As we reached the front of the house, a car pulled into the drive.
‘Daddy’s home, Daddy’s home!’ Jamie shouted in excitement, rushing to the driver’s door of the now parked car.
My heart sank as Mr Parker stepped out of the car and gathered Jamie into his arms.
‘Have you been a good boy for Mummy?’ he enquired, but Jamie completely ignored the question.
‘Daddy, Daddy, this man is wearing a wetsuit on land, silly man, he came to make Bertie better.’
Mr Parker, having only half listened to his son, turned to his wife.
‘Hi, darling,’ she said. ‘This is Jonathan, the vet. He came to have a look at Bertie.’ Her husband stuck out his hand to shake mine, only then gaining a full appreciation of what Jamie had been saying.
‘Oh, I see … You are indeed wearing a wetsuit. Have you been treating seals today or something?’
‘It’s a … long story?’ I replied feebly, noticing the exchange of glances between Mr and Mrs Parker. ‘Anyway, I’d best be getting off. Bertie should be fine now, but any further problems, then give me a call.’
And with that I made a dash for the car, quickly loading my box into the boot, before slumping behind my steering wheel, starting the engine and speeding away, praying that Bertie would not actually need a revisit in the next few days.
Goats: fast facts
Capra aegagrus hircus: The domestic goat
Distribution: Global, following domestication of the wild goat of south-west Asia and eastern Europe.
Description: The domestic goat is a sub-species of the wild goat, Capra aegagrus, with over 300 distinct breeds.
Names: The male is called a ‘buck’ or ‘billy’, the female a ‘doe’ or ‘nanny’, and their young a ‘kid’. A group of goats is called a ‘tribe’.
Life span: About 15–18 years.
Husbandry: In much of the world they are usually free to wander hills and other grazing areas tended by goatherds, who are frequently children. Elsewhere, they are usually stabled, tethered or contained in small paddocks.
Diet: Goats are ruminants, like cattle and sheep, but are browsers rather than grazers. They will often chew on anything, but prefer vines, shrubs and weeds to grasses. They are used in Chinese tea plantations, to eat the weeds and fertilize the plants while avoiding the tea leaves themselves because of their bitter taste.
Gestation: 150 days. The breeding season depends on their global location, the female’s 21-day cycle either commencing when day-length shortens or lasting all year round in equatorial regions.
Weight: Anything from 20 kg for pygmy breeds to 140 kg for Boers.
Size and growth: Sexual maturity is reached anywhere between 3 and 15 months, and full size at 2–3 years.
Body temperature: 38.8–39.4 °C.
Conservation: The domestic goat is one of the most wildly distributed agricultural animals in the world, due to its multiplicity of uses to humanity. More humans consume goat’s milk globally than cow’s milk; their meat is popular to consume, their manure can be used as a fertilizer, their fibre and hide for clothing or leather products, and they are useful for clearing land of unwanted vegetation and carrying light loads. It is estimated that there are around 924 million domestic goats worldwide, so happily they are not a threatened species, like some others in this book. Why not celebrate the huge benefit this animal has been to humanity by sending a goat to someone in the developing world, by visiting: www.musthavegifts.org/a-goat.html?.
6
ELEPHANT
‘There is no creature among all the Beasts of the world which hath so great and ample demonstration of the power and wisdom of Almighty God as the Elephant.’
Edward Topsell
I was sitting in the driving seat of the Ford Ranger, seat reclined, feet resting on the frame of my open door, watching the interactions of two lilac-breasted rollers in the mimosa trees on the other side of the sandy track, lost in my thoughts. My two sleeping passengers were oblivious to this, as they were to the little duiker that moments before had darted across the track just feet in front of me, disappearing as quickly as it had come. For the moment, it was a waiting game. The two-way radio that lay next to the gearstick had been silent since Ben, Andres and Lyle had left three hours before.
We were in thick bush at the base of a mountain region just outside the South African town of Hoedspruit. Our objective was to find, dart and radio-collar one of three young bull elephants that had broken out of a game reserve several months previously. They had migrated 40 km from their home and had now settled in this region, hiding in thick bush during the day and then feasting on a local farmer’s mango and orange crops at night. Understandably, the farmer felt that the elephants had outstayed their welcome and was keen to have them removed from the farm before they destroyed his livelihood.
Over the previous two months various attempts had been made by helicopter, initially to herd them back towards the reserve, and then, when they had migrated too far, to move them away from areas where they would cause destruction, but both had failed. Now they had a taste for oranges and mangos, and seemed to have settled into their daily routine, making this area their new home, and only two options remained: to shoot them, or to relocate them. Fortunately, the farmer was keen on the latter if possible, and the charity, Elephants Alive, had stepped in to organize and fund the operation.
The logistics of relocating three bull elephants weighing in the region of 3 tonnes each, from a relatively inaccessible mountainous area, were colossal, so it was decided to break the operation down into two components. Fortunately, the elephants were sticking together, running as a small bachelor herd. So Phase One was to dart and collar one of the three elephants so that their movements could be monitored and they could easily be located for Phase Two, which would be the actual relocation. Phase One would also give the time for a proper understanding of what would be required for Phase Two. This was our second attempt at Phase One, the first having ended in failure a few days earlier, when darkness had fallen before we were able to locate the elephants. So today we had set off from Nelspruit at 4.30 a.m., in order to arrive at the farm for 7 a.m., to give us a full day to try to find the group, and collar one.
These elephants were completely wild, which not only meant that they were easily spooked, but also that they were potentially very dangerous, a danger enhanced by the fact that they were only accessible by foot. For these reasons, the plan was for a skeleton team to go in first to locate and dart one, and then the rest of the team would drive as close as possible, bringing in the equipment for the procedure, once the elephant was down and the area secure. This skeleton team consisted of Andres, the tracker, who was key to finding the elephants; Ben, who would dart the elephant; and Lyle, the third member of the team, who, armed with a rifle, would act as their bodyguard, in case the worst happened and one of the elephants charged them.
After an hour of trying to pick up a good lead on the elephants’ movements from the night before, we had got the two trucks as close as we could, and then Andres, Ben and Lyle had left on foot. It had been an extraordinary experience to watch Andres work. His vision for things that seemed undetectable to the rest of us was incredible. Water droplets on a sandy track 50 metres from a dam told him that they had drunk from there a few hours previously: walking away from the dam with their trunks down, the water drips out of them in a characteristic fashion. Dry sap from broken branches indicated when the branches were broken. Dung could be aged to the nearest few hours, and then footprints and trunk prints indicated the direction, time and speed of their movement. It was a completely invisible language to me, but for Andres it was as clear and as easy as reading a book.