9. "WAKE UP - WE'VE BROUGHT YOU A RHINO"
Much has been written over the years about the capture and translocation
of squarelipped rhinos to other areas in Africa and abroad. The initial
experiments, which were successfully undertaken in 1961, and the subsequent
events associated with the early days of rhino capture and "Operation
Rhino" have been extensively documented by Ian Player and Nick Steele and
formed the basis of the very informative SATOUR film, "To Catch A
Rhino". A major African
species was rescued from the brink of extinction and the capture and
relocation of these animals, started in the 1960s and continuing today is
undoubtedly the most important and prestigious of the achievements of the
Natal Parks Board in its 50 years of existence.
The technique used in the capture of squarelipped rhinos has been refined
over the years, incorporating as it does today, the use of helicopters to lift
the drugged animals out of inaccessible areas. This has resulted in rhinos
being reintroduced to many areas where they formally occurred. In addition,
they have been sent to safari parks in the rest of Africa and zoological
gardens all over the world. Consistently successful results achieved with
their capture and relocation has enabled this species to be removed from the
schedule of endangered animals and their status fortunately now appears to be
secure for all time.
In the 1950s, two young squarelipped rhinos were captured in Umfolozi for
the National Zoological Gardens in Pretoria. Both were young, orphaned
animals, that had to be netted and roped, before being crated and transported.
No anaesthetics were used in their capture. This was a significant event at
the time but of greater value to the conservation of the species, were the
events that were to follow ten years later. Experiments by Dr Tony Haarthorn
with the use of anaesthetising drugs fired at a rhino from close range, using
the Palmer capture gun had proved successful. In 1961, it was decided to
follow up on Tony's early experiments and undertake the translocation of the
first of these huge beasts. I was to be privileged to be associated with this
historic event - the introduction to Mkhuze in 1961 of the first rhino to be
darted and captured in the Umfolozi Game Reserve. The story has all the drama
of unexpected events, challenges, and setbacks associated with any new venture
of this kind and also a degree of pathos. Sadly, the historic event was to end
in tragedy with the death of Amber, as our new arrival was called, despite all
the efforts of the staff to save her. However, saddened as we were by the loss
of Amber, we were all left with a certain sense of achievement. There was the
realisation we had participated in an historic event and the knowledge that
valuable lessons had been learnt which would be applied to future movements of
rhinos. A stronger emotion though than any sense of achievement was the
sadness that we all felt when Amber died. A feeling of kinship with her had
developed amongst all of us and there was admiration for the fortitude and
tenacity that she had shown during her long and brave struggle for survival.
Black rhino had always occurred in the reserve and had managed to survive
successfully at Mkhuze even before the area was proclaimed a reserve in 1912.
This was largely due to the impenetrable nature of the riverine bush and the
Acacia thickets in certain areas of the reserve. As early as 1944 a successful
capture of one of these animals had been made for the National Zoological
Gardens and "Kuzi" was transported to a new home in Pretoria. Not
much is known of the circumstances surrounding the capture of "Kuzi"
as the reserve was under the control of the Veterinary authorities at the
time. What is recorded is that a black rhino cow that had a suitable calf, had
to be shot for the purpose. The Zululand Game Reserves and Parks Board was not
consulted at the time regarding the capture. Unfortunately all my efforts to
obtain details of the capture and transportation of this animal have been
unsuccessful, but it must have been an epic event!
It is certainly a story that needs to be told.
By some miracle the black rhino population managed to survive the trauma
and upheaval of the Nagana campaign, with its regular patrols, constant
shooting and later, aerial spraying of the reserve. That the entire black
rhino population was not wiped out, as a result in ingesting DDT from the
foliage on which they browsed following the extensive spraying over the
reserve is even more remarkable. The population however survived successfully.
In September 1954, shortly after joining the Board, Singie could report
the unusual sighting of a black rhino that had horns of the same length. Both
horns were between 40 and 50 cm long. Strangely enough, Ranger Gilbert Schutte
reported a similar sighting 18 years later, in February 1972. It would be
interesting to know if it could have been the same animal. Singie made an even
more unusual sighting in November 1961, when he saw a black rhino with a
posterior horn about 100 to 120mm longer than the anterior one
The disturbances of the Nagana campaign, thankfully, did not appear to
traumatise the animals too much, for as early as January 1955 a black rhino
cow was seen with a calf 2 to 3 weeks old. Other occasional sightings of rhino
cows and calves were made over the next few years. In April 1958 Singie was
fortunate to see a black rhino calf suckling from its mother, while she lay on
her side. In October 1959, he came across a rhino cow with a very young calf
at foot, which he estimated could not have been more than a day old. This
sight was especially pleasing to him as the month before he had come across
the carcass of a young rhino calf that had been snared, during one of his
routine patrols.
In November 1962, during the
course of a patrol in the Skonkwane area, Khonjwayo and I spotted a black
rhino cow with two calves. This was an unusual sighting as the black rhino,
very much a solitary animal, would normally wean and evict a calf, before
having another. We positioned ourselves underneath an easily scalable tree and
watched as the three animals slowly browsed their way towards us. As the wind
was in our favour, the animals were unaware of our presence. They got closer,
and we both quietly climbed into our tree, from where we still had an
excellent view of them. The youngest calf came right up to the tree, in which
we were sitting and rubbed itself against it. While it was doing this, the cow
moved past the tree and, picking up our scent made off with a snort of alarm,
closely followed by the two calves.
It was towards the middle of June 1961 that the event of major
significance for the reserve took place as far as the rhino population was
concerned. This was the first reintroduction to an African game reserve of a
squarelipped rhino captured in the Umfolozi Game Reserve. Singie graphically
described, in his report for July 1961, the drama of Amber's arrival in Mkhuze
and the events around this historic happening.
"On 11 June, Senior Ranger Ian Player and Dr
Haarthorn arrived with the news of a possible transportation of a squarelipped
rhino from the Umfolozi Game Reserve to Mkhuze. This was indeed wonderful news
for all of us. An extensive tour of the reserve was made in order to locate a
suitable site for an enclosure and a spot was finally selected near the Nsumu
game guard camp. Here Dr Haarthorn requested that four bomas be erected to
house the animals after their arrival in the reserve and we set about the
terrific task of erecting the bomas in record time. All labour, game guards,
togt and ranging staff, threw their backs into the job. Many gallons of sweat
were expended in digging the 21/2-foot deep trenches to take the silver
terminalia poles that were chopped in the reserve and carted to the site by
tractor. The ground was so hard that every time the pick bit into it, sparks
flew".
"The transportation of the poles, using our
inadequate transport, was a major undertaking in itself. My thanks and
admiration go out to all the staff for their co-operation in this task. The
work continued in hot sunshine until Saturday, when the arrival of pouring
rain turned the whole effort into one of bewilderment. What had shortly before
been a piece of steel hard ground, rapidly turned into a quagmire".
"During the early hours of the 17th of June 1961,
five days after we had started building the bomas, I was woken up to shouts of
"Wake up - we've brought you a rhino". From out of the truck parked
near the office scrambled the Director, Mr John Page, the Chief Conservator,
Zululand, Peter Potter Senior Ranger Ian Player and Dr Tony Haarthorn, all of
whom proceeded to tell me of their experiences on the wet and soggy road. The
truck that was carrying "Amber", as our rhino was called, had slid
of the road, was bogged down near Ngweni and could not move. The following
day, having got additional assistance, they returned to the truck to try to
"debog" it and bring the vehicle, carrying the first adult white
rhino to be captured and transported in South Africa, to Mkhuze"!
"The tenacity of those members of our staff
involved in this exercise deserves great admiration and praise. Anon! Amber.
Yes, forever Amber. How sad that after all the great work done, she should
lose her life in such a great cause".
Amber arrived in the Mkhuze Game Reserve in grand style. The truck in
which she was being transported being towed by a road grader driven by the
Board's Roads Maintenance Officer, John Kymdell. Despite the pouring rain and
the glutinous mud, John proudly guided the convoy, with us trailing along
behind in our Landrovers as best we could, to the holding pens at the Nsumu
boma. Here the prodigious task of unloading Amber began.
The ground was so sodden that everyone sank ankle deep into the mud,
lifting killogrammes of black daga every time a foot was lifted and collecting
more with every step taken. We were all pretty exhausted by the afternoon as
none of us had had any sleep for 24 hours, but the importance of the occasion
kept us all going.
The crate was gradually manoeuvred off the truck, lowered to the ground,
into the mud and eased up to the gate of the boma. The crate was placed at the entrance of the boma and the door
was raised. Nick Steele had anticipated that as soon as the door of the crate
was opened, Amber would come charging out into the boma, with much huffing and
puffing, but we were to be disappointed. She preferred to stay in her crate
rather than experience the discomforts of the wet boma and all our efforts to
entice her out proved futile - she would leave the crate in her own good time,
when she chose to do so! We were unaware at the time of the injuries that she
had sustained during the course of her journey to Mkhuze.
After a number of unsuccessful attempts to get Amber into the boma, it
was decided to leave her where she was and tie the crate to the gate of the
boma, in the hope that she would leave it of her own accord during the night.
The weary staff then climbed into the trucks and Landrovers and headed back to
Mantuma, where Granny Macrae, Singie's mother-in-law, a grand old lady in her
own right, had prepared a meal and supplied everyone with hot soup and cold
chicken and impala - our first meal of the day. Then we all wearily headed off
to bed to get a few hours sleep.
Early the following morning we headed back to the bomas at Nsumu in the
pouring rain, again slipping and sliding on the waterlogged roads, During the
previous two days we had already had almost 100mm of rain and it was still
coming down. This would normally have been a blessing for the game and for the
reserve in general, but it was certainly not the weather we would have chosen
to welcome our important new arrival.
When we got to the boma we discovered that Amber had left her crate
during the night but appeared to be still stupefied by the drugs that had been
administered to her the previous day. Her right shoulder was very swollen and
there appeared to be another swelling near her kidneys. She could not walk on
her right foot and was having great difficulty in moving around the boma in
the mud. A more unsatisfactory state of affairs for her welfare could hardly
be imagined and we immediately set about trying to improve it. Great
quantities of grass were cut and thrown into the boma in an attempt to give
her a more comfortable footing and to insulate her from the mud, but in no
time at all this had been trampled into the squelching mud. We were delighted
to see though that Amber had eaten some of the fodder supplied the previous
day, but had not drunk anything.
By the afternoon of 20 June she appeared to be doing well and we all
started to have hopes that the worst was behind us. Her shoulder was still
very swollen and was obviously painful as she was having great difficulty in
moving around. However, during the night disaster struck! We discovered on the
morning of the 21st that, during the night, Amber had tried to force her way
through the poles forming the back wall of the boma and escape.
Amber lies in the boma with a badly cut left leg.
Abrasions on her body have been covered with antiseptic ointment
In the process she had severely lacerated her leg on the side of a
44-gallon fuel drum which had been cut in half and placed in a corner of the
pen as a water container. In our haste to complete the enclosure before her
arrival, there had been no time to fold down and smooth off the sides of the
drum. I had been concerned about the edge of the container when we put it into
the boma 2 days before, but had been assured that it should not cause a
problem. Had the animal been healthy all would, no doubt, have been well, but
in her weakened condition aggravated by her sore shoulder, Amber had had got
herself into trouble. She had not been able to extricate herself, having gone
down to drink from the drum. When she was discovered she was lying half over
it with a badly lacerated leg. We realised later that we should rather have
dug a small depression in the soil for a wallow and filled it with water, but
that was a lesson that we learnt too late!
With much difficulty, we succeeded in placing ropes under the animal to
form a sling and with much heaving, manoeuvred Amber out of the drinking
trough and into a more comfortable position. Then we set about treating the
cuts and lacerated leg with whatever ointments we could find. In her weakened
condition and as a result of her cut leg Amber could no longer stand and
efforts were made to feed her by hand. These were not very successful and all
our efforts to get her to drink water out of a plastic bucket and later a
basin, also proved fruitless.
Eventually, a length of polythene waterpiping was placed in her mouth,
down which we carefully poured water from a bucket. She was obviously very
thirsty and her plaintive whimperings as we tried to get her to drink were
heartrending. Having successfully forced the pipe into her mouth, she sucked
at it greedily once she had tasted the water. Singie estimated at the time
that she must have drunk between 30 and 50 litres of water on that first
attempt. Then we were faced with a different problem - having got the pipe
into Amber's mouth she hung onto it and would not let go! After several
unsuccessful attempts at removing it we decided to leave it where it was for
another transfusion in about an hour's time. Water was then again eagerly
sucked from the pipe and another 30 to 40 litres disappeared. Some of it
spilled onto the ground around her, but most of it disappeared in great gulps.
We were all very pleased that we had at least got Amber to drink and Singie
spoke for all of us when he wrote at the time " we rangers were delighted as Amber, our
very special charge, had crawled her way deep into our hearts".
Tony Haarthorn arrived during the course of the afternoon with a supply
of penicillin and gave Amber an injection. He also suggested that, if we could
get hold of it, Terramycin should be used. We were fortunately able to obtain
a small quantity of this antibiotic from the Mkhuze store. During the
following day Amber was injected with 15cc of Terramycin every 6 hours, in the
hope that it would contain any infection which she might have picked up.
Our main concern at that time was that Amber had not had a bowel movement
since her arrival and on the 23rd Norman Deane arrived from Hluhluwe with a
supply of Prostigmine which we injected into her in an attempt to stimulate a
bowel movement. Further injections of Terramycin were given, but it was
becoming obvious to all of us that Amber was weakening. The matter was
discussed between Norman and Singie and it was decided that, should it start
raining again, Amber would regrettably have to be destroyed.
In the meantime we had another distraction; a new arrival in one of the
other bomas. On Wednesday 21 June, a truck had arrived in the reserve from
Umfolozi with Charlie, the second squarelipped rhino to be shipped out of
Umfolozi. This young male rhino was placed in the end boma and left to its own
devices for the time being. All our efforts were concentrated on trying to
save Amber.
After his talk with Norman, Singie went into Mkhuze village to telephone
Tony Haarthorn, who by then had returned to Umfolozi. He agreed with Singie
and Norman's decision and confirmed that, if further rain fell, Amber was to
be destroyed and Charlie released into the reserve. Singie had hardly returned
to the reserve, having spoken to Tony, when the heavens opened up and
torrential rain started falling. It was estimated at the time that possibly
100mm of rain fell in 11/2 hours - a most unusual occurrence for that time of
the year. We tried to keep Amber dry by covering her with Singie's patrol
tent, which was all that was available in the reserve at the time and on
Saturday afternoon she appeared to be rallying. We were again successful in
getting her to take a small amount of food and she had another long drink of
water. There was nothing further
that we could do for her at the time and we returned to Mantuma.
The rain carried on throughout the night and on Sunday morning, 25 June,
we slithered back to the boma. On our arrival we found, to our distress, that
Amber had died during the night. We then had the sad task of having to drag
the carcass out of the boma, using the tractor and remove it some distance
into the bush, where it was dissected to enable a post mortem to be performed.
This revealed that Amber had died from internal haemorrhaging.
In retrospect, it was something of a miracle that Amber managed to
survive for as long as 8 days, when one considers the extent of Amber's
injuries. Added to this was the trauma of her capture and transportation to
Mkhuze, when she had been incarcerated in her crate, her injury in the boma
and the atrocious weather. She had faced tremendous odds very bravely. The
Ngwenje area between Hluhluwe and Mkhuze had received well over 100mm of rain
in two days and it was here that the truck carrying Amber to the reserve had
slid off the road and become bogged down in heavy mud. She was stuck
uncomfortably in her crate and had to stand at an angle of 45( for over 24
hours, scarcely able to move in any direction, before the truck could be
pulled free by our road grader. My last memory of Amber is one that remains
vividly in my mind to this day. It is the sight of pieces of her carcass being
carried off after the post mortem, by members of the togt labour gang, who had
decided to try cooking and eating some of the meat. A sad end indeed to a
noble animal!
The second adult squarerlipped rhino to be moved out of Umfolozi was also
sent to Mkhuze. This was a young bull called Charlie. Charlie's translocation
to the reserve was uneventful and, in contrast to Amber, he arrived very much
alive and well! He started feeding immediately on the afternoon of his arrival
and also had a long drink of water. Later nicknamed "The Wandering
Jew" because of his incessant wanderlust, Charlie lost no opportunity in
trying to break out of the boma in which he had been placed. The day after his
arrival we arrived at the boma to find that he had tried to force his way out
of the corner of the pen. This action again reinforced Singie's theory that,
with both wild and domesticated animals, it was always better to construct a
round holding pen with an inner "core" of poles or reeds around
which the animals could circle. The absence of corners that the animals could
run into coupled with the fact that they could move out of sight of whatever
was disturbing them seemed to have a calming effect. I have personally seen
that enclosures built along these lines have proved very successful in
preventing animals from injuring themselves. It also helped them to settle
down and recover from the trauma of capture and translocation, far more
quickly than would otherwise be the case. Had we had thwe time, we would most
certainly have constructed at least two of the holding pens along these lines.
Charlie had certainly done his best to break out of the enclosure on the
first night in his new home. In his attempts to do so, he had succeeded in
making several openings in the walls of the pen, all of which had to be
speedily repaired. Fortunately for us and despite the fact that the boma had
been very hastily erected, it withstood his efforts to smash his way out.
Charlie in the boma at Mkhuze - June 1961
Charlie refused to settle down and become docile. Normally, when a young
rhino has been in a pen for a week or more it becomes so tame it will eat out
of your hand. Not so with Charlie! Any movement near his pen produced a snort
and a mock charge. When it started raining again on Saturday afternoon of the
24th, the gates of Charlie's pen were opened to let him out. When freedom was
offered to him however, he positively refused to leave the pen in our
presence. All efforts to dislodge him proved fruitless. Even passing backwards
and forwards in front of the open gate did not produce the desired result. All
that was achieved was the generation of a considerable amount of nervous
tension amongst the Ranging staff as Charlie would charge towards the open
gate, scattering everyone in the process, before coming to a skidding stop at
the entrance to the boma and reversing back inside again. As it got dark it
was decided to leave Charlie to his own devices and we all returned to Mantuma.
On the morning of the 25th we found that not only had Amber died during
the night, but that Charlie had pushed his way through a corner of the boma
and there was no sign of him. There was a fair amount of spoor in the vicinity
of the pen that indicated that he had milled around there for some time before
heading off into the bush. Unfortunately, the heavy rain that had fallen
during the night had obliterated much of the spoor and there was no way of
tracing Charlie's movements. On Monday morning we established that Charlie had
crossed the Nsumu pan, where he had to wade through water almost a metre deep
and then wandered up along the fenceline with Nxwala. Here he had crossed into
the Sate Land through a gap in the fence where poachers had lifted it - and
then we lost track of him. He was obviously on his way back to Umfolozi. Amber
and Charlie were both gone. Not exactly a satisfactory conclusion to the great
experiment of moving the first rhino, but an exercise which was filled with
considerable drama nevertheless! It was certainly one that taught us valuable
lessons.
John Dixon and game guards were sent to find Charlie and he was
eventually tracked to a private farm at Lower Mkhuze. Here he settled down
with the local cattle for a while and attempts were made to keep him under
observation.
On 30 June 1961, Ranger John Clark delivered a third rhino, June, without
incident. We decided to change our procedure with June in that she would not
be placed into a holding pen, but offloaded at Denyer's Beacon in the central
section of the reserve. We felt that the animals did not like to be confined
to the holding pens having lived in a wild state for so long. After offloading
June at the beacon, she was injected with a tranquilliser and left to settle
down in her new surroundings.
For the rest of the year there were periodic entries in all our monthly
reports on sightings which we had made of the rhinos that had been introduced.
In September 1961, Singie passed on to me a report of a "dead" rhino
that had been seen that morning on Badenhorst's farm at Lower Mkhuze. I got
myself to the farm as rapidly as possible and, on investigation, found Charlie
lying fast asleep under a thorn tree! In October 1961, it was June's turn to
get the wanderlust and she moved out of the reserve, onto Hilder's farm near
Mkhuze village. It was decided to try and recapture her and bring her back to
the reserve. On the 25th the capture team arrived from Umfolozi to make an
attempt to redart the animal. We assembled on Hilder's farm and, having
checked our equipment, we scoured the farm until we had located June and then
the chase was on. Coming up behind the animal as rapidly as possible, Ian
Player fired the dart at the rhino, but it missed the target. The capture
attempt had to be abandoned for the day, as our quarry ran off into a patch of
thick thorn scrub where the Landrover could not follow.
The following day we
returned to the farm and tried again. This attempt was equally unsuccessful.
As June was running away in front of the capture vehicle, she had her tail
curled back in characteristic fashion and, as luck would have it, the dart
fired at her, neatly pierced the tail. The needle of the dart became blocked
with cartilage material and it soon became apparent that the anaesthetic had
not been injected.
June led us a merry chase around the farm for about 25 minutes. We
followed her in the hope that some of the drug might have taken effect, but it
then became obvious that this was not to be
An amusing scene that I recall while the chase was on, involved the
arrival of the "Zululand Express" - the daily train from Durban. The
locomotive came into view as we were bucketing over the veld in our Landrovers
after the animal. As it approached, I noticed the engine driver leaning out of
his cab, deep in thought. He chugged past the rhino, which was running in an
open area next to the line and his eyes casually followed the large form
running next to his train, not really registering at first what he was looking
at. His locomotive passed the rhino and his head suddenly came back with a
jerk as he realised that the animal next to his train was a rhino. Leaning out
of his cab, he followed our chase of the rhino for as long as he could, before
giving us a cheery wave and a toot on his whistle as his engine disappeared
into the thorn trees.
Having used up the only two darts that the Umfolozi capture team had
brought along, the chase had to again be abandoned for the day as John
returned to Umfolozi to collect additional darts. He made a speedy trip back
and forth and was back again, with the darts, early in the afternoon. A third
attempt was made to dart June at about 16:00 and this attempt was,
fortunately, more successful as the dart smacked into the animal. Then the
chase was on again. June ran in
front of the capture vehicle for about 25 minutes, during which time she
scarcely slackened her pace. The anaesthetic finally started to have an effect
and by sunset the great beast was crated and on her way back to Mkhuze, where
she was placed in the boma for a while to discourage further wanderings. As it
turned out this was wishful thinking on our part.
Singie recorded the recapture of June in his end-of-month report and
wrote "Congratulations must go to Nick Steele for a wonderful exhibition
of bundu driving. His skill in handling the 'Rover was without a doubt,
remarkable. Some very near escapes and misses were the order of the day for
June was determined to lead us into the worst terrain and heaviest bush
possible. Secondly, Senior Ranger Ian Player is to be congratulated on his
skill in getting those darts into June's hindquarters. It is no mean statement
when I say that both the animal and 'Rover were travelling very rapidly.
Despite bumps and crashing down shrubs, the darts found their mark. Very good
shooting indeed".
"A remarkable thing was that at no stage did June
try to break through any of the fences, which she encountered, even though, on
several occasions, she was brought into a bottleneck while the chase was on.
Last but not least, the performance of my valiant Landrover NPA 705 must be
mentioned. This machine took a tremendous battering but stood up to it all,
despite the fact that it now has defective steering as a result of the
battering it took! After this effort, little doubt was left in my mind that
possibly no other make of vehicle could stand up to the gruelling experience
of being driven in four-wheel drive so continuously, as was required. I take
off my hat to a Landrover and the 26th October 1961 will remain in my memory
as one of the most interesting, instructive and exciting days that I have ever
had"
We should perhaps have learnt a lesson from Charlie's previous efforts to
break his way out of the boma, for when we returned to check on June the
following morning she was gone! Despite the long and exhausting chase of the
previous day, she had forced her way out of the boma during the night and the
following morning there was no sign of her.
More rhinos were expected to be sent down from Umfolozi and in November
1961, it was decided to fence in a half-a-kilometre square paddock near the
rhino stockade in which to keep the new arrivals until they had settled down.
We tried to make the paddock as secure as possible and the fence around it
consisted of a double strand of barbed wire and one strand of lift cable.
Water was pumped from the Nsumu pan and a small two-stroke pump to feed a
rhino wallow, was bought for this purpose.
The first rhino to be placed in the new enclosure was Minihaha. She was
kept here for some months before being released but she obviously failed to
link up with either June or Charlie during the year. At the end of 1962 she
was seen in the company of a black rhino bull - a most unusual occurrence.
Towards the end of 1963 she had deserted her erstwhile companion and had taken
up with a herd of 5 blue wildebeest. Belinda, a rhino cow arrived in 1963 to
join the other three surviving animals and she was the last of the rhinos that
were sent to the reserve to have the distinction of having names allocated to
them; future arrivals would remain anonymous.
Minnihaha finally sorted
herself out, for in February 1964 she was seen with two recently introduced
rhino bulls in the Dagela area. The event that everyone had been waiting for
finally arrived. In August 1967 a white rhino and young calf were seen in the
Mahlambeni area - the first rhino calf to be born in the reserve and an
auspicious event. In November of the same year two more calves were seen.
The rhinos that were sent to Mkhuze settled down very well and over the
next 10 to 15 years they continued to breed at a satisfactory rate.
Territorial competition amongst the animals was obviously taking place, for in
October 1979 Warden Mark Astrup reported that five rhino were stranded on the
north bank of the Mkhuze River. The animals had wandered out of the reserve,
perhaps in search of new territories and had become stranded in the African
reserve, as a result of the river coming down in flood. The rhino split up
into two groups, one of three animals and the remaining two. During the next
two months the animals wandered throughout the Makatini Flats, between Ubombo
and Jozini and as far north as the Pongola River. They proved extremely
difficult to locate for recapture as they moved considerable distances during
the night, in their efforts to locate water. They also lay up during the day
in thick scrub. The capture team was called in on a number of occasions and
although fresh tracks were located, the animals were not to be found. After a
while, no further tracks could be discovered and it was surmised that the
animals had eventually found their way back into the reserve.
During the last 40 years many hundreds of rhinos have been successfully
moved from Umfolozi, and more recently from other reserves as well, to new
homes in Africa and abroad. The capture of these animals has now become
something of a routine operation, with the refining of capture techniques and
the introduction of helicopters to dart animals and recover them from areas
inaccessible to vehicles. Their care in the holding pens is now also something
of a routine operation. The capture of Amber and her translocation to a new
home was to become the forerunner of one of the most important conservation
achievements of the 20th century. Sophisticated though these new techniques
now may be, catching a rhino today will never be able to match the excitement,
drama, triumph and the pathos of Amber's capture, arrival and death in Mkhuze.
As Rangers we were all very aware of how privileged we had been to have had a
small part in the drama and share in an historic event, even though it ended
tragically. It remains one of my treasured memories of my service in the
reserve.