo Haven we heard initially women’s voices. Then we heard shouting and abusive noise from men. I became very nervous, as I believed the noise was directed at us, telling John the minder we must remove ourselves from the area we were patrolling in./font>
It was far enough away from Hippo Haven for the poachers to do whatever they wanted to me. They could only have been up to no good as we were not in the invaded area but one of the areas we are trying to protect. I asked John at the time: “what will you do if these people come for us and go for me, which they will do?”
His answer was: “I don’t know, but then is that not why I am here”.This did not particularly reassure me and it was then that I realized that it is totally unfair to bring a stranger to Hippo Haven, to supposedly keep an eye on me. If these people were to get nasty I was not his responsibility, and we were not even employing him, as we were not in a financial position to do so.
So, for the period Jean-Roger was away (just over five weeks) I was under a lot of stress. The normal stress of life here, added to the one of having a “minder”. The sad thing is that for over seven years I lived here alone, with only Silas working for us. I loved that solitary life. Jean-Roger had his own work as a geologist, he came home to me one week in every four weeks, we had a reasonable income and both of us enjoyed our lives. For now though Jean is not returning to employment unless he can get extremely short consulting work of not more than three weeks. Then we will try and find a solution.
If I had to leave from here for any length of time while Jean-Roger was away, we would come home to no hippos, or at least some killed. We are one hundred percent sure of this. The people will definitely kill off all the remaining smaller animals in our area. So myself going away is out of the question: one of us has to be here at all times.
For five years, the longest the two of us have left here together has been for four nights, because of these kind of problems.Next year in July, I have been offered a fantastic opportunity to speak at the Royal Geographic Society’s Ondaatje theatre, in London.
I am booked to speak for about an hour on July 12th evening. I will show slides and speak to the people about the hippos. All ticket sales will benefit the hippos, so we need to fill the hall, 450 seats! This time though, I want Jean-Roger to accompany me.We have not had a break together anywhere, other than for shopping/food purposes, in six years. So at this moment we have a plan to leave here and be in London for but five days/six nights and for one of these I will speak about these wonderful animals.
We hope and pray that by then, perhaps these people will really have left here. We are still told that the government intends to remove them, and that the Save Valley Conservancy fence will be re-erected. The same fence that had hundreds of kilometers of it cut down by the invaders and used to snare the animals, will be put once more back up. Thus it will keep the animals safe within the Conservancy, preventing them as well from leaving and harassing the nearby communal areas. Maybe by July this will have happened. We have to have hope.
If not, then perhaps we can find a couple to stay at home, and help us here while we are away for that eight day period. I believe that this will be my last trip to the UK to talk to people about the hippos. I am not cut out to spend too much time away from the animals that I prefer to be with in the wild. Every talk I give terrifies me. Each one I have done has been a total success but it really is frightening to stand up in front of people and speak about these animals without the animals present.
I have, for years and years in the past, talked about them here but that is totally different: the people look at live, wild hippos and not at me! Anyway I hope it will be a success for the sake of the hippos.I also have my fingers firmly crossed. I have written a book about my life here and it is at present with a lady editor in the USA, so I hold hope that she finds it to her liking. This book may help to promote the Hippos and their future needs, better than my newsletters ever can.
While John the minder stayed with me, he had a very privileged encounter. I took him on a couple of occasions to meet the Turgwe Hippos, the ones now living in the Mokore River. The seven there have a nice sized pool and the main dominant bull Robin spends most of his time there with them.
On the one occasion, John the minder was standing right next to the river on a small rocky ledge when suddenly about ten feet from him, up popped Zen.
Zen is the youngest son of Mystery, at that stage just over two years of age. The family had been further away from John, and I had intended taking photos for this story. Zen obviously felt he should make his appearance in a more spectacular way.
John had been a canoe safari guide for a few years on the great Zambezi River, so he knows hippos and has had many close encounters with them. Yet I think even he was totally surprised at how close young Zen came to him without any aggression.
In fact he told me afterwards that he thought I had actually called Zen in, and it was all part of the relationship I have with the hippos.
He was amazed at how they respond to my voice, and how they react to me. He told me that when I make my next video about the hippos, I should somehow portray this unique relationship.So even with all the stress of late (including my own mother being unwell and at present needing nurses to look after her, which for an independent person such as her, is a nightmare), well we keep going./font>
This time of the year the vervet monkeys, who visit our home every day, have all had their new babies. The first one was born on October 1st this year. New life, and new hope.
We have a troop of over fifty monkeys that regularly stay at Hippo Haven and realize that they need not fear us.The hippos are at this moment fine, with two of them possibly pregnant. We now need the rains to fall.
We have had just over three inches to date, but we need the main rains to show us that this is not going to be a drought.I once more wish everybody a Very Wonderful Festive Season and let us hope that the New Year of 2007 brings good things for the animals.
Karen Paolillo. Hippo Haven, Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe. 21st December 2006.
