FIRST NEWS UPDATE FOR 2011.
As the majority of the Countries in our world now have networking channels where everything is literally right now in your face, you might think that the life we lead here is archaic and so totally different, especially as we do not even have even permanent electricity. Instead we rely upon a generator and a satellite dish for broadband communications and I never use a phone, or actually even own one!
Yet I can be in the bush at one moment looking at a herd of elephants happily eating next to the hippo pools, and the next online with someone on facebook or by email asking how best to help the Turgwe Hippos. These people are from all over the world whether they live in Japan or the USA or wherever, the mail or fb communication comes in and then I can also step into their lives and they into mine.
One of the main things that people who support the hippos never I think truly understand though, is how very important they are to all our lives. The donations, the adoptions and the general funding is what keeps the Trust ticking. Allowing us to be here and help these wonderful animals. Without the necessary dollars there are no pools in the river, no snares taken down; basically there is no operation. This year already I had to send out three appeals and on each occasion I hesitated, fearing that the hippo supporters might think to themselves “here we go, yet another “I need help mail”. So I try to repay your generosity by making little videos to show the life that surrounds us here and taking the nicest photos that I can for foster parents and basically corresponding personally as far as possible with anybody who contacts us. I am lucky to have met some of you and like to think we are now more than just e-mail correspondents, but actually friends.
So before I go into what has been happening here since last year, I would like to thank every one who responded to the satellite appeal, the generator and of late the appeal to replace the camera equipment which ended up at the bottom of the river. Which, thanks to Jean-Roger, got fished out and is now drying in a bag of rice but I don’t think it will ever be the same again. In fact the lens is still swimming in water which does not seem to want to drain. Those that responded though, have allowed me to be able to order a replacement camera body and lens
I have thanked those who did respond to these appeals individually, but I would just like to mention that we were deeply touched by the request of the husband of the late Barbara Giesecke in Germany, who very sadly died last year.
Barbara had supported Odile hippo from Odile’s birth, back in 1996. She and her husband Klaus have always been there for the Turgwe Hippos. Klaus and their two boys asked that all bequeaths from the mourners be passed to the Turgwe Hippo Trust in memory of Barbara. We were honoured to receive this donation but so saddened that it came at such a price. We wish Klaus and his boys happiness in the future and we thank Klaus for continuing to adopt Odile in memory of Barbara.
Let us now move onto very good news which has given me personally a huge boost after the terrible tragedy of the death of Blackface hippo and Five, her son. This has been the birth this year of not just one new baby hippo but four, all within the first quarter of this new year.
Appropriately the first baby born was to Odile, which happened around the 7th to 10th February. The calf has been named Ronnie in memory of a hippo supporter, Hilary’s father. Admittedly we do not yet know its sex, but Ronnie can, I am sure, fit even if he turns out to be a female, though he is more likely to be a male. So far Odile has had three male calves. One of them, Gem, sadly was killed by another hippo before he reached six months of age. Odile’s older calf, Kim, has been chased away from the family group, being a young male and so will normally not be accepted back by his mother’s side now that she has a new calf. Male hippos in general have to leave the safety of the family group when their mother gives birth again and it is usually the actual mother hippo who chases them away and keeps attacking them if they remain with her.Some males are more determined than others and hence Storm, a son of Cheeky, remained with the group but paid the price, being attacked by another male and killed before he reached his tenth year. Kuchek is still here and turned ten years of age in March and has managed to be still living with his mother and sister right next to us in the main hippo pool. Most young males though, have to leave and find somewhere to live which is often all on their own until they are old enough to start their own family, which is not normally before they are at least fifteen years of age.
Kim could be with his older brother Bobin, as Bobin and another female Relief have both left their areas and I believe are living in between the two main families, within the thickly reeded area of the Turgwe River.
To find one little hippo or even a small group of hippos in the maze of river channels and reeds that exist along the Turgwe is not possible. It is also rather dangerous, as within those reeds could be buffalo bull enjoying the shade or lions lying up during the heat of the day or really any animal that has sensibly removed itself from the heat and found a nice, quiet, secluded area to lie up in.
Due to the lack of big flooding of the Turgwe River over the previous few years, the reeds have really taken over and now to get close to the river channels in most areas is difficult, as it is just too thick and unless you crawl on your hands and knees along a hippo path you cannot see the water. I have done this on several occasions but it is not something I advise others to do!!!
The second calf to be born was about one month later around the 6th to 7th March, when Surprise gave birth to Maxie. Maxie will be known as Max or Maxine once we know its sex. Maxie has been named by a lovely guy called Mark Powell, who is our web master and lives in the UK.
To sex a new born hippo is not easy, as the mother normally keep it away from the family for at least the first three to four weeks of its life in order for the special bonding and imprinting to occur before she returns to the others. In some cases this can last for up to two months before the mother is ready to rejoin the group. Surprise has also chased her much older male calf Chubby away. She is at the moment living two kilometers downstream from her normal pool. You obviously have to see the calf on land to sex it.Kiboko, Surprise’s daughter who is younger than Chubby, is back with her mother and Maxie and seems content to stay with Surprise and not rejoin her friends in Robin’s family group. I think that the maternal instinct has taken over and she just wants to be near to her latest sibling and stay in Maxie’s company. Kiboko turned four years of age in January so she is still too young to get pregnant, but she is very aware of being a young female hippo and this includes being as close to the new baby hippo as possible.
So after two calves I was really happy, and so spent most of my time trying to locate Maxie with Surprise as she was hiding up as well, staying in tiny pools and then after, I would go up to Tembia’s group to see Ronnie.
Then during March, yet again both Jean-Roger and I went down with Malaria. After having had Malaria four times in 2010 I thought I might just be given a break this year, but that was not meant to be.
This time I stupidly went back to work and walked to the hippos as I wanted to keep up with the calves, and so the pills did not work and I went down again with a double dose and was pretty sick. I had to take a second course of the pills, which meant another stay in bed, which I am not too good at! The end result of two weeks on and off of bed rest, was that I have finally agreed to use a mosquito net.I have always found them very claustrophobic and preferred to put on mosquito repellant than lie under a net. I realize though, that the body can only take so much and Malaria is such a terrible disease and does kill so… the net won.
We are using the volunteers’ net, which is actually very large and of the new type that does not have to be tucked into the bed, and so you do not feel like you are inside a cage! We intend to buy another one for the cottage. And believe it or not, not only I but our eight cats have now got used to it! In that I was really worried that the five cats who like to sleep with me would not be able to figure out how to get into the bed. It entails finding the entrance through the net, but I should have known better. I misjudged their intelligence as we are all now snuggled up together each night. We are in our winter months now, from May through to August, so this is the time when the cats want to sleep with me. In the summer they are not in the slightest bit interested as at that time even a sheet is too hot to handle. The cats certainly like to find cooler places to sleep if they can.
Anyway I recovered from the malaria as did Jean, but I gain a few more wrinkles, but the plus is being able to fit nicely into a size 8 jeans. Then lo and behold I discover a new baby hippo in Tembia’s group. I believed he/she was the calf of Tsakus who lost her first ever baby by miscarriage last year. On the 3rd April I find her with this amazingly lively little hippo by her side. She was acting as if it was her calf, although admittedly I did not see it suckle, but it was leaping all around her and when she became aware of me she moved away some distance with the calf and kept a look out. So I notified all of her foster parents that Tsakus now had a new baby. Alice, the lovely American girl who used to run our web site from the States and had already named Tsakus, called this new very lively and funny little hippo Izzy, after her late grandmother. When I was there on that occasion one hippo called Kubi was missing. This is not unusual as Kubi left this area back in 2003 when her mother Surprise gave birth again.
Six years later Kubi returned here and has lived with her grandmother Abe, her other relatives and Tembia the bull since 2009. She often disappears for a day or two and then is back in the pool. So I assumed Tsakus was the new mother and Kubi had just gone wandering.The next time I saw Izzy he was still with Tsakus, but yet again I did not see any suckling. Then after that on every occasion that I have seen the family, Izzy is never with Tsakus but is with Kubi, so…. To say I am puzzled is an understatement.
Either, in the worst case scenario, Izzy has been killed and Kubi had a new calf around the same time as Tsakus, which would be quite a large coincidence, or Izzy belongs to Kubi and not Tsakus. As this family group is not a family that I can see daily and at times only see once a week, I cannot be one hundred percent sure yet what the case is here.
The strange thing is that the liveliness of Izzy with Tsakus does not occur with Kubi. This worries me to think that they are two different calves, but size-wise they are the same. As Kubi and Tsakus are related (Tsakus is Kubi’s’aunt, even though Tsakus is much younger), so it is very possible that Tsakus was just baby sitting on the two occasions I saw her with Izzy.
I would prefer to think that this is the case than that Izzy has been killed. It does go to show that anybody who studies large groups of hippos, which has been done in the past by various scientists, cannot possibly tell which calf belongs to which cow. I only have small groups here and have been doing this now for two decades and yet, still can have this kind of event occur.
So while all this was going on I went as always each day to the main family of hippos. There Tandee had been chased away from his mother at the beginning of the year. I knew that Tacha must be pregnant but was not sure exactly when the new baby would be born, so I was making sure of spending as much time as possible with Robin’s family to see when she moved out. In the meantime I managed to locate Tandee who, much to my surprise and happiness, is living with the older male Chubby. Both have moved fourteen kilometers into a pool downstream in the Turgwe River. Tandee turned four in May and Chubby will be seven in July, so it is very nice they have teamed up together.
Then to my utter amazement, as it is the first time that this has occurred, I found on the late morning of April 6th on arriving at the pool, Tacha off on her own slightly upstream to the others, and there was a newborn perhaps only ten or so minutes old. The calf was just learning to move around his mother and was desperately searching for the teats to have its first drink of milk. I ran back to the house, which is only 5 minutes from the pool, grabbed my tripod and video and returned to capture as much footage as possible of this wonderful event.
The calf took his first actual walking steps while I filmed and I managed to catch it on video and then I noticed the two young crocodiles skulking nearby. While the crocodiles remained very close to the scene the new baby continued exploring his mother and attempting to find the milk bar.
His mother even stood up to oblige him and when he found the right area, as the teats are located like in a cow under the hindquarters’ area of the hippo, she even lifted her leg above him so that he could go under her to reach the teats. He just though, was not tall enough. This is very unusual for them to suckle like this, as normally calves suckle under water and naturally come up for air after about one minute or so, once they get the hang of it.
This movement must have stimulated her afterbirth, which had not yet come out, and I had been there for about 45 minutes. The calf had already been approached by one young crocodile and they had actually touched noses, which at first I thought were going to end in disaster, but then as I watched I witnessed for me a first in Hippo study and I believe the footage I caught was unique. The croc started grabbing the afterbirth, pulling it out piece by piece from Tacha, and eating it!
This carried on for about five minutes without her being at all bothered, but then the croc took a particularly large piece, the last I believe, and at the same moment the calf had got too close to the croc. Tacha swirled around in the water and attacked the croc by lunging at it, opening her mouth and catching a part of it and literally chucking the croc towards a small sandbank This was all over in seconds but I caught most of it on video and a few stills.
The croc was totally unfazed and continued eating the afterbirth a short distance away. By then he had been joined by another similar sized croc, around six feet in length, which is normally the size of juveniles. I could not believe I caught such footage and to find that the crocs had totally no interest in hurting the calf. I think that this eating of the afterbirth is common; it just has not been seen before. It was only when the calf got too close to the croc and the croc was pulling such a large lump out that Tacha got uptight.
The calf now has been named by one of our wonderful hippo supporters. She and her lovely husband Doug are now good friends of mine. Her name is Suzie Marsh. Suzie’s site www.suziemarshsculpture.co.uk is well worth visiting because her sculptures of the Turgwe hippos are perfect and I have two of Bob. here in Africa. thanks to her generosity. Suzie and her husband Doug work from their home in Cornwall in the UK and she is an expert sculptor on most wild animals as well as cats, dogs, horses, etc Suzie was also one of the people to design not only an elephant for the elephant parade in London, UK last year, but her elephant had a bear riding on it and raised the fourth most money for elephants in the auction. Suzie also supports Animals Asia.
So four new babies which is really great, but does not leave me as much time to do everything else. Newly born hippos can be at risk in their first six months and in the past we have had three male calves killed, all less than 6 months of age. It is a natural kill from a bull or sometimes even another cow, and occasionally it could actually be an accident where the calf gets in the way of his mother being mated again by the bull. After all, a newborn doesn’t weigh much more than about 20kg and they only start to really grow in size from about six months of age up. This year we need some volunteers to respond to our project and come along and assist. You will find details about it soon on our web site.
The loss of my camera equipment in the river during this important time knocked me for six, and I wondered what I had done to be punished like that. I mean, I look after my camera equipment better than I do my husband. Working as I do in the bush and often in the riverine areas, I have had mishaps before. But even when I fall over on slippery, rocky areas or whatever, I have always managed to cushion the camera and lens and binoculars. After having lost a video camera a few years ago, I have learnt now to take the brunt of the fall on my body and not on the equipment. So when it all went into the river I was so upset, but I was totally amazed by the speed that some of the hippo supporters and facebook friends responded to my appeal. I now nearly have enough to replace both the camera and lens and hope that by early June I will be able to replace them. It also has taught us another lesson, and this time we will insure them as the Trust has no insurance on any of its equipment. So hopefully we will be able to insure anything new that we buy. Jean managed to fish out the monopod and equipment, which entailed Silas and I hanging onto Jean’s legs and he is 6ft tall and heavy!!! While he hung over the river with our snake stick, a stick with a metal hook at the end to catch snakes that come in the house (we do not kill snakes), he was literally not more than thirty centimeters above the water. I had nearly fallen in when I lunged for the camera and all the churning up of the bottom with the stick must have given the crocs a bit of excitement, but we all came back in one piece. Just the camera and lens died!
So the year has started off very well, even after such an event, and most of it is due to great hippo supporters and having new life around. These four calf’s are the first calves for 3 years, which is normal for the age groups and number of hippos here in the Turgwe River, but it brings new hope to all.
Karen Paolillo, Hippo Haven, Turgwe Hippo Trust, Zimbabwe. May 2011.
