Rhino Wars – Leopards and Spiders

Rhino Anti Poaching Stories.

There was a huge old leopard at Palala Rhino Sanctuary; one of the younger rhino bore the scars from an attack when he was a baby. His one ear was torn in two, long ways and drooped, I had never heard of a leopard going for a rhino snack before! I found the leopard’s prints, all around my hut quite often so my drill for going to the toilet at night was as follows:
Open door, check the step for snakes, as there were many night adders about. Use torch to look for shinning green eyes, recheck the ground and then proceed to the open air bathroom. Check for any signs of life, when finish, repeat the process and try get back to my hut undamaged.
My little bird must be after that proverbial worm, he starts pecking at my window just before 5am.. While having my coffee I hear, on the slopes of the mountain to my right, the warning cry of the Baboons. “Borghom, Borghom”. I immediately think, “Leopard!” I rush to get my binocs and before I even lift then see something greyish moving along the slopes. Using the binocs I find a family of Bush Pigs running along, not Warthog, Bush Pig.
They look like the cartoon Boar in Asterix and Oblix. I am not too disappointed, having often heard them in the night I have never spotted one in the bush before. I make my morning notes and then pack my Battle Jacket, where a magazine of bullets is suppose to go now holds a Cannon Powershot camera, the rest of the magazine pockets are largely empty. (A very sore point I will not dwell on here). I have modified the Jacket so my binocs are easily accessible but do not bang around; other pockets hold water bottles and Super C sweets. And of course, my pen and paper.
That night, there I was, minding my own business; reading a book by torchlight while lying on my bed. As it was hot I was shirtless, next thing I get this tickling feeling on my chest, which is hidden from view by the book. Now, I am not paranoid about spiders, not even really afraid of them, that said, I have also seen the damage some of them can inflict.
The problem is, unlike with snakes, I have no idea which spider is harmless and which is not. The one on my bare chest looked similar to the ones I have seen in gardens in Gauteng. Brushing him off and making sure in the dim light that he had really skedaddled I continued reading. Then! Another spider landed on my neck. It ran down my neck and on to my chest in seconds. This kind of spider I have never seen before, shape of a Daddy Longlegs but lime green and pale yellow. I have since learned that it is called a Lynx Spider.

After that I pulled the bed cover right up to my chin, never mind how hot it was.
There was a huge old leopard at Palala; one of the younger rhino bore the scars from an attack when he was a baby. His one ear was torn in two, long ways and drooped, I had never heard of a leopard going for a rhino snack before! I found the leopard’s prints, all around my hut quite often so my drill for going to the toilet at night was as follows:
Open door, check the step for snakes, as there were many night adders about. Use torch to look for shinning green eyes, recheck the ground and then proceed to the open air bathroom. Check for any signs of life, when finish, repeat the process and try get back to my hut undamaged.
My little bird must be after that proverbial worm, he starts pecking at my window just before 5am.. While having my coffee I hear, on the slopes of the mountain to my right, the warning cry of the Baboons. “Borghom, Borghom”. I immediately think, “Leopard!” I rush to get my binocs and before I even lift then see something greyish moving along the slopes. Using the binocs I find a family of Bush Pigs running along, not Warthog, Bush Pig.
They look like the cartoon Boar in Asterix and Oblix. I am not too disappointed, having often heard them in the night I have never spotted one in the bush before. I make my morning notes and then pack my Battle Jacket, where a magazine of bullets is suppose to go now holds a Cannon Powershot camera, the rest of the magazine pockets are largely empty. (A very sore point I will not dwell on here). I have modified the Jacket so my binocs are easily accessible but do not bang around; other pockets hold water bottles and Super C sweets. And of course, my pen and paper.
That night, there I was, minding my own business; reading a book by torchlight while lying on my bed. As it was hot I was shirtless, next thing I get this tickling feeling on my chest, which is hidden from view by the book. Now, I am not paranoid about spiders, not even really afraid of them, that said, I have also seen the damage some of them can inflict.
The problem is, unlike with snakes, I have no idea which spider is harmless and which is not. The one on my bare chest looked similar to the ones I have seen in gardens in Gauteng. Brushing him off and making sure in the dim light that he had really skedaddled I continued reading. Then! Another spider landed on my neck. It ran down my neck and on to my chest in seconds. This kind of spider I have never seen before, shape of a Daddy Longlegs but lime green and pale yellow. I have since learned that it is called a Lynx Spider.
After that I pulled the bed cover right up to my chin, never mind how hot it was.


Taken from the yet unpublished Chronicles. You can find links to the already published series of The Chronicles of the Mexican Horse Thief on my page

THE MEXICAN HORSE THIEF.
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In the Lion's Den

A short story about just one of my adventures while doing Rhino Anti Poaching.
We had not seen hide nor hair of the lion for weeks, so when Joseph spotted one of the males in the thick bush we were happy. It was barely visible in the beam, that is how thick the bush was at this end of the reserve. We watched for a while trying to spot his brother, they were never far from each other, but we could not find him, so we then proceeded to resume our perimeter patrol. Or tried too.

Not 100m and we had another flat. Shit. Our spare was also flat, as usual, the ongoing fight to get new tyres for our vehicle was one of the many we were losing with Mabula. Now I may have mentioned this before, but Joseph was the bravest of all my chaps, so I was glad it was he riding shotgun with me this night. Although, another sore point, we had not even a pop gun between the lot of us, never mind a shotgun. I have had to threaten to bliksem the other guys in order to get them to help with flats in the Big Five reserve, not Joseph, he was already out the bakkie and unloading the portable pump, with one eye on the area we had just seen the lion. I attached the pump and we waited, it was not the top of the range pump that one would have liked and pretty slow.

Standing where we were now, it was fucking slow! Joseph heard that the air was escaping and then we both saw the dust in the road been blown off by the air from a hole in the side wall of the tyre. I did another check, with the torch, none of the lions were sneaking up on us as far as I could see, so I ventured a little way into the bush. I needed a thick acacia thorn. I found what I needed and plugged the hole with that. We then pumped the tyre and proceeded to the reserves gate at a speed, well, as fast as the road would allow that is.

 Once out the gate we were in the part of the reserve that had no lion and we checked our repair job, it was holding ok, we could go collect the guys on OP, just we would have to stop and pump the tyre every 20km or so. That was alright, we only had to worry about hippo now when we stopped. I had to get Dean to do something about our tyre situation, one night was the night that we would pick up shit, especially with those two new, young Kalahari males……


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 THE MEXICAN HORSE THIEF

Teasing a Night Adder

Found this chap in the driveway of a Mechanical Workshop, at 11am, unusual, as it was a very hot day.





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Rhino Wars – The Internal Enemy

Today, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Selomie proved, to me at least, who she really is. An Internal Enemy of note.  At about 3:30pm I was walking back to my Hut after spending from 6am in the bush doing my thing for these Rhino Wars, an un-marked, or very badly marked helicopter appears, flying low over the bush, it starts circling the property. Man it was so low I could have hit it with a handgun, if I had one.
I immediately sms Lize, my so-called PA, I have very little airtime. I ask her to paste this information on the Save Our Rhino page. I know that will get a lot of attention and very quickly. It will also alert any Rhino owners in the Waterberg as I know it will jump in seconds to all the other pages. Without a weapon this is the best plan I can think of in such a hurry. Surely the cavalry will come? I race back on foot, un-armed to where I know my Rhino are, a few kilometers away. I have no plan, I will have to see what is what when I get there. I am cursing and imagining all sorts of horrid things. What the hell am I to do if they fire at me from the chopper? What happens if they have armed, with AKs, guys on the ground. I run anyhow. I am in the bush where the Rhino were last seen when I get an sms from Lize.
The chopper is an unannounced drill organized by Selomie. Oh, Fuck it! I am too angry to explain it in mere words, the anger and hatred roll over me. Even writing this now the anger is back and intense. The anger then was fuelled by delayed reaction of fear, fear of losing the Rhino, fear of getting wounded badly or killed myself…. Fear and anger, not a happy combination. I sit panting on a rock, I send an sms to Lize stating how STUPID this was. Lize sms’s me back, she obviously told Salomie about my last sms, that Selomie has posted on facebook that the first helicopter drill were successfully done in the Waterberg with the comment, “Wayne thinks this is silly.”
Silly, silly!? It goes way beyond silly, it is bloody criminal. I wonder how many other people nearly had a heart attack over this showboating. One does not do bloody drills in an operational area, full stop. I then calm down and start thinking. Who owns that helicopter? One night after quite a few whisky’s Neil mentioned that Selomie is so good she even got Groenewalt to let them use his helicopter in the “Phila” film. Is this true? Was this Groenewalt machine again?  All sorts of things are going on in my mind. I swop a few more sms’s with Lize, but as Selomie will be her boss soon and she will be stuck here on the farm she has to remain loyal to Selomie, I understand this. I have walked back to my Hut, I need coffee, the white Landcruiser comes barreling down the road.
Selomie jumps out the cab, she is furious. She directs a tirade at me. How dare I put up a post on Facebook, SHE will be the one that posts anything. How dare I post anything about Palala? I get even quieter when I am this angry and tell her very softly that I put a post about the Waterberg area, not Palala. She yells that I should have called her, SHE has the radios and the guns. I think, “I know that, don’t rub it in.” She then goes off how SHE knows all the people in the Waterberg, the APU’s, the police, she is even on first name basis with the head of anti-poaching in the Hawks. I tell her I also know people, hence the warning on Facebook. This just makes her more angry. She yells at me asking why I did not call her, so I explain since I really do not like the way she speaks to me I try talk to her as little as possible. That did not go down well either. She goes on how everyone else in the area called her and how many missed calls she received, I am the only one that did not re-act she states. I point out that this is incorrect; I am the only one that did not re-act the way SHE would have liked me to.
I am adding these links as a response to the attacks on my character and threat made on my life.
Full Palala Story.
Other people’s information on the goings on at Palala

A compilation of my Strange Classrooms is soon to be released, please “Like” and  keep an eye on this page.
THE MEXICAN HORSE THIEF
Here is a story of developing and breaking an addiction, while dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome at the same time.
THE CHRONICLES OF THE MEXICAN HORSE THIEF II

Strange Classrooms - Throwing in the Towel

Meeting up with a member of my last APU mission got me thinking.

After 5 years of fighting to save the rhino, any way I could, I surprised many people by throwing in the towel, including myself. This is a very brief summery (and not nearly all) of  what happened  and why I walked away.
Writing articles to make the world aware.
In this I believe is the only place  I was successful, when few knew about the problem and less could imagine how bad it was to become. 5 years ago a hundred rhino were killed, IN A YEAR. One of my very first posts

Rhino Wars -How to end the Rhino Poaching

still has the highest hit rate on the blog. Then a series of articles I wrote about Pro Trade, had the owner of more rhinos than anyone in the world, making all sorts of insults and threats.


Volunteering for APU work.
My first mission and most likely the most dangerous one, not from the poachers but from the people that pretended to be rhino saving activists. The dear lady I exposed for what she was tried to take out a hit on me! Fortunately, I am who I am, found out about it and took the necessary precautions , hid away and exposed her further.  Same lady reported me to the Hawks as a poacher and I had to hide from the police until that shit was sorted out. All the while dead broke and having to depend on friends to help.

Starting an APU.
Well, tried to but the financial guy ran away with the money…. after putting it all over the internet that I had stolen the cash! At this stage I was living hand to mouth and went to bed hungry more often than not, even ended up having to spend some time in a Homeless Shelter. Stealing donated money, I was not.  He too was exposed for what he was.
Joining a nonexistent APU.
All looked good in cyberspace, packed my kit an travelled three hundred odd km to join up with the head of the APU. Got there to find out she had run away from her husband, and I was not welcome on his farm. Stranded with not a cent to my name. Managed to beg my estranged uncle to bail me out.

Signed up for another APU job, finally with pay.
The last mission was the last straw.  And a long story I have yet to tell, but cannot at the moment, for the safety of the rhino and the poor buggers still trying to guard them.

The rest of the stories are written and you can find them hidden in, The Chronicles of the Mexican Horse Thief.

I believe that I went over and above the call of duty with the rhino poaching, but.
Enough is/was  enough, no hell, it was more than enough, it was too much.
For all those people that helped me over the years, financially and with moral support, I can never thank you enough.  Without you I would have bloody starved before any poacher got me.
We tried.

Lion – Photos

Lion – Photos

Canned hunting is a fast-growing business in South Africa, where thousands of lions are being bred on farms to be shot by wealthy foreign trophy-hunters.
To add insult to injury it would seem that they are now to be bred, killed, chopped up and sold as Muti.

You can read my Short Story about an Ozzie and a Lion here

Short Story – An Ozzie and the Lion

Short Story – An Ozzie and the Lion

“On one occasion we had a single client, he was a game ranger from the Outback in Australia, and I was looking forward to meeting the man. Jaco and I picked him up early in the morning, it was his first trip into Africa and like most tourist he wanted to see a lion. On the way to the park we talked about kangaroos and Ducked-billed Platypus; we could talk Africa in the Park.
We got to the gate at first light and as soon as the gate was open we drove to the spots we were most likely to find lion. Jaco had been doing tours exclusively to the Pilanesberg National Park for many years and he knew that park the way most men know their own backyard. Jaco was speeding, in the mornings looking for lion he was quite manic, we came around a corner and almost drove over the biggest male lion in the Park.
Once Jaco had backed up a bit the lion just stood in the middle of the road looking at us. The sun was just coming up, the lighting superb, and the lion then walked past us. Usually they ignore a vehicle completely but this chap looked directly in the window as he passed. I live here; I have seen plenty lion, but my heart jumped when he looked at me, almost eye-ball to eye-ball. He passed the vehicle and disappeared into thick bush.
I looked back at the Aussie; the tears were streaming down his face.”
From The Chronicles of the Mexican Horse Thief V

Short Story – Helicopter Drills

Short Story – Helicopter Drills

“Today, beyond a shadow of a doubt, this woman proved, to me at least, who she really is. At about 3:30pm I was walking back to my Hut after spending from 6am in the bush. An un-marked, or very badly marked helicopter appears, flying low over the bush, it starts circling the property. Man, it was so low I could have hit it with a handgun, if I had one.
I immediately sms Lize, my so-called PA, I have very little airtime. I ask her to paste this information on the Save Our Rhino page. I know that will get a lot of attention and very quickly. It will also alert any Rhino owners in the Waterberg as I know it will jump in seconds to all the other pages. Without a weapon this is the best plan I can think of in such a hurry. Surely the cavalry will come? I race back on foot, un-armed to where I know my Rhino are, a few kilometers away. I have no plan, I will have to see what is what when I get there. I am cursing and imagining all sorts of horrid things. What the hell am I to do if they fire at me from the chopper? What happens if they have armed, with AKs, guys on the ground. I run anyhow. I am in the bush where the Rhino were last seen when I get an sms from Lize. The chopper is an unannounced drill organized by Selomie. Oh, Fuck it! I am too angry to explain it in mere words, the anger and hatred roll over me. Even writing this now the anger is back and intense. The anger then was fuelled by delayed reaction of fear, fear of losing the Rhino, fear of getting wounded badly or killed myself…. Fear and anger, not a happy combination. I sit panting on a rock, I send an sms to Lize stating how STUPID this was.

Lize sms’s me back, she obviously told Salomie about my last sms, that Selomie has posted on facebook that the first helicopter drill were successfully done in the Waterberg with the comment, “Wayne thinks this is silly.” Silly, silly!? It goes way beyond silly, it is bloody criminal. I wonder how many other people nearly had a heart attack over this showboating. One does not do bloody drills in an operational area, full stop. I then calm down and start thinking. Who owns that helicopter? One night after quite a few whisky’s Neil mentioned that Selomie is so good she even got Groenewalt to let them use his helicopter in the “Phila” film. Is this true? Was this Groenewalt machine again?  All sorts of things are going on in my mind. I swop a few more sms’s with Lize, but as Selomie will be her boss soon and she will be stuck here on the farm she has to remain loyal to Selomie, I understand this. I have walked back to my Hut, I need coffee, the white Landcruiser comes barreling down the road.
Selomie jumps out the cab, she is furious. She directs a tirade at me. How dare I put up a post on facebook, SHE will be the one that posts anything. How dare I post anything about Palala? I get even quieter when I am this angry and tell her very softly that I put a post about the Waterberg area, not Palala. She yells that I should have called her, SHE has the radios and the guns. I think, “I know that, don’t rub it in.” She then goes off how SHE knows all the people in the Waterberg, the APU’s, the police, she is even on first name basis with the head of anti-poaching in the Hawks. I tell her I also know people, hence the warning on facebook. This just makes her more angry. She yells at me asking why I did not call her, so I explain since I really do not like the way she speaks to me I try talk to her as little as possible. That did not go down well either. She goes on how everyone else in the area called her and how many missed calls she received, I am the only one that did not re-act she states. I point out that this is incorrect; I am the only one that did not re-act the way SHE would have liked me to.”
From The Chronicles of the Mexican Horse Thief