Collaring a pachyderm

When the six-seater Cessna 206 touched down on the gravel airstrip near Musango Safari Camp in Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe, we had an inkling this was not going to be an ordinary safari. Not only because the light aircraft had just scooted an indignant family of warthog off the airstrip and avoided a kettle of circling vultures just prior to landing, but also because we carried with us two intriguing passengers on a mission.

Wildlife veterinarians and managers of the non-profit Wild Horizon Wildlife Trust organisation Roger Parry and Jessica Dawson had been dispatched from its headquarters in Victoria Falls to this remote area in Matusadona National Park to put a satellite collar - a GPS tracking device – onto the neck of a particular bull elephant. This trust was established to rehabilitate orphaned or injured wildlife, assist with anti-poaching and wildlife veterinary needs in the region and to promote environmental conservation while at the same time educate the community.

Another non-profit wildlife charity based in Botswana - Elephants Without Borders - donated the collar for this elephant sporting substantial tusks. While impressive, ivories such as his mean he is forever under threat from poachers, so the collar is a deterrent as well as a research tool. Collars monitor the seasonal movements of elephants, the size of their home ranges and also identify their wildlife corridors and habitats.

Contrary to popular believe, there are too many elephants in certain areas of southern Africa, and this is now a major conservation management challenge. It has become this way as political boundaries, expanding human settlements, fences, farming, poaching and civil conflict have blocked traditional elephant pathways which are essential for them to reach food and water.

There is concern about their affect on the environment, on other wildlife and on the safety of people living within the elephant range.

By putting satellite collars on targeted elephant, studies on the ecology and the behaviour of the animals can be conducted, and as a result, can alleviate the negative impact of an increased elephant population. Elephants Without Borders operates projects in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe with the full support of government authorities.

Steve Edwards, professional guide in the country since the 1980s and owner of the luxury tented Musango Safari Camp, first identified the bull elephant to Larry Norton, a well-known Zimbabwean artist, conservationist and Wild Horizons Wildlife Trustee. Edwards therefore hosted the two vets who have worked in the wildlife tourism industry for many years, darting and capture being among their specialist skills.

What else to do but help in the operation? While not among Musango’s scheduled list of activities, visitors to Zimbabwe soon realise that nothing here is ever quite as predicted. It meant for us and another family out from England who volunteered their services real life action with an edge - helping wildlife in trouble.

Parry shot a tranquilising dart filled with Etorphine into the big tusker’s backside, and within five minutes the five ton elephant crumpled to the ground with surprising elegance, luckily on its side. Its friends vanished, so the team including eight tourists aged from nine to 69, having been briefed earlier, quickly went in to action. Someone monitored his up-side ear to check his pulse rate, Parry grappled with folds and flaps of neck and ear to attach the eight kilogramme collar (containing a GPS unit that gets downloaded daily from a satellite and a VHF radio transmitter) while others cooled the unconscious elephant by pouring water over his body, counted its breaths per minute, measured the tusks, took photographic records plus pulled, plucked and prodded collecting all manner of essential data, watched over and assisted by armed guides from the National Parks Authority Matusadona, just in case any of the elephant’s friends returned.

After the final blood sample had been extricated by Dawson, an antidote was given, and within two minutes the animal was up on his feet, a little bewildered at first but nonchalant after that, and wandered off to seek something to eat.

Edwards then had another issue that needed addressing - snare damage. Poachers kill wildlife in designated safe areas such as national parks by using snares (wire nooses) which are attached in strategic places on strong bush or tree branches, and as the animal runs through the area the snare catches and tightens on whatever part of the body it hooks. The poachers aim to catch an animal around the neck so it dies of strangulation, but this doesn’t always happen. The damage to any part of an animal’s anatomy is always horrifying.

So Edwards asked the veterinary conservationists to remove some of these snares that he had seen embedded in the flesh of a number of his resident wildlife. Over the last few very difficult years Edwards changed tactics regarding poachers – instead of chasing, fining or imprisoning offenders, who were, in effect, simply trying to survive, he now works with them – and they with him. Educating the locals from the nearest settlement of Msampa fishing village to stop setting snares is key, he says, and in exchange Musango has established a borehole, a church, shows them ways of becoming more self-sufficient and now wants to develop solar power and an electric fence for their protection. He said that three to four villagers were killed every year by wild animals.

Ironically one of the former chief poachers has become a member of the local community liaison council and Edwards is also employing him in anti-poaching activities such as snare removal from the bushveld. National Parks does have anti-poaching patrols, but these are seriously strapped for cash so the Musango anti-poaching efforts are well supported by the parks department.

So again the team of tourists helped the vets remove a snare cutting into the mouth and head of a by now unhealthily thin baby elephant.  Both baby and mother had to be tranquilised (there was no way the mother would have just stood by and watched!), and using a wirecutter the offending snare was released, the wound washed, antibiotics administered and more samples taken for research purposes. This was just one of three we saw dangling from animals during our three day stay – a skittish impala still wears one on its ankle and a buffalo will soon be in extreme pain from the snare gripping tighter around his upper body. Edwards removes as many of these as he find, but it’s a difficult and dangerous task and a highly costly exercise.

Zimbabwe’s chequered history has not been good for tourism. It has had bloody elections, turmoil over commercial farm invasions and serious inflation of the local Zimbabwean currency. Things are slowly changing in terms of tourism, for the recession has led to an increase in visitors from the west attracted by not only Zimbabwe’s low cost safaris (at Musango it costs around $300 per person per night all inclusive) but also to its exclusivity – no hordes of tourists in striped mini-buses here - the expectation of stability from the unity government formed in February this year and the legalising of foreign currency.

This however, is not good for regular Zimbabweans who do not have access to US dollars, Euros or British pounds because it makes it even harder for impoverished Zimbabweans to gain access to goods essential for their everyday survival.

Tourism providers are welcoming visitors to their country with optimism, putting the problems of the last decade behind them. Wildlife is Zimbabwe’s greatest asset, so it is encouraging to see that someone out there is looking after it.

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