Africa 2017- Day 26

Day 26- Desert Rhino Camp

Up early, yet again, to chase the trackers.  They spotted rhinos within minutes of their heading out (at 5:30 am.  So, we jumped into our Land Rover with Herunga and bounced along the bumpy tracks at high speed to catch up with them.  Jeri had to seatbelt herself in to stay on the seat.  The trackers had spotted two rhinos at about a half mile away.  How they can find these little gray dots is beyond me.  We helped by triangulating the position, and slowly we worked our way around them to get downwind.  We observed them from about 100 yards.  Our goal was to observe, not interact.  There was a male and female.  The Trust had removed the male’s horn to prevent poachers form harvesting the horn and subsequently killing the rhino.  The horn is a cuticle, similar to a fingernail, and will grow back in about 5 years.  The female’s horn was not removed because she needs this to defend her calf. 

Even at 100 yards these animals are very intimidating, especially while on foot, more than 100yards from our vehicle.  But they seemed to be only interested in maintaining their tank-like figures by eating constantly.   They also had a prehistoric look to them.

Today illegal hunting accounts for the vast majority of rhino deaths and poaching throughout the Asian and African continents is largely spurred by demand from wealthy individuals in Asia.  There are estimated to be roughly 20,700 southern white rhino and only  4,885 black rhino in all of Africa. 150 years ago, Africa boasted  over a million black and white rhinos.

 Black and white do not refer to color of the rhinoceros.  White rhino is a misinterpretation of the Afrikaner term weit or wide, lipped rhino.  The black rhino, also called the hook-lipped rhino due to their prehensile upper lip, black rhinos are the smaller of the two African species.

They were once found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of the Congo Basin. They are now limited to protected areas in the east and south of the continent.

About 96% of black rhinos were lost to large-scale poaching between 1970 and 1992. But effective conservation efforts have seen the total number grow from 2,600 in 1997 to nearly 5,000 today as noted above.

After leaving the rhinos, we spent the remainder of the morning “seeing what we could see” per Herunga.  This included insects, flowers, 

and a great find, a hyena family lounging under a euphorbia bush after a night of hunting.  We had until now not a single good hyena sighting, so we really enjoyed this. 

The euphorbia bus’s sap is poisonous, causing a severe skin rash.  This young hyena is apparently learning this the hard way.

Bird life here is pretty remarkable.  The camouflage of birds and insects is amazing.

There were also plenty of springbok and Hartmann's Mountain Zebra to keep us amused.

As the sun set, lizards headed back to their rocks, and desert hares came out for the night.

We had never seen a scorpion, and on our scorpion hunt at the last camp we came up empty (unless you count the constellation, Scorpius).  Herunga was very happy to take us scorpion hunting.  He used this as a ruse to get us away from camp where the staff had set up a beautiful dinner in the bush.  We were two American interlopers amongst a dozen Aussies who were travelling together.  But as most Australians, they were great fun and a pleasure to interact with. The only downside was the question that we heard from all non-Americans, “  What ‘s with this guy Trump!”  

Before we sat down to eat, Herunga came through with his promise of a scorpion.  At one point while trying to pose it for a photo, he almost took one for the team.  Fortunately, it did not injure hi and we got some great pics.He used a black light to identify the scorpion.  They are real cool under a UV light, but freaky looking with conventional lighting.

More rhinos tomorrow.