As the crimson glow of the penetrating African sun broke over the horizon, we watched the scenes of everyday life play out before us: the orange and avocado sellers by the side of the road, the men in torn blue overalls walking beside the road on their way to work, the burning sugar cane fields in the first process of harvesting. Then there were the community towns – dusty dirt roads lined with an odd assortment of tin shacks, multiple small square concrete buildings variously advertising a hair salon, funeral parlour, grocery shop or bar. All of these were interspersed with several Coca-Cola adverts, the only link to the Western world I had left behind.
After two hours we pulled into the designated rendezvous point, a small petrol station just a few miles from the reserve we were heading to. There was time for a coffee while we waited for the HGV and truck to catch up. It was then that the call came through: the helicopter pilot had had to divert to help attend to a white rhino, and he would be delayed by several hours. In a cruel, callous world where rhinos are brutally poached for a commodity no different to our fingernails, they must always come first. So, with no helicopter, all we could do was sit and wait. ‘Hurry up and wait’ is a popular mantra in wildlife circles and this was certainly one of those occasions.
With coffee, and the prospect of a hearty breakfast, our spirits were lifted and conversation started to flow. What were the pros and cons of legalizing the trade of rhino horn? Does vegetarianism extend to one’s holiday and when travelling? What animals would play which positions in an African wildlife rugby team? These were just a few of the discussions that arose as we surveyed the comings and goings of the petrol station forecourt: mostly ‘bakkies’ (pickup-trucks) and retired German tourists, dressed in the obligatory khaki and heavily laden bum bag, arriving in their hired safari van piled high with enough gear to equip a small army.
By 12.30 p.m. the table was awash with the remnants of an eclectic mix of fodder, including hartebeest biltong, cashew nuts dowsed in peri-peri sauce, and Mrs Balls’s pickle-flavoured crisps. Bjorn the capture specialist and vet Derik were just finishing their twelfth cigarette, and Bjorn his eighth cup of coffee.
Into this chaotic scene, order was abruptly restored when Bjorn’s phone rang. Even before the conversation had finished he was heading for his truck and signalling us to head for the minibus. The helicopter was ten minutes away – giraffe capture was go!
We set off for the short 3-mile drive down a dusty dirt road. Just off the main road were two dilapidated, 5-metre-high wire-meshed gates, held shut by a chain and padlock. The bakkie parked up beside them was the only clue that we had reached our destination. The driver – the reserve’s owner – jumped out, unlocked and threw open the gates, and we followed him through. We had barely stepped from the bus when the distant whirr of the propellers reached our ears. We looked skywards at the growing yellow speck of the helicopter as it raced towards us. It circled once, just above the treeline, and then landed amid the plume of dust generated from the downdraught.
The farm was 8,000 hectares of scrubland and rocky mountainous terrain. To the human eye, this desiccated environment appeared hostile, offering little shelter from the scorching African sun, with every plant armed and ready to impale, poison or lacerate. Yet this was home to a vast range of African animals.
Giraffe usually live in relative harmony, sometimes in fairly loose herds led by a single adult male, or else in bachelor herds, while others live as solitary individuals. Generally, fights only break out between males competing for a mate, though on this reserve, males now considerably outnumbered females, and fights were becoming a frequent occurrence, to the extent that an old male bull had been found dead a few weeks previously. It is a beautiful concept to just let nature be and do, but the reality of conservation is that when man builds a fence to contain animals, however big the area, those animals need to be managed. So some of the young males had to go, and today we were after three such solitary individuals.
Having now seen the size of the terrain we would be dealing with, the requirement of the helicopter was becoming clear. The local contingent, minus Derik, briefly busied themselves unloading the spare fuel canisters and detaching the doors from the helicopter before the now all too familiar habitual ritual played out: reaching for the cigarette packet from the left shirt pocket, tapping out a solitary smoke and embracing it with pursed lips then lighting and relaxing into it, as though they had been working for hours. Derik was oblivious to them all as they leant against the helicopter deep in conversation, smoking away. His exclusive attention was on the large spinal needle in his left hand. It was attached to a 3-ml syringe that was decanting the mixed concoction of Thiofentanal, Etorphine and Hyaluronidase into a small dart in preparation for the job ahead of anaesthetizing the giraffe. Potent opioids Etorphine and Thiofentanyl have become the drugs of choice for in-field anaesthesia of giraffes because they work rapidly, an effect enhanced by the Hyaluronidase, which further accelerates absorption.
The smoking party disbanded as the pilot jumped into the helicopter and started the engine. As Derik walked towards the chopper into the plume of dust created by the downdraught, dart gun over his right shoulder and carrying his dart box in his left hand, the scene resembled something from an American Vietnam movie.
Within moments the helicopter was a mere speck in the skyline heading into the mountainous terrain in search of our first giraffe. Loading up the two trucks, we headed out in the direction of the helicopter, down one of the main arterial tracks that bisected the reserve. The giraffe trailer brought up the rear. Even this stage was technically complicated – we needed to position ourselves so that we could respond and intercept the giraffe within two minutes of it being darted. The mounting tension was palpable, and conversation minimal as we each reflected on the questions playing through our racing minds. Would we be able to catch any of the giraffe? Would we get to them in time once they were darted? Would they survive the anaesthetic? The sight of a solitary white rhino, grazing 20 metres from where we passed it, briefly distracted us.
Then the crackly sound of Derik’s voice could be heard from the portable radio as he updated us on their progress. They had spotted a solitary male and were in pursuit, trying to guide him to a safe area for darting. The convoy pulled into a clearing to wait for the follow-up instructions. It shouldn’t be long now. The helicopter appeared in the distance coming over the ridge, about a mile away.
This stage, too, was extremely technical. To our untrained eyes and from our vantage point on the ground, the helicopter was just hovering towards us, turning right, then left, now dropping to tree level, now rising high into the clear blue African sky, demonstrating the pilot’s full range of skills. Communication between vet and pilot had to be intuitive, anticipating the giraffe’s every move, gently and skilfully forcing him in a direction that avoided any potential hazards while also controlling the pace of his escape so as not to overexert him and thus induce a fatal ‘capture myopathy’.
Stress, overexertion and dehydration, combined with the increased blood pressure induced by the drugs that are used to immobilize any wild animal, can be a fatal combination, and the risk is multiplied several fold when capturing under the baking African sun. Capture myopathy is invariably fatal. Degeneration of the muscles induced by hyperthermia, together with an excessive build-up of lactic acid, causes an extreme release of potassium from muscle cells which, in acute cases, results in heart failure. If the animal survives the first stage, then muscle rupture invariably means the animal is recumbent and a fatal acidosis leads to destruction of the muscle and kidney cells, kidney failure and death within a few days. So the stakes were high.