Incredible Stories About The Kudus & Impalas Of Sabieparks

One evening around the campfire, my story about the improbable pip thieves was again greeted with a measure of scepticism. I was getting used to this reaction. One of the ladies present came to my rescue. She had her own story about a greedy kudu. She wanted to bake a bread, she told us. The dough was placed in two pots in a warm spot outside to raise. Later she heard a noise. It sounded like the lid of a pot falling. At the back door she encountered a kudu, white strips of dough dangling from its nose. This adventurous “bread winner” had knocked the lid off the pot to reach the delicacy.

Kudus do well in Sabiepark; waterbuck don’t

Since July 1998, at least 18 of the latter had already been bought… and lost. Every single one, either devoured by predators, or returned across the fence to the Kruger. A huge truck one day brought a batch of substitutes from Gravelotte. I was invited along to the boma to take photographs for the newsletter. First, I had to reach the roof of the truck. That steep climb was no mean achievement for someone of advanced years, with excess weight and a lesser degree of agility. (A beautiful young lass regularly greets me: “Hallo, uncle Fatty Booms!” I wonder why?!)

After a number of moans and groans, out of breath and with a few choice words in-between, I reached the roof of the truck, from where I could aim at the gate where the new arrivals had to enter. The first five went quickly – too fast for the photographer, at any rate. When the side panel of the huge truck was raised, they flew out, bewildered. There were four young cows and a bull calf. The youngest was very tiny. Tokkie called it a little “drop”.

The big bull – a hefty four-year-old – was a different proposition. He refused point-blank to leave the safe cocoon of the truck. A shock-stick was fetched, a long rope, a swinging yellow hessian bag – everything possible was tried. He fought like a demon, then ducked and lay down obstinately to avoid being released. This struggle lasted more than an hour. I just kept on aiming with the camera. Then suddenly, without warning, he shot away – out of the open side panel and into the boma. Too late, too late. All Van Deventer managed to photograph, was thin air.

A more successful performance as official photographer for the newsletter followed soon. David Zeller called me away from my computer. “Come along, we are going to catch a wildebeest for Mövenpick.” (Mövenpick was at that stage the name of a posh bush hotel close to the Sabie River, near the Kruger Gate. These days it is known as the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate.) The hotel had a lonely bull who hankered after company.

The veterinary faculty of the University of Pretoria at Onderstepoort arrived with a Kombi full of students. So did dr. Dewald Keet, a veterinarian at Skukuza. He led the procession in his Land Rover. Then I followed in my Honda CR-V. Behind me came a bakkie with a trailer. In the vicinity of Rooibos Avenue, a pregnant cow was drugged by means of a missile in the buttocks.

The whole lot of wildebeest took off as if a squadron of sting-flies had descended upon them. Aimlessly, around and around they milled. Then they stopped, undecided – aiming left, then right. They could not come to rest. The drug-dart worked rather slowly. Eventually the cow’s legs began to waver. She was grabbed by the horns, and allowed herself to be led to the trailer. There she was blindfolded with a white towel to protect her unblinking pupils from dust. hetised. It was an affront to her dignity that filled me with empathy, but it does look very comical to see a cow with a white towel hat.

BLINDOLFDED. A drugged wildebeest cow with a white towel around her head, to protect her eyes.

The patient received various injections. She was kept cool by pouring water over her entire body. Then the procession left for the hotel. On the trailer, with the wildebeest, were two men from Onderstepoort. Her pulse was constantly monitored. The veterinarians took extremely good care of their patient. At Mövenpick an open area was chosen The wildebeest was carefully lifted off the trailer, and an antidote was administered. She rose drunkenly to her feet and moved off, stronger by the second, to reconnoitre her new home. As she walked away, I took a last photo.

Blue wildebeest are not beautiful.

End of story. Their funny behinds seem somewhat out of proportion – like caricatures created by an amateur cartoonist. Those tattered heads and down-hill faces just seem too downtrodden and sad. Real funeral-undertakers. Even the calves are not cute at all. Why a bottle-fed calf at Sabiepark in the late ‘90s earned the name of “Funny face”, is easy to understand. For the first month or two the wieldy calves, with their wrinkled faces, totter along behind their moms, like shadows. It is understandable, I suppose, because with so many little ones in the herd, babies can easily get separated from their mothers. They all look alike. Fortunately, they don’t all smell alike. Mothers soon learn the smell of their offspring by licking them.

One of the first tasks of a summer holiday in the bush is to get the sprinkler going. It immediately entices the birds to come and have a bath. The game also soon discovers the new green grass sprouts. On a warm December afternoon, a small herd of wildebeest descended on the fresh delicacy. Six of them lowered their heads and went on with the job. They enjoyed this delicacy so much, that they forgot their usual alertness. They had never been closer to the house. One even quenched his thirst at the waterhole. This is usually reserved for night drinking when their bodies blend in with the dark.

In this small herd were three babies. When their mothers appeared around the corner of the house after the feast, it was like a pistol start of a race. Together the babies took off and rushed at the bulging udders. They did not seem to have an identity crisis.

A while later, Johan and Mariza spent an evening on the stoep. A noise made them sit up. It sounded like an elephant crashing through the bush. They jumped in their bakkie and set off along Wildevy Avenue. No sign of elephant. What they did find, were two irate wildebeest on their knees, stamping heads – probably matters of the heart.

Impalas, too, are not secretive about their love life.

A perpetual snoring can be heard day and night from April to June. To the uninitiated, it may sound like some dangerous predator. However, it is nothing more dangerous than the modus operandi employed by impala rams to lure the ewes to their territory. They attempt to keep the ewes “at home” by rounding them up through their snoring.

The end of the year is the lambing season for impala. Then the veld teems with miniature “Brent Russells”. These babies, in contrast with their wildebeest counterparts, give the impression that they could immediately run and leap like mini-adults with the rest of the herd. To watch them is utter delight.

In Sabiepark one learns to appreciate impala.

One does not just drive past them like many tourists at the end of their Kruger holiday. It is a pleasure to meet them grazing peacefully, blocking the road on your way to church , or chasing back and forth across the road. Few things are more beautiful than an impala taking off and gracefully soaring 10, 12 metres through the air – a perfect example of classic movement.

Impalas always seem energetic and filled with the joys of life. If you should meet one that appears unhappy, something is amiss. Tokkie and I often wondered what was behind a sad incident we experienced one afternoon in Appelblaar Avenue. We heard the heart-rending bleating of a little doe. Then we saw her. She was all alone. She looked at us pleadingly. Then she ran a few steps. Stopped. Again looked at us. And bleated loudly and intensely.

This kept on for quite a while. But we were powerless. Firstly, it was against the rules to enter the property of a co-owner without permission. Secondly, her strange behaviour could be a warning. What if a leopard was hiding in the tall grass? Or a snake? From a field warden we heard of another possibility. It happens, he said, that an impala lamb might stray and get lost. When she discovers her fate, she “cries” her heart out. This bleating often attracts the attention of a leopard.

Bushbucks are true treasures of the veld. Sabiepark does not have many, which is a pity. But if the short tempered rams with the spiral-shaped horns don’t destroy one another, the hyenas and leopards do the damage. Near the river, and along the Amazini brook, one does find bushbuck. The chestnut brown little bucks with the characteristic white “collars”, white stripes and white spots on their slender bodies, duck-duck among the branches of the bank vegetation, always alert. At Tarlehoet we seldom see them. If one should appear form time to time, especially a ram, it is always an occasion. Everyone is called. It is camera time.

An unforgettable bushbuck scene on the old hikers’ trail will always warm my heart. A calf was lovingly licking a proud ram. It must have been Father’s Day in the animal kingdom.