Yesterday, we watched another elephant die

    It has been hot recently - very hot. After dispersing for a few days following scattered rain a couple of weeks ago, the elephants are back and they are dying in the heat. Sitting at the viewing point at Mandavu Dam it is possible to count six reasonably “fresh” elephant carcasses (if “fresh” is a word that can ever be applied to something so smelly). At Masuma and Shumba the carcasses are usually dragged away so that the smell doesn’t reach the viewing platforms but at both of these places the remains of many dead elephants are clearly visible.

    Lions are one of the causes of death at Masuma. The big “Mohican” pride has killed four elephants in the past four days and when we passed there on Monday they were so full of meat they made no attempt to move away from the car and we got some nice photos.

  The vultures are no doubt grateful for the lions’ wastefulness…..

   Away from the “Mohicans”, the cause of death of the elephants is not completely clear. A very few seem to have died of a mystery disease in which their legs swell to grotesque proportions. More seem to be either too young or too old and to have died of ‘poverty’ in this over-long dry season. Others however look reasonably healthy and it isn’t easy to say exactly why they have died – stress through lack of food, competition for water, extreme temperatures and so on is the best guess. Yesterday we saw the end of one such animal.

   We had parked at the crossing of the Gubombire River to drop off an anti-poaching patrol…..

   Down at the river, a big bull elephant was drinking from a hole dug in the sand. As we stood watching he suddenly threw up his head, his back legs gave way and he sank to the ground in an uncomfortable cross-legged position.

   It was obvious that this wasn’t a natural position so we went closer and as we approached, his head sank to the ground…..

  

   He was still alive at this point, his ears moving feebly and his trunk stretching out in front of him.

   But as we all stood silently watching, his breathing stopped, his ears no longer moved and, without a sound, he died.

   Even after this rather ungainly death, he was still sufficiently awe-inspiring for us to be reluctant to approach but eventually we got over our fear and Sue took some photos to mark the death of yet another of our elephants…..

   If the rains are long-delayed, he won’t be the last.

Some news from Masuma

In June I wrote about the great game viewing in the dry season at Masuma Dam. Back then there was plenty of water in the dam and the animals were able to spread themselves out to drink

Masuma dam, 3 July 2012

By the end of the month the water was disappearing fast..

And Sable Antelope (Hippotragus niger) , never seen here except when conditions are very dry, were coming to drink.

Masuma Dam, 26 July 2012

  By September the water was very low and so stirred up by bathing elephants that nothing really wanted to drink it. The three remaining hippo came out of the mud to drink the fresh water coming from the pump.

Masuma dam 20 September 2012

And most of the animals and birds coming to the dam to drink also tried to use the pumped water.

Waterbuck

Impala and Guinea Fowl

By October, the water in the dam itself was all but gone.

The lions in the area had grown fat on the easy pickings of weak old buffalo and vulnerable young elephants

   Without the water it was clear that the dam was heavily silted. National Parks don’t have the resources to move such a huge amount of mud and the dam scoop made available by Wildlife and Environment Zimbabwe (WEZ) was busy in the Main Camp area so local mining company Makomo Resources offered to send in machinery to clear the dam. We went yesterday to see how they are getting on. For lovers of Masuma it isn’t a pretty sight….

There’s an impressive amount of mud to dispose of but the dam will surely be much improved without it and no doubt it will hold much more water next year. Our thanks to Makomo for their generous help.

The end of the dry season

This is (we hope), the end of the dry season. In the middle of October the heat was intense. For days on end the temperature didn’t fall below thirty degrees in our house, day or night, and at its hottest it reached thirty nine degrees. Outside, the view from the edge of the hill was of the flood-plain baking in the heat and almost disappearing in the heat haze.

   Then last week a few clouds started to appear, promising rain to come.

    Eventually the day came when the rain finally arrived. First there was a strong wind, raising clouds of dust from the bush across the Sinamatella River…..

   Then at last the rain fell and Sue rushed out with the camera to record the first drops falling on the verandah…..

   As usual we were not prepared and had to hurry around closing car windows, bringing in chairs and so on but we needn’t have bothered as the rain stopped almost as soon as it started, just leaving us to enjoy the smell of damp earth for a few minutes before it all dried up again.

    In one or two other places there has been slightly better rain and the elephants have gone to wherever it fell. They have left us with the bush around Sinamatella looking as if it can’t possibly recover. The Mopane scrub, which is the elephants’ least favourite has been broken down to elephant-height stumps with broken branches and hardly a blade of grass between the trees. It never looks exactly lush but now it looks awful

   More palatable bush such as Combretum which can be dense and green in the rains has been opened out in places until it looks almost as bad as the Mopane.

  And, for some of the trees the rain, when it finally comes, will be too late. Elephants have destroyed many small and a few medium sized Baobabs this year – a sad sight when they fall..

   But as usual, the situation is not as bad as it seems. The bush will of course recover, though we will need a couple of good years for it to get back to how it was at the end of last year.  Some of the plants are already preparing. This interesting purple succulent which we found near Chawato Sulphur Spring (and can’t identify), has flowered and sent out its airborne seeds to wait for the rain.

   And close to Bumboosie Springs the Rain Trees (Lonchocarpus)  and the Crotons have come into full leaf and have flowered.

    Meanwhile, back at Sinamatella, the Cicadas are singing, the sun is shining and we are still waiting for the rain. Last year, early rain was followed by weeks of scorching sun. We just hope this year isn’t a repeat of that. 

  

Journey to Main Camp

Even though it is only around 100km away, we don’t often get to travel down to Main Camp these days. Last week we were invited to a meeting there to discuss responses to the current poor water supply for animals in the Park. The meeting was due to start early so we had to travel all the way around by the main Victoria Falls to Bulawayo road as the trip through the Park itself is too slow. Sue took the opportunity to get some photos of the communities along the road.

    No two homesteads are alike. Most are traditional round or square huts with earth walls and a grass roof…..

  

   Not all have a grass roof. This one is made of old oil drums beaten flat……

   Some have a mixture of styles……

   And some are tidy…..

    Whilst others are less so……

To the outsider they are all picturesque but life in these communities can be very hard. Most of the people seen by a passing motorist are women carrying babies, water, food and firewood.

  It is often thought that the men are at home doing nothing while the women do all the work but in many rural communities a lot of the men are away in towns such as Hwange and Bulawayo or are outside the country – in South Africa or Botswana - trying to earn a living.

   Schools are available and most children are willing to walk long distances to attend…..

Though trying to learn in the heat of unshaded classrooms such as these near cross- Dete must be hard.

In such hot, dry countryside, small-scale farming is a precarious way to make a living and some people try other things as well. Along one stretch of the road there are a number of Baobab trees and people here sell the fruits - three for a dollar….

In other seasons the same people sell dried umNyii – the fruits of the wild Bird Plum (Berchemia discolor) or melons that they have grown in their fields.

Nearby are some wood-carvers whose stall has been a feature of this section of the road for many years….

There are two or three small irrigated gardens growing food for sale and home consumption and either using small dams or, as here, a hand-pumped borehole….

And there are various shops, such as Dinde Store, close to the Inyantue River……

 But over long stretches there are still wide open, undeveloped spaces such as here, looking towards Kamativi from around cross-Dete…

Or here, on the road from Dete village……

It was a long hot journey, and it took us to a long hot meeting.  To be honest, I preferred the journey.