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.
No comments:
Post a Comment