SAVE Foundation news

This week I received the following email from Nicholas Duncan, President of the SAVE Foundation of Australia……..

Friends!  In the last few days we are proud to announce that, for the first time in our nearly 25 years existence, we have cracked through the $500,000 barrier of donated goods to rhino conservation!  This, in turn, takes our total to more than $4,000,000 since we started in June 1987! Thanks to everyone who has been part of this amazing, record breaking year.  We have also raised a mammoth $470,000 to fund these donations.  As you know, we are not a high profile group and most of our income comes from hard work to run events at a profit.  We are not at the forefront of trendy causes and receive fairly small donations from the general public.

Amongst the donated items this year are;

1.       8 x used Landrover Defender 4wds.

2.       7 months of extraordinary specialized training for 117 rangers.

3.       Rhino monitoring support in all the Intensive Protection Zones.

4.       Lowveld Rhino Trust, where 80+% of the rhinos are located..

5.       Veterinary support for rhino management operations.

6.       Sophisticated tracking and communication equipment.

7.       Other conservation projects.

   That’s a fantastic effort in difficult financial times. Without SAVE, we certainly would not be here and I don’t think the rhino would be either. Many thanks to everyone involved.

   With water available all over the Park, this is the poaching season. I was out yesterday taking rangers to follow up on a human (presumably poacher) spoor that had been found right on the western edge of the IPZ.  Unfortunately the tracks were too old and faint for us to follow and we didn’t find the poachers but we did find something else that I’m not all that keen on – this large (approx 2,5m) python.

The business end of a python – before it started getting cross 

   I know I should try to like snakes but I’m afraid I just can’t bring myself to appreciate them. Sue and I particularly dislike pythons, having several times found them looking fat and well fed in our chicken house when we lived in Botswana and once having had a big one in our house at Mlibizi. That one not only invaded the house but also ate one of our cats which is not really the sort of behaviour to make people like you. The python in the photo was lying right across the road and it took us some time to persuade it to move. If we prodded it in the tail it turned and tried to bite but stayed on the road. I’ve seen those TV programmes where the presenter nonchalantly picks up all sorts of angry reptiles to show the camera but none of us was keen to do that and in the end we just threw sticks at it until it got fed up and went away!

  

   After checking the poacher spoor and spending most of the day investigating the area for any other signs, we returned to Sinamatella in the late afternoon to find that there had been very heavy rain. The floodplain below the camp was a real contrast to the semi desert that was there just a few weeks ago.

 

Sinamatella River flood plain, seen from the camp

We went out to see how the river looked from the

Sinamatella River Drive

and found it flowing strongly right over the bridge.

 For a moment I thought of driving across but many years ago we tried to cross the Umguza when it was in flood and our Land Rover was swept sideways and nearly over the edge of a bridge. Having experienced that once we didn’t take a chance on being carried away into this…….

Even a Land Cruiser would struggle in here!

…..so we turned round and drove home the way we came.

    We were surprised to meet an elephant on the road. Most leave Sinamatella in the rains, partly to find better food elsewhere but perhaps also to avoid the very soft mud that is so often associated with Mopane bush.

Walking in that must be hard work even for an elephant.

Back at Sinamatella, the day ended with a startlingly bright sunset. Sue couldn’t resist a photo though we already have hundreds of sunset pictures.

It really was this bright – no ‘photo shop’ involved