Ubizane Rhino Poaching

With a very sad heart, it pains us to announce that our poached male Butch’s female companion of many years had also been poached, almost exactly a year after Butch was poached in March 2011. The picture below on the left is the last picture taken of her two weeks ago.

The female and her five year old calf were last seen on Wednesday 21 March 2012, after which we could not find either of them on Thursday or Friday. Then on Saturday we could only find the tracks of the young calf, but no sign of the mother. And on Sunday we could only find the calf on his own.  This put everyone on high alert as they never graze apart from each other. We launched an intensive search on foot with all available manpower and it took three days of walking from sunrise to sunset, but we had no indication that she had been poached, there was no vultures circling or foul smells or any sign of someone entering the property.

On Thursday morning at 09:00 the search party stumbled upon her butchered carcass. With further investigation by the attending veterinarian and members of the Hawks, it was concluded in the autopsy that she had been shot with a large caliber rifle either while she was grazing or sleeping. Both her horns were removed. DNA samples were taken, and the investigation continues.

Tiban our mischievous little warthog

If you’ve liked or become friends with Ubizane on Facebook you would have seen pictures of Tiban. He is now part of the Ubizane family. Keep reading to hear his story.

Tiaan our manager was doing his usual daily fence checks one morning; making sure everything was in order, he suddenly drove past a baby warthog frantically running up and down searching for his mother; he was extremely lost and scared. Tiaan was able to catch him and brought him back to the Lodge. We were worried that he wouldn’t survive as he was covered in ticks and terrified of humans. Tiaan and the whole Ubizane team were determined to keep him alive and nurse him back to health as he was only a couple weeks old, weighing less than 1 kg. Tiaan went through the procedure needed when rescuing wild animals; this included an internet search and phone calls to the vet to find out what foods or liquids are right for each different animal and Tiban’s was baby’s milk. So with that said a baby bottle, an old blanket and a hot water bottle was found for the little guy. He drank all his milk and got comfortable in the blanket.

A few days later, Tiban was getting stronger and more fighting fit by the day. He was with us for a week when he decided to give us all the biggest fright; he escaped through the narrowest opening of a window when he was left alone whilst we quickly ran out to do grocery shopping. When we got home and saw him missing we all broke into tears and started a frantic search for our little baby. The afternoon turned into a stormy evening and we were so worried because we knew he was still too young to fend for himself. We decided to call Ziquenya; our anti-poaching/sniffer dog to help as well because it was getting very late and dark outside, the storm didn’t help either, that made us worry even more for his safety. A good few hours of searching went on with no luck; we had no choice but to stop searching for the night.

Everyone woke up bright and early the following morning and continued the search because we didn’t want to give up on our little Tiban; we still had faith in finding him. We searched and searched up until lunch time and then it was known to many of us the chances of him surviving 24 hours outside by himself were very slim. We all went back to the lodge; all filled with sadness that we had lost him and would never see him again. Until… it seemed like a miracle, Tiban came crawling out the bushes covered in dirt, grass and few ticks. We got hold of him and brought him back to nursing, with everyone holding their breath in hopes of his survival. That day Tiban proved to us that he was a fighter.

This is what he looks like today (March 2012), all grown up. Tiban has turned out to be such a fun and loving warthog, always looking for attention and food of course.

For more stories and follow ups on how well Tiban has been, keep following the Ubizane blog and Facebook pages.

Africa's beautiful Giraffes

Today has been a really beautiful sunny day at Ubizane, the birds are chirping, the Monkeys are having fun playing in the trees and the pool is the place to be for our guests. Upon driving into the Ubizane gate today we were greeted by a tall Giraffe eating leaves on the tree tops. I asked Hamilton our trusty Game Ranger; who knows everything there is to know about Wildlife, how to tell the difference between a male and female Giraffe.

Take a look at their horns; they are actually called Ossicones. Male Giraffes have no hair on the tips of their Ossicone. This is because the males use them to bring forth dominance by swinging their heads at one another in tests of strength to get the attention of females. This makes their Ossicones hairs wear down.

Females on the other hand rarely fight, so their hairs are able to grow longer. One could see from quite a distance the Giraffes that have hairs or not.  

Younger male Giraffes do initially have hairs growing on their Ossicones because they are still too young to get involved in mating.

Here are more interesting fact about Giraffes:

·         They have very high blood pressure so they are able to pump blood up their tall necks to get it to their brains

·         They have a soft bone in their chest that acts to reduce the blood pressure when they bend their necks to drink.

·         They are the only animals that need less water than camels.

·         They live in loose herds with no specific leader.

·         Their height makes it easy for them to spot predators from a distance, so if one signals danger, they all run.

·         When giraffes walk they move both right legs forward, then both left. When running, however, the back legs come forward on the outside of the front legs.

·         Baby Giraffes are born while the mother is standing which means they fall to the ground at birth and can walk within 20 minutes.

Does anyone want to know more about Giraffes, please leave a reply if you would?

This is what we were planning for our Safari Lodge Lawn Dinner last night....however the thunder started about 3pm, and the rain come on by 5pm.  Luckily our group of guests arrived in the nick of time, and the rain was a welcome relief after their long hot journey here.  Our guests had previously been backpacking, and the welcome drinks and cool face cloths were well received by them!  They had a lovely dinner in the safari restaurant, and went to bed contented and relaxed before their early morning wake up calls and drive into the park.

Safari Lodge Lawns

The lawns of safari lodge have been bustling this past week, and thanks to the rain we have been blessed with in the evenings of late they should recover quickly.  A small family of warthogs caked in fresh mud, a skittish zebra, Nyala old and young, and a group of female impala have all been spotted nibbling on the fresh green grass between Safari rooms 1 and 4, and the majestic reticulated giraffe have been spotted snacking on the acacias on the outskirts of the camp again, allowing guests to take plenty of photos from their rooms!