Safari Game Activities - Safari Diary

19th June - We've had two unexpected surprises this week with sightings of the elusive leopard. These ferocious big cats are known to inhabit the Big 5 Entabeni Safari Conservancy but are fiercely shy. However we're excited to report that the tracks of a female leopard have been spotted near the Extreme 19th green. What's more, we've also learned that a feisty young female has also recently killed a blesbok antelope on the Upper Escarpment. We have a male leopard on site who often walks up the path near the Extreme 19th so we regularly see his tracks, however we don't usually see much of the females on the reserve so both these sightings are very exciting.
- Young white rhino walk in front of their parents whereas black rhino young walk at the back
- White rhino have a square lip but black rhino have a hooked mouth
- White rhino eat grass however black rhino eat branches, twigs and leaves
- The white rhino can't swim. They can't lift their heads higher than their shoulders because they are grazers
12th March 2010 - She may be the fastest land animal in the world – but our only resident female cheetah was going nowhere when our Game Management team caught up with her recently.
With the aid of local vet Manie, of Limpopo Wildlife Services, the team carried out some much needed testing on our favourite feisty feline to ensure she stays in tip top condition.
We're pleased to say the female, who is now four-years-old, has continued to adapt to her surroundings here at Entabeni. And, as conservationists, we still feel it's important to keep monitoring the female's progress – to continue to learn about what she likes to eat; the habitat she likes to be in and how she behaves at different times.
However, if you put a collar on an animal it's your ethical responsibility to remove it when the battery is dead and this is exactly what happened recently.
26th February 2010 - WE'VE got a Safari Diary with a difference for you this week – but we're sure you'll agree the story of this antelope-eating python is well worth telling.
As you can see from our pictures of her huge belly, the South African python had recently eaten. Did you know that they swallow their prey whole then leave their stomachs to do the digesting?
- The South African python can grow more than four metres in length
- It eats anything from monkeys to small antelope such as duiker
- After feasting on her prey, this python may well not eat for many weeks to come
- This python will have dislocated her lower jaw to swallow such large prey
- You can tell this python is a female because the last piece (or tail) of her body is short and fat – the male is long and small
- A python will attack humans if they are threatened or hungry
- The python is a non-venomous snake however it can inflict a nasty bite
- The python's mouth contains 240-260 teeth which it uses to hold down prey
- The python usually strikes at dusk or dawn
- The python is a constrictor. It literally squeezes the life out of its prey – every breath you take, the python will squeeze a little harder
- Such a female can weigh up to 55kg
15th January 2010 - What a week for our resident cheetah brothers. This impressive duo made quite a kill when they brought down an adult male waterbuck on the reserve. It's the biggest beast they've ever taken down on the reserve and it's four times the weight of the cheetah so it's quite unusual for cheetah to do this. Remember waterbuck are usually fodder for lions as lions are quite capable of bringing them down. But the cheetah are doing very well on the reserve. They are rarely without food, making a kill roughly every four to five days. In fact their hunting skills are so honed now that they don't always stay so long on the carcass to finish off their kill, hanging around for only a couple of days before they leave the carcass and head off hunting again. The female cheetah, in contrast, will spend up to three days feasting on her kill. I think it's because there's so much out there on the reserve for these cats to eat, also the female is a bit more skittish than the males.
January 2010 - Update
LIONS
Game Management Team researcher Natasha Nienaber opens her big cat diary as she prepared for the release of two male cheetah into the conservancy.
October 2008
Our tw
o male cheetah arrive in a transport cage on 3rd October 2008. I can barely contain my excitement.
My first thought – as we sit face to face – is just how small these two brothers are. They are 18-months-old but they were very young when their mother left them.
However, they are already self-sufficient and they know how to hunt. They are also litter mates, what we call a coalition, so I have a good feeling that their release into this Big Five game reserve will be a success.
Although they were sedated before they were placed in their cage and transported here, they are now wide awake and sat watching me.
In a moment I will release them into a 1.2 hectare boma, which will be their temporary home for the next four months as we prepare them for their walk to freedom. These boys will now be my responsibility and this is why I came to Entabeni Safari Conservancy 12-months-ago, to monitor the cheetah. To me, cheetah are very special creatures not least because they are so vulnerable to extinction.
It will be my role to gather information about them. I just hope I can go some way towards saving these beautiful creatures from extinction.
I keep one side of the cage they are in closed so they will know which way to run out from. Then I open the crate.
Their first instinct is to run. They head for a corner of the boma where they obviously feel safe. This is a new environment for them; they have no idea who I am yet so everything is new, including me.
But cheetah are capable of forming strong bonds with people and as I watch them watching me, I truly hope that over time this will happen.
In the afternoon I return and place a piece of meat in the boma for them then leave.
Although I desperately want to see how they are getting on, for the next two days I leave them alone so they can get used to their new home.
Then my work will really begin.
November 2008
It's been an interesting four weeks since the boys arrived.
When they first arrived they would frequently spit and hit their front paws on the ground at me. But as time has gone on this has got less and less. I visit them every day and as they've got used to me being around, they've become visibly more relaxed.
While they are in the boma it is my responsibility to ensure they have fresh water and food. I clean their water every day and feed them twice a week.
And they are starting to come pretty close to me at feeding time. Still, although they're getting used to me and my vehicle, it's important to never forget that while cheetah may not be as dangerous as lions, they are cats who are capable of hurting you. You have to respect these animals.
When I approach them with the food I blow a whistle three times. That way they associate the whistle with being fed and not my vehicle. Remember, they will eventually be released into the conservancy and we want our guests to be able to watch them safely from our game drive vehicles.
Later I take the bones and skin they have left away with me to prevent disease. There are no other creatures in the boma who will eat the remains the cheetah leave behind so I have to do this for them.
One of the important things I have had to consider in planning their release is that these cheetah have come from a reserve where there weren't any lions. To a lion, a cheetah is competition so they are a real risk to these boys.
But sooner or later our lions will pick up their scent and realise there is something new here. Then they will come to the boma and get their first introduction to each other.
Hopefully the cheetah will learn to stay away from them when they are released.
December 2008
I spend most of every day with my boys now – just sitting and talking to them. I sit for hours and talk to them. And when I run out of things to say I read to them.
I'm reading them Born Free; it seems very appropriate.
I'm also starting to learn their personalities; I can even tell when they are happy. It's the same as with a pet dog. You check that they are eating; that they look well in themselves.
One of the reasons I spend so much time with them is that if anything happens to either cheetah and we have to get a vet on-site, this way they will already know who I am so we can get close to them if necessary.
Cheetah are a good tourism asset and we want our guests to be able to see them. So it's important that the cheetah get used to our game drive vehicles.
I start to introduce the vehicles to them by driving into the boma with a game ranger. Over the next few weeks I also start to visit them with one or two different people, so they get accustomed to different people and different voices.
January 2009
It's time to start exercising the cheetah. They haven't hunted for themselves now for three months so they are getting a bit lazy and soon they will have to make their own kills.
So I tie a piece of meat to a rope and pull the rope with them from the back of the vehicle. This way they begin re-building their muscles.
By now I'm regularly going to see them in the boma with other game rangers. They know the sound of the game vehicles and they've become very relaxed around them.
One week before their release we place a collar on the subservient male. The reason for this is that I work with telemetry and it is this that will enable me to monitor their progress when they are released.
Telemetry works just like your TV. The aerial picks up a signal from the battery-operated collar that the animal is wearing. You point the aerial in the sky and it will tell you which area the cheetah are in. On open, flat grassland it can pick animals up as far as nearly five kilometres.
There's a lot of controversy around collaring animals but as long as you are ethical about it and are monitoring the animal – and either remove or change the batteries of a collar where the batteries are dead – it allows researchers like me to gather valuable information about these creatures that we can use to conserve them.
February 2009
It's 3rd February and the day of their release into the reserve. It's a day I will always remember.
I'm excited but worried like a mother at the same time. I'm also sad because I know from now on I won't get to see my boys every single day.
I call them to me - “Come boys” - and feed them a small piece of meat so they won't go out of the boma completely hungry. At the same time I also know that there are plenty of small game on the reserve that the cheetah will be able to catch for food, such as impala and blesbok. It's an easier time for them to kill or hunt now than in the winter.
At 8am exactly I open the gate and out they walk. They seem a little bit nervous and take it step by step. Suddenly they have all this space to walk in. They seem a little bit skittish. It will take them a few days to acclimatise.
I follow them most of that day. At night I leave them but then I go back out to find them because I hear that the lions are close by and I want to make sure the cheetah are okay.
There's not much you can do if they do come into contact with each other because you can't interfere with nature, but luckily they pass each other. I'm so relieved.
The first two weeks after release is the most dangerous because lions will kill cheetah and this happens frequently. I always make sure I know where the cheetah – and the lions – are before I leave them at night time but I still have many sleepless nights during those initial few weeks.
Now they are out in the wild I have the opportunity to gather information about which habitat they prefer; what they are eating and how often. This helps me establish, for example, if there is enough prey on the reserve for them. Saying that, they've already made their first kill – a wildebeest calf.
I still see my boys every day at the moment. One day they even came and lay by me, by my vehicle door. It was nice to know that they still recognised me.
March 2009
The boys have quickly settled into their new home and their new-found freedom.
I know that they make a kill about once a week; that they like the open plains and that they like to practise hunting on each other. I've even watched them stalking each other as they play.
The brothers have a very strong bond which is clear to see. They will even enter into a “gentlemen's agreement” when it comes to mating with our resident female cheetah.
She was successfully re-introduced in 2008 and has adapted extremely well to her environment. But I still believe these two males will be together for life.
They've come a long way from the Eastern Cape to join all of the Big Five and other large predators already resident in the conservancy. And although I don't get to see them every day, I still catch up with them as much as possible.
For now, though, they must live their lives as wild cheetah.