Smile for the Camera!

Another day on the river, it's a hard life in Africa! I caught this guy on the river outside our farm. He weighed in at a fantastic 1.9kg (over four pounds for the old folk!). The three of us on the boat caught six more although they were not so grand. Have no fear the catch was celebrated with great gusto under the African midday sun resulting in some wobbly boating and random casting!!

Dogs, Zoo's and crocs.

Great news the wild dog has been eating at the zoo so things are looking very hopeful. It's been a busy few days as we have also caught the croc that got away last time. The same rope around the neck trick was used but this time it worked (bigger rope!).

Every dog has it's day!

Finally I am very very relieved to say the wild dog is off the property. It leaves a trail of death and chaos. We had been trying to lure it into range of the vet's dart gun by playing the chattering call of wild dogs. To do this we drove around the farm at night parked and played the call at high volume on a loop then waited. This technique works well for Hyena but only resulted in sleep deprivation and a wish to never hear the call of a wild dog again.

The first night was totally fruitless and to add insult to injury we found a dead animal in the morning. We were going to try again but thought it wise to drive around the property trying to find footprints which might narrow our search. Rounding a corner early evening we did better than footprints we found the remains of a Puku. The wild dog was sleeping off it's huge meal in the grass.

So began an epic chase. Wild dogs must at some point in life have worked out the range of a dart gun. We played the game of you move forward it moves you stop it stops. The chase involved two 4x4's trying to herd the dog into range. After several hours of this game we had driven threw woods open plane's and were on the edge of an open area which had recently been burnt. We were ready to give up as soon as the dog entered the long grass. Then as all hope was fading the dog ran along the edge of the grass towards the vet's vehicle. The wild dog paused to take one last look at the strange things that has followed it all evening. Ian Parsons the vet shot from the drivers seat backwards and the dart struck home.

The picture shows the wild dog just after it had been darted. It is quite eary as she is still awake with eyes moving and sneezing but immobilised. We transfered her to a create with bedding and water and she is now being housed at a zoo and will be moved to a national park in the south of the country after a few months.

She may be one of only a few thousand remaining, beautiful, graceful, and a highly tuned hunted but good riddance to her.

Cyril.

Cyril is getting growing quickly but he should be when you consider the volume of milk we are pumping into him. Cyril is fed by putting a finger into his mouth so he suckles and then squirting a mix of baby milk and egg into the corner of his mouth. He wont suck from a rubber dumby probably because of the texture. This technique is going to have to be abandoned soon as his claws and teeth are getting sharper every day.