The proposal for a fenced rhino conservation area is taking shape fast. We have agreement in principal from National Parks although final approval will only come after the plans have been thoroughly investigated. To get that started we have spent a few days doing some vegetation analysis for the proposed area. Sinamatella is very lucky to have Ranger Richard Ndlovu available to help with this sort of work.
Richard has a wide knowledge of trees and shrubs and can name most of the trees around Sinamatella in Latin, Ndebele and English. Sometimes in Tonga
Another expert for this sort of work is Wildlife Officer Mercy Maganga who carried out a survey of the plant species eaten by Black Rhino back in 2009. Mercy accompanied us on our first day of analysis and found, as well as lots of rhino browse, an unusually large Leopard Tortoise.
We already knew the area we were investigating quite well but approached the job as scientifically as we could, collecting data from random quadrats chosen by computer on a map. We then walked in by GPS to each point in turn. The data collection was quite easy and quick but there was a lot of walking involved so it took three days in all.
As expected, we found the ground varies from very open Mopane scrub…..
To quite dense Diospyros and Combretum bush…….
The rhino don’t like Mopane but our results so far show that most of the area is covered with good browse and we are confident we could keep up to five rhino within the fence without having to feed them.
After finishing our vegetation data collection, Sue and I went to Victoria Falls to do some desperately needed work with Trevor on our financial situation. Sadly, after three years of fantastic support, the SAVE Foundation has decided to consolidate its rhino funding in the areas that still have reasonable numbers of rhino and will reduce its support to us significantly for the next three months - then decide whether or not to continue at all. At the same time as we got that bad news, we heard that the company that has been sponsoring our fuel supplies has been forced to close, so suddenly we find ourselves without the money or fuel we need to carry on. It seems odd to continue working on our hugely expensive fenced sanctuary scheme at a time when we are not sure that we can stay in the field even to the end of the month but we honestly believe it is a worthwhile plan and we hope to find a way out of our current difficulty. Perhaps we’ve seen too many reality TV shows. They always seem to have a moment where someone has just one last chance to do something or other and it invariably works out OK in the end. Here’s hoping real life can imitate “reality”. Just in case, I’ll be searching the area at the end of this rainbow I photographed last week. A crock of gold would be very useful right now!
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