South Africa Photo Safari – Day Two

• May 1, 2018
• Paul Neiffer

Today was an active day in the bush.  In the morning, we took a tour of part of the game preserve.  After coming over a hill we spotted a couple of giraffes and then found a total of 11 giraffes.  They were all males and most of them were fairly young, however, they were all at least 15 feet tall.  Two of the males spent their whole time fighting each other.  They would swing their heads and try to either head butt the other male or swing his head under the other’s stomach.  It is good to know that typical male behavior happens in the wild too (that happens with four boys).

After that we wandered down the hill and found three lion siblings laying in the sun.  One male and two females.  They were at most 30 feet from our vehicle and essentially ignored us the whole time.  The sun got too hot and then they wondered into the bush to get more shade.

We then started to head toward the elephant recovery center and on the way I noticed what I thought was a large rock sitting in the distance.  It turned out to be a white rhino with three “kiddie” rhinos in tow.  Rhinos in the game preserve have their horns cut off every two years so that poachers will not shoot them for the horn.  Two of these rhinos appeared to have their horns almost fully grown back so they will be getting them cut off soon.

Finally, we got to the elephant recovery center.  Three elephants are in the center.  Rambo, the male is 30 years old, Rachel the female is six months older and a very young elephant (can’t remember her name).  Rambo allows you to feed him both by putting feed on his snout and he then flings it directly into his mouth or we were also able to put the feed directly into his mouth (not too slimy).  Their trunk has over 100,000 muscles and their heart hangs directly under their head.  The back of the ears have a large series of veins that all of their blood circulates through every few hours.  It was very entertaining to feed Rambo and just realize how big he is.  He weighs about 5.5 tons and will grow another 1,000 pounds at least and another yard longer.

Elephants have six series of molars during their life which come in about every 10 years.  Their life span is 60-70 years and when the last series of molars comes in and wears down, that is when the elephant goes near a watering hole to get food that is easier to digest.  That is where the “elephant graveyard” comes into play. There is no such thing as the graveyard, simply an area where elephants can eat easier in their last years and then finally pass away.

When elephants are culled from a preserve, all of the elephants in a family must be killed.  If you only kill the older ones, the younger ones will remember that humans killed their parents and will attack humans later one.  That is how Rambo and Rachel came to the recovery center.

Our evening tour of the preserve found us looking at several bark spiders.  They are about 2 inches in length and spin a web each night to trap insects and then before daylight they have to take the web down.  If they don’t birds come and eat them.  The bush certainly shows you the circle of life.  We did find out three cheetahs from last night laying near one of their quarries, but they ended up simply laying there so we left (it is pretty sad when we were disappointed to see cheetahs instead of a leopard).

The Big 5 are the animals that when shot will come and attack you.  In this preserve, they are elephants, rhinos, Cape buffalos, lions and leopards.  We have seen everything but the leopards.

Today we are going to see all of the “cats’ in a rehabilitation center and then going to the old preserve in South Africa.  The only torture involved in shopping is on the list too.

I will keep you posted.

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