December 2001 Report on the Turgwe Hippos' Lives
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Since August 18th we have managed to keep the hippos close to our home at the Chichindwi weir section of the Turgwe River. Jean-Roger had nearly finished using the sandpump in the pool in August when the hippos decided they were moving back in. Rather than disturb them, or try to work alongside 18 hippos and 3 crocodiles, Jean-Roger called it a day. Since then the hippos have had an area to live in. As the summer heat increased, more crocodiles joined the hippos and by September they shared their pool with 16 of these prehistoric looking reptiles. One of the crocodiles was well over 14 feet in length. Most people do not like the look of a crocodile, finding it either cunning or ugly, yet they too have their own beauty and are fascinating to watch when they interact with the hippos.Over the years, I have witnessed quite a few interesting behavioral traits regarding hippos and crocodiles. The most amazing was watching, on several occasions, hippo females actually grooming crocodiles on land. This involved either Lace or Cheeky, two mothers, approaching a crocodile lying on the sand and proceeding to lick its rubbery looking hide for up to 15 minutes. At the end of this show, the hippo always gives a large yawn and has quite a build up of saliva on its mouth from licking the reptile. During the entire grooming, the crocodile calmly lies on the bank without moving away, as if enjoying this strange attention. Hippos naturally groom each other, but I have never read in any material I have here about this unusual behavior. As I have seen it happen on several occasions, I do not believe it is a one-off.
Amongst the hippos here at present, one of the young calves, a male called Pavodok-who was born in February of 2000- appears to enjoy harassing the crocodiles. I have videotaped him either chasing the crocodiles in the pool, or approaching one of them lying on semi-submerged sand and biting its tail! On both occasions, the crocodile eventually got the hell in and moved away from this annoying tiny hippo without becoming aggressive in any way. On one occasion, the crocodile was much larger than young Pavodok, being well over ten feet in length, and yet it put up with the calf chewing at its tail for a few minutes!
Crocodiles will predate on hippos though-either a newly born calf if they can grab it, or a wounded hippo, even an adult if the hippo is too badly hurt to escape. Most of the time, though, the hippos live quite harmoniously alongside the crocodiles and often they lie next to each other on the sandbank without any disagreement between the two species.
As I often spend hours watching the hippos, I cannot help but enjoy the antics of all the other species that utilize the pool. I have written about the elephant bull who decided to visit their pool. In October, not only was he a regular visitor, but on two occasions along came a herd of mothers and calves of 14 elephants. This was the first time in my eleven years of watching the hippos that a herd of elephants has approached their pool while I was present. One of the calves was so young that it could hardly lift its trunk. The herd were not as confident as the bull though, and kept their distance until it was too dark for me to continue watching them. The bull, on two more occasions, decided to chase the hippos away from their pool so that he could happily take over. I managed to get a couple of still photos of him leaving their area and if they come out will have them posted on this site. I do have great video footage of the same bull chasing four of the hippos out of the pool.
While the animals and birds and reptiles enjoyed the pool, I watched them and thought how lucky they all were. The pool only exists thanks to my husband's hard work, the fantastic donations, and the foster parents of these hippos. Without the donations of 2001 and the parents supporting these hippos, we could never have bought the pump and been able to give them back a decent area to utilize.
Sadly, the positive side of things has still been hit by so many negatives and disheartening affairs. Politically, things have gone from bad to worse and we do not expect any let-up from these problems until next year and the hopeful new elections. We are told there will be elections, but in Zimbabwe's troubled times we are not even sure if they will go ahead.
The policies for this wildlife conservancy which had been agreed on by the government of Zimbabwe have been changed yet again and more lies and more political games have taken place. The conservancy accommodated the land issue by giving up over 90,000 acres of its land for resettlement purposes, as well as offering many other lucrative options for the people who live adjacent to this wildlife area. The reality is what is now happening on the ground.
Only five days ago I was wakened on a Sunday morning by the sound of barking dogs. Jean and I rushed outside to find just below our home a terrible commotion of growling, barking dogs. We could see four dogs had cornered a large kudu bull in the middle of the shallow river and were trying to bring it down. They had obviously chased it for a long distance, as the kudu was breathing heavily and its skin was flecked with froth and sweat. I screamed like a banshee at the dogs, then heard a whistle and all dogs left the bull. The kudu, thankfully, slowly walked off across the water to the other side of the bank. He was very slow and obviously exhausted but would have survived as he had no blood on his body. The whistle was obviously from the poachers, so I shot into the house, grabbed some clothes and ran back out to pursue them. Jean got on the phone to our neighbor on the other side of the river to tell him and then followed my tracks.
I spent the next hour trying to locate either the poachers or the dogs. Once I heard one dog bark, but it was gone before I could reach the area where it had been. I did not know what I would actually be able to do if I found either the dogs or the men as we do not have any kind of weapon, but I was so angry anything could have happened. These dogs were initially only about two hundred feet from the hippos in their pool and could easily attack any of the smaller hippos. The dogs are used by the poachers to hunt the animal, with the men normally running behind their dogs. Once the dogs bring the animal to bay, the men approach and- depending on what kind of animal it is- they either club it to death with sticks or shoot it with bow and arrows. Either way, by my screaming at the dogs the poachers obviously decided to call them off and ran. Even though we have no law and order in the country at this moment, and so many of these poachers are let free, they still are not openly poaching in front of us. It appears that every now and then the police actually sentence the poachers to a court hearing and so they are never one hundred percent sure if they will be let off scot free or booked and sent to jail.
For example, the man who took over the land next door to us- a man called Robert Mamungaere, who tells us he is the chief of the area now, and will be the chief of all the people who he allows to settle in our area- well, he is is a genuine war veteran and fought in the liberation war. Yet he has been arrested twice this year by the owner of the land he has taken over because he was caught poaching. The police have let him go, saying it is political and that the land he is on belongs to him at this moment in time. That same man has told us he will shoot any elephants that go onto his new lands as they no longer belong to this conservancy nor to the state, but are his if they go on his new lands. He also wants to discuss compensation for the hippos with us, who he says will eat his crops. Needless to say, he has not even planted anything yet and has put a temporary thorn fence around the area he has cleared, leaving huge gaps in the fence where an elephant or a hippo could quite easily walk through and go and eat his crops. He has also brought nine of his cattle to his land. He is a very wealthy man and owns over fifty cattle. He actually has far more money than either I or my husband, and has land elsewhere, like all these people who are squatting in this conservancy.
This area has buffalo and has always been fenced to keep out cattle and stop buffalo moving into the neighboring communal lands. Nowadays all the laws and veterinary requirements are totally ignored. The fence is cut, a lot of the wire used for snares. The cattle and donkeys have moved in and one watches animals interacting and waits for more disasters to occur.
Obviously the situation is very unpleasant and extremely worrying but we refuse to give up hope. There are a huge majority of people in this country who do not agree with what is happening and we can only hope that sanity will return. In the meantime, I keep up my daily patrol of this area and in the last few weeks have found no new wire snares. However, this is only a reprieve, since out of the thirty odd men who moved one kilometer from us there are only five men there at present. The other 25 have gone back to their own lands in the reserve to plough their fields and plant. Once they have finished there, they will return here to token plant the land and continue chopping down the trees and poaching. It is terribly depressing to drive through the south of this conservancy on the way to our nearest village, Chiredzi, and pass cleared lands, stick houses and people with cows and donkeys. None of the areas are sustainable for man; there is no permanent water.
In the past, commercial farming has been tried and failed; only wildlife related businesses can succeed. The wildlife related businesses can help the people to prosper, but instead madness ensues. A lot of these people that are squatting here are just mere pawns. They will be dropped and abused once their uses are over. They will probably either have their donkeys eaten by lions or their cattle will die from diseases that the wildlife will transmit. Whether their "bosses" will compensate them is anybody's guess. The white man will be blamed for any of their woes and yet they are being held hostage by mere politics. It's a crying shame that in 2001 such atrocities can occur and continue to happen in our so-called modern world!
We get on with as much work as we can possibly achieve during these trying times. We have had the most tremendous support this year from either donations or new foster parents or people continuing to foster their hippos. As I type (December 6th), the pool now has shrunk to a tiny area. This morning only 10 of the 18 hippos are present and all of the crocodiles have moved out.
We have had more rain in the month of November than in the last eleven years during the same time. In fact, we have had over half of our annual rainfall in just that one month, and normally we have rains for five months. Although there has been a lot of rain, it has not flooded the river, just brought it up for a couple of days and then it subsides because it is so full of sand.. The hippos have tried to leave their pool and find other areas. They did leave for two days and move into the channels. The river dropped quickly though and they returned to the pool. But one young male, Mvura, did not accompany them. I have not seen him for the last ten days so am a little worried. His older brother Storm and his mother Cheeky returned, but not Mvura. I just pray that he has not been snared nor caught by the poachers' dogs and must keep optimistic that he has either joined up with Happy, the other bull, or for some reason is staying in a channel of the river on his own. As he is only about three years of age, his behavior is odd, but I must keep positive and believe he will return. Also, my number one warthog- a wild fellow called Arthur- has not come for his food for the last five nights. The good thing is that, every year at this time, he goes on walk-about and we sometimes do not see him for nearly three months.
The worry, though, is that there are so many bad guys in our area that I just have to hope he keeps away and stays safe.When one's life is devoted to these hippos and the wild animals that live around us, the problems we face at present cause one to grow grey and older as the days go by.
On an optimistic level, people have been so supportive this year. A few of our hippo friends have even personally helped my husband and I. I thank them most sincerely for their help- they know who they are. Hippo-wise, great donations have made a successful year. We managed to fix one of their broken weirs and use the sand pump twice, as well as hire the initial pump and buy our own pump.
Just this month I received a most welcome and superb donation from the World Society for the Protection of Animals in the USA. Their donation allows the Trust to have enough finances to do the pool again- as soon as the river has dropped- paying for all maintenance of the pump and diesel; to fix another broken weir, which will be a job we carry out by around April of next year, (depending on the rains); and to repair a few mechanical problems on the Trust's second-hand landrover, our only vehicle. The vehicle is very necessary to our movements especially during rains. I have four other hippos that I try to see on a weekly basis who live over sixteen kilometers away from here across the Turgwe River.
The people out there in this world who have been helping the Turgwe Hippos are not only helping the animals but giving us the much needed mental boost to keep going and we both thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.
I ask you all at Christmas time, a time of giving and loving, to think of the problems in our world, and, if you do not mind, to either send some postive vibes or prayers to the animals in this conservancy. Hope for their future and survival without harrassment by man, for life here to once more be peaceful, and for the animals to be able to get on with their wild lives, especially these Turgwe Hippos.
Karen Paolillo, Hippo Haven, Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe. December
2001.
Elephant bull leaving hippos' pool in the foreground
Cheeky showing off, and Mvura behind her.
Kuchek, on the left, playing with Pavodok.
Kuchek and Libra.
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