Monday, January 11, 2010

Buffalo bull fight

Yes, natural bull fights do exist. No red laps are needed. No fool who ever wants to try a bull fight with an African buffalo anyway, as its massive horns will 100% sure kill you (good idea for the spanish bulls: just be EXTREMELY aggressive, the fun stops immediately). Bull in a herd will always protect their females and calfs aggressively. This is exactly their job and that's why you will always see the adult bulls in front, back and at the edges of a wild buffalo herd. The females and calfs you will always see in the middle of the herd, safely protected. Adult buffalo bulls can also really go for each other and sometimes even kill each other. Luckily this is rare and the 'loser' will give up before it's damaged too bad. This sole buffalo bull was found with a wound in his neck. Luckily we saw it in time, so that we could dart him and treat the wound, before it got worse. In the tropics, fleas just LOVE wounds and will lay their eggs in it soon (also will never forget my first rabbit at 3 am during my night duty almost completely eaten by maggots, in the Netherlands; no that's not a dream job at all!). Also this wound was covered with maggots eating their way into the meat. After I darted the bull with Etorphine and Stresnil, he took off rapidly! So quickly we followed him with the jeep to make sure we did not loose him. After 4.5 minutes he feel asleep, nice in th shadow (which is important in the hot summer now). First the wound had to be cleaned with sterile water, washed and desinfected. I also gave long-acting antibiotics, painkilling and anti-parasite injections. Because the wound was not too large, older than a day and dirty, I decided to leave the wound open to let it drain, covered with wound healing cream. After I gave the antidote the bull recovered very relaxed under a tree. He has been seen by the trackers recently and I was happy to hear that he is doing fine!

No comments: