Rhino crisis in South Africa

South Africa has a serious rhino poaching crisis! The numbers of rhinos poached this year, is the worst ever. It's absurd that there is almost no attention for this problem in the worldwide media. In 2010 only, over 80 white rhinos have been poached by professional gangs to meet a growing demand for horns. People in South Africa are poor and need quick pocket money. Rhino horn is still used in many Chinese traditional medicine products and in Yemen as handles for traditional swords. Both markets are continiously growing, because more and more people can afford these expensive products: very worrying!! The horrendous poachers use helicopters and even veterinary immobilization drugs to dart the free-ranging rhinos instead of shooting them, to prevent making a noise. For the same reason they often leave the poor animal bleeding to death. Last week a rhino without a face was found wandering around in a reserve. The poachers had cut off the horn and the complete face with an electric saw. The animal was breathing through a hole in between its eyes. Sickening!! Horrible suffering what could easily have been avoided by a few gunshots. These actions make these poachers not just criminals, but barbaric! Who are these 'people'?? These professionals do their homework well and possible have connections in the South African political system: they know which reserves have rhinos, how many and which anti-poaching control is in place. The fact that you undertake strong anti-poaching actions assists to reduce the likelyhood to become a target. In regarding to the rapid speed the poaching increased over the last year, quick actions are crucial. De-horning rhinos seems to solve the problem short-term. When we de-horn a rhino as an anti-poaching method, we cut off the horn 7-8 cm above the basis to make sure it does not bleed. The horn grows back in several years and the fact that it's not permanent, is great. On top of that, the precious endangered animals really are much more safe! It's almost impossible to protect the large areas they live in, so to not having a horn at all seems to be the most effective anti-poaching method. As far as we know, it does not influence their natural behaviour and the stump can still act as a defence weapon. On top of that, dehorned rhinos have a good chance to survive fights (bruised, but okay) with each other. Rhino bulls with long horns are known to be able to kill other rhinos, both males and females. Rhinos also break their horns naturally in the wild, which grow back the same as de-horned ones. Okay, of course it's much nicer to see them with a horn, but don't you agree their lifes are more important? The immobilizations to de-horn a rhino takes a maximum of 10 minutes and the total time from darting to a fully awake rhino is approximately 18 minutes. That's IT! After these 10 minutes of 'tripping' with a drugs 10.000 times stronger than morphine (don't tell me that's suffering), they are up in their feet and 100% awake as if nothing ever happened. Each time I de-horn a rhino, I am happy to be able to make a contribution to the safety of this ancient amazing animal. These species are soooo much longer on this planet than human beings and we MUST protect them from going extinct!

Special visit!

Welcoming my lovely parents in the bush has been an amazing experience. It was their first time leaving Europe. They flew straight from their safe Dutch hometown into the African bush, where their 'crazy' daughter lives. I have always admired their understanding for a life-style so different from their own (as part of twins I was raised in the travel bed from a cousin; in my opinion the only reason why I started travelling so much). Their 2 week visit has amazed me even more. At first they became worryingly quiet when I had to explain about all dangerous snakes, scorpions and the wild animals around the house (rhinos, buffalos, hippos), but after settling in, they both started to really enjoy and appreciate the bush. Thanks for everything and lots of love!!

African buffalo testing

Because African buffalos are closely related to domestic livestock they can get infected with the same infectious diseases. Because wild animals do not need to produce 40 litres of milk a day or high quality beef, they are able to focus on the most natural goal in life: to stay healthy! Therefore they do not get ill from diseases what can make domestic cattle or goats very ill and sometimes even kill them. As we all know, most infectious diseases are devastating for a farmer. Because African buffalos can carry highly contagious and dangerous diseases without even showing a single symptom, it can be problematic to prevent them to transmit any diseases. Therefore the South African veterinary authorities decided to only allow African buffalos with the "disease free" status in areas where domestic livestock is kept. This is the complete country except the area of the Kruger NP, so the demand for these buffalos got so high that the price of these animals increased with the same speed. At a certain time a "disease free buffalo" was worth more than a white rhinoceroses, so it's worth the effort. Also it's important for the survival of the species to have enough disease free animals. Especially the long-term effects of e.g. Tuberculosis on the African buffalos in Kruger NP are worrying. To get the status 'disease free' an African buffalo has been tested negative 5 times for the following diseases: tuberculosis, brucellosis (both bacterials), Corridor's disease (a blood parasite) and fouth and mouth disease (a virus). For the Tuberculosis test each buffalo has to be darted twice: first to inject the tuberculin and second to measure the thickness of the skin (in a TB positive buffalo the skin swells up, the same as the Mantaux test in humans).

Going for a walk with a rhino

"Walking" a rhino is one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced in my life. During my internship in the Kruger NP as a vet student in 1997 I saw an incredible walk with a rhino for the first time and honestly could not believe my eyes. Okay, during these 2 impressive months I experienced more things I could not believe, e.g. capturing lions while listening to crying hyena's played by tape on top of the roof of a caravan. The fact that a human being can manipulate these large and dangerous animals such as rhinos, so that you can walk with them whereever you want sounds to weired to be true. But it works!

Just try to imagine.....working in the bush and you want to translocate a rhino to another area. After darting a wild animal always runs off. We have to track the animal to make sure we find it once it's down. Of course these huge animals not always don't fall asleep next to a road, but more often in thick bush (a safe place), far away from access for the truck or trailer. What do you do then? It's impossible to carry all these kilo's and you're quite in a rush to wake up this highly precious animal as soon as possible.... Pioneers in wildlife capture figured out a fantastic solution: you wake the rhino up just a little bit and let it walk itself: fantastic trick, not? The most important things are the blindfold, earplugs and of course a correct amount of 'partial antidote'. This means that the anesthetics drugs used to make (and keep!) the animal asleep only partially gets antagonised to make sure that it stays asleep deep enough! The situation can quickly get extremely dangerous if you confuse the partial antagonist with a full antagonist or when you for example give too much of it. A fully awake rhino does NOT wanna go for a walk with you, but just goes for you! So hang-overs or automatic pilot mood are not possible with this work. Once the animal slightly wakes up, it will stand up and 5 guys on a rope will pull it into the right direction. A rope on a hind leg is important as a brake. Sounds practical, not?

Beautiful ugly is not ugly

Isn't she a beauty?? Okay, there not too clever and they always walk exactly in front of your car when in a hurry, but wow these guinea fowls are amazing in their own special way!

wounded buffalo

Buffalos are tough and sometimes it's better to leave wounds, otherwise you'd be busy stitching up wounds all day. But this wound was just too deep, too dirty and too bloody so decided to dart the animal, clean it out, stitch it up and put bandage around the foot; especially for fleas and mud its better to cover up deep wounds. After 4 days I darted it again to remove the bandage: it was healed perfectly. Amazing patients: this makes a happy vet!

Unlucky hippo

Never a dull moment in the office! One morning my boss came in my office at 6 am and asked me: "How good are you with hippos". I thought it was a joke, because hippos are known to be one of the most dangerous and most difficult wild animal species to put under anesthetics. They are extremely aggressive and territorial. An attack is often fatal. On top of that, the physical appearance of a hippo does not help either. The thick layer of fat requires a huge needle to be able to penetrate any muscle and a needle long enough does not really exist. The blood circulation in fat is minimal and therefore drugs can't do the job when landing in fat: it can take hours before all drugs is absorbed and the drugs are secreted by the kidneys and liver in the same time: so the animal won't fall asleep. The best place to dart is therefore the cheek, as the fat layer is there the thinnest, but the fragile eyes are scarely close... Another big problem is the fact that hippos always stay in the water during the day. When you are lucky enough that the animal is out of the water, they will run into it, their safe haven, as soon as possible after darting. In both situations the animal will drown, because the breathing reflex stops under general anesthetics. Luckily I knew about a new combination of drugs, currently under investigation in the Kruger National Park. This combination of anesthetics puts a hippo under general anesthetics, but keeps the respiration reflex going, exactly how a hippo sleeps in the wild. A hippo is able to sleep, while the nostrils come to the surface regularly to take a breath automatically. The same as for example how we blink our eyes: it just happens without knowing. When you see the nostrils of hippos regularly coming to the surface during the day, you are watching a sleeping hippo! They are grazing outside the water all night to fill their large stomachs, so a bit of sleep during the day is quite welcome. This new combination of drugs seems to be very succesful and will improve the capture of this species tremendously. But okay, the face of my boss told me that it was not a joke. A wounded hippo was found at the fench on the other side of the park. She probable came from Kruger NP; this means that she crossed the N4, a very busy road (trafic accidents caused by hippos are unfortunately not uncommon in this part of South Africa). According to the field rangers, she was in very bad condition and we did not have any time to loose. I am always in for a challenge and each wounded animal deserves help, so quickly I read some info about hippo anesthetics (thanks colleagues!) and we loaded the jeep. After a 45 minutes drive we found a severely distressed animal next to the fench. It was heart breaking to see such a powerful animal so weak. She was laying on its side, breathing heavily and not able to move. A very common problem of wild animals is called 'capture myopathie': muscle damage caused by contineous fighting to try to survive. E.g. when you run for your life, at full speed, for 5 kilometers, your muscles will be destroyed and you won't be able to move anymore. Wild animals know that they will die once they give up, so they fight literaly until they are dead; they won't give themselves a break. This animal was probably caught in the fench earlier in the night and had been fighting to get out for hours and hours. By now she was out of the fench but completely exhausted. Because the animal would for sure not survive any anesthetics, I decided to only inject her with painkillers, antibiotics and vitamins. Luckily we could inject her with a pole syringe (a syringe on a large stick) and wet the animal with water, but I knew the prognosis was very bad. Unfortunately there was nothing more we could do for her. Sadly she passed away a few hours later. These occasions make me long for the Africa before humans were dominating the world: an Africa without fenches.

Bird eyes

Rhinos and many other wildlife species are often darted from a helicopter, mainly to be able to find them easier before and after darting. With dangerous species such a elephants and black rhinos it is also for safety reasons. The decision to rent a helicopter and a pilot (expensive rate per hour) depends on the terrain, the animal species, the size of the area and the situation. Most South African helicopter pilots have their own helicopter close to home and use it as a 'car'. In the wildlife season they are most of the time very busy, so each action must be well planned in advance. The shy and agressive black rhino must always be darted from an helicopter, mainly because they are too aggressive to approach and very difficult to find after darting. The more docile and grazing white rhino can most of the times be darted while tracked on foot in the bush (make sure you approach them in the wind: when they smell you they're gone!). But once they run away, what they often do after being hit by the dart, it can be difficult to find them again, especially in thick bush. A helicopter is often amazingly helpful. You won't believe me, but keeping track on a huge animal as a rhino can be tremendously difficult, even from the air. One day I had to keep an eye on a (not yet darted) white rhino for almost an hour from a helicopter to make sure we would not loose it. This was a nerve racking task and I could not believe how often we lost the animal out of sight, even under small trees. Somehow the colour grey works wonderful as a camouflage. Luckily we always found her back and we could dart her and reunion her with her calf. Thanks to the helicopter and of course the pilot! The skills of helicopter pilots specialized in wildlife capture are very impressive. They combine a thorough knowledge of wild animals, their specific behaviour (all animal species act different) and movements with amazing flying skills. Most of them probably were a raptor in their previous lifes. For example while darting wild elephants the helicopter pilot is essential to chase the not-darted elephants or other dangerous animals away and to keep an eye on the safety on the ground. Elephants often come back to help their family members, so it's vey dangerous to dart elephants without a helicopter. Also, large herds of various wildlife species, such as wildebeest and impalas are very often captured by only using a helicopter, as darting each individual animal is practically impossible. This exciting activity requires amazing flying skills to be able to guide a large herd of wild animals into a boma (large pen).

More elephants pics

There we go...more pics of elephants in the Kruger. More to come later!

Before and after

Before: After 2 months: Yes, really the same animal!

Monday morning in the office

Last Monday morning I realised again how lucky I am: started with darting a roan bull on horseback in the nice sunshine with Elmund and Carlos, 2 fantastic and always happy guys. Weired to think of my friends in the Netherland, The UK and the Isle of Man, waking up on the cold rainy day. Come visit: would be great! The bull was loosing weight and I treated him with many different drugs to try to cover all possible diseases and many vitamins to boost his immune-system. I found many worm eggs in his feces, so that may have been the problem. He is much better now, so one of the treatments must have worked.

Home sweet home

Just moved into a new house within the reserve and never imagined ever to live like this. In the middle of the bush, surrounded by many wild animal species with the best view in the world: a dam with hippos and the sun rise in the mornings. In the evening while having dinner I always hear them singing and this afternoon 3 white rhinos were grazing under my veranda. Absolutely LOVE it!! The little dot on the other side of the dam is my bush house. The little dot on the other side of the dam is my house. The view from my house.

King of the animal kingdom?

This beautiful elephant bull we saw in Kruger National Park. He just wanted to show off and luckily never showed real agression. But still...very impressive! Don't wanna know how impressive these animals are when they charge seriously. During my work the Gabonese rainforest I have run for bush elephants almost on a daily basis, but the good thing was that you did not see them (only heared their footsteps in the thick rainforest), so you could not see how big and impressive they were. Also bush elephants are much smaller than this adult bull savanah elephant. This elephant just wanted to let us know that he knew himself how big and strong he was!

Dutch problem in Africa

African buffalos carry many diseases. They do not get ill themselves, but they can infect more vulnerable cattle with disasterous results. Therefore in most regions in South Africa (west of Kruger NP) it is only allowed to keep African buffalos free of the main South African contagious diseases: Tuberculosis, brucella, East Coast Fever and Foot and Mouth. These 'disease free buffalos' are very popular. Therefore the price for a disease free buffalo can go up to approximately 30.000 euros (more than a white rhino!) Over the years raising African buffalo calfs disease free has been very popular: these calfs are taken away from their diseased mothers and raised by disease free Jersey cows to make sure they stay healthy. The motherhood skills of these Jersey cows are very good: they always adopt the calfs easily. Because of this disease free buffalo raising we have a lot of Jersey cows here. My first day at work, I diagnosed a very common disease in cattle the Netherlands, but never expected to find it here: a displaced stomach. Wild bovines and local cattle will never get this problem as the high concentrated diet of domestic cattle (to get them to produce milk) has a big influence in the cause of this problem. The normal position of the stomach (abomasum) of a cow is at the lowest part of the abdomen. Gas or too much space in the belly (after giving birth) can cause the stomach to go up and the gas will keep it at the upper part of the abdomen. This creates stomach pain and the cow will stop eating. In the end she will always die. So, the first day at work in Africa I did a very common Dutch operation: putting the stomach back into place and stitching it into to the abdominal wall so that the stomach will stay in place. The African people could not believe their eyes how I, a foreign white female with much less muscles than them, got this cow on her back (an easy and funny trick; will tell you later) and opened her belly to find the stomach. It was hilarious to see these African surprised faces!

Greybok with sores

Skinproblems are quite common in wild animals. Treating skin problems reminds me of the small animal surgeries, as domestic dogs and cats often suffer from various skin problems, e.g. mites, fungal infections and allergies. The approach is similar. The only problem is that a wild animal needs to go under anaesthetics each time you want to examine it: luckily this is not the case with your pets. This small antelope (Grijsbok) showed crusts and sores on the nose and on the ear shelves. I darted the animal with a low dosage of Etorphine and treated it for mites, fungus and a bacterial infection. At scrapings I could not find any external parasites, but I treated the animal for it anyway, because not finding them does not guarantee they are not there. Another big difference between working in the bush and in a city veterinary clinic is the logistics: here it's not always easy to get samples to a lab. In this case it would have been nice to do a fungal culture, but because of the isolation here I decided to first treat it and see whether the treatment worked. I darted the animal after 2 weeks again to treat it a second time and since then the sores are healing. We are keeping a good eye on it, because skin problems can return easily when a treatment is stopped too early. When the improvement does not continue, I will dart the animal again to do skin biopsies to investigate it for other skin diseases, such as allergies. Will keep you posted. The Etorphine anaesthetics (mainly used for big game) was amazing. The antidote of this drugs works within a minute, so after injecting it into the vene, the animal run off, completely awake, within 45 seconds! Really impressive. And it was great to get help from 2 good friends visiting from the Netherlands and Ireland, Pieter and Claire.

ALL respect for black rhinos!

Learning every day here. Lucky to work with the best wildlife specialists in the field, because some actions with wild animals are just too difficult and too dangerous to do without lots of experience. One of them is releasing a black rhino into the field from a crate. Black rhinos are very different from white rhinos; the more I learn about them, the more I understand that they are completely different animals. Black rhinos have very poor eyesight and are smaller than white rhinos. Because black rhinos live in thick bush, they are more quickly irritated and can be very agressive! One would say that it must be easy to release a black rhino from a crate: just open the door! This happened in previous days, but the agression of an aggitated black rhino (after being transported in a crate, he or she is for sure not in the best mood!) is BIG problem, for both the people and the rhino itself. Very often the just released animal attacks everything he/she sees first thing: the crate, the cars, the people... Therefore wildlife vets have developed this new technique and I was lucky to assist, as it was very impressive and learnful! The theory is: let the rhino walk out only a few steps and let him fall asleep just a few steps in front of the crate. This required very good timing! First of all the 'brake' was applied: a rope around a hind leg to be able to stop the animal when it takes off, the same as when 'walking a white rhino'. Then a rope was prepared in front of the door to be able to stop the rhino from running away. When the team was ready and prepared, the rhino was darted with anaesthetics inside the crate. Then we waited until the rhino was almost falling asleep... The timing of when to open the door requires loads and loads of experience with this species. In this case the door opened a little bit too early and the rhino run off. Luckily the rope and lots of strong arms kept the rhino close the crate, where he fell asleep. Wow, very impressive to see the power of this beautiful animal. While he was sleeping, we removed everything: the crate, the truck and all cars. He woke up very relaxed only seeing bush, trying to find out what had happened! In the moment he has settled well into his new home.

Just a pic of my old fashion boiler. My hot water is heated by: wood. Works fantastic and completely independent from the South African authorities. Start to understand that this is always a plus, haha!

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!

Kaaskop

As most little girls I also watched Daktari, dreaming about a life in Africa working with wild animals. Never thought that it would really happen. After graduating I worked as mixed and small animal vet, but never stopped dreaming about working as a wildlife vet in Africa. Still have to pinch myself regularly to make sure I am not dreaming. Living surrounded by so many amazing creatures, beautiful nature and open African smiles is still very special for this dutch Kaaskop. The way how African people make the best of each (often challenging) situation is inspiring. Every day you see something incredible here. For example our riding horses have joined up with wild zebra's. Nacho, an handsome thoroughbred, is with his size and temperament the leader of the herd and the wild zebras, including a cute young foal, also follow him. These horses have the best of both worlds: during the day free-roaming and in the night a warm and safe stable. And in between, a nice ride through the bush, passing buffalos, giraffes, black and white rhinos, giraffes, impalas, elands, warthogs, kudus, zebras, waterbuck, red hartebeest, ostriches, nyalas, sable and roan antilopes, hippos, snakes and lots of birds. For them they are all just neighbours, nothing special.