Memories of "becoming a game ranger"...

Its 1 am. The icy chill of the July night air has penetrated right through my naked shins. My legs tremble uncontrollably where I sit perched on the spare tyre on the back of the Land Cruiser. We have been waiting for hours for the drugged lion to wake. I silently chastise myself for leaving my jacket behind. It’s so hot during the day and I didn’t realise that it would take so long to dart and collar a lion and now we are obliged to wait for it to recover. Its only four hours before the next official work day begins. I have to join a team of bush-clearers and help to chop out a stand of invasive and decidedly spiny sicklebush that has grown up along the main game viewing route of the reserve.

Another tremble rattles me. This time it’s the reverberating roars of two more lions so close to the vehicle that the puffs of hot air from their nostrils almost warm me. They have been attracted to the holding boma where the sleeping captive recovers. They bellow out their hostile intent towards the doped animal that they somehow sense is vulnerable. The experience is exhilarating. But not as much as the earlier part where I had to secure the impala bait to a tree with a hungry lion already in attendance!

The sleeping lion is not the only individual feeling vulnerable right now. It’s barely two months since I turned eighteen and my initial encounter with game ranging is turning out to be full of surprises. Had I known my first task on the job would be to sort through a large barrel of frozen butchery off-cuts (to remove any bits of incident plastic) before it could emptied out at the vulture restaurant, I’m not sure I would ever have embarked on a career in wildlife. Although not totally ignorant after six months of theoretical training, I’m still enchanted by my childhood illusion that game rangers are immediately issued roofless Land Rovers and sent off in search of big, impressive animals with the wind blowing their sun-stained hair across Ray Ban clad eyes. Although caught somewhat off-guard by this initial and decidedly unpleasant task, I was determined to prove my mother wrong of her all too frequently chided opinion that ‘game ranging is just not for girls’ so I rolled up my sleeves…

Unexpected is the name of the game ranger’s game. A few weeks later I discover that it is apparently completely normal for the undercarriage of the Toyota pick-up we are driving overland through a remote stretch of Kalahari grassland to intermittently burst into flames. This is thanks to an accumulation of tangled grass in the hot chassis. A few flaps, blows and handfuls of sand to dowse the flames and we’re back on the trail.

A trail that is quickly teaching me that there are bigger things at stake than ice-cold legs, blistered hands, spontaneously combusting vehicles and the obnoxious smell of decay. The reality of modern day conservation is that as soon as a fence encloses a wild area (no matter how large it is) it essentially becomes an artificial system. Wild animals can no longer follow traditional migration routes or adjust their home ranges to compensate for drought or predation. Typically agriculture and human settlements creep right up to the boundaries of the reserves and once the vegetation within the protected area becomes overgrazed, the natural recolonisation by seeds blowing in from refugia outside its perimeter, can no longer take place effectively. The area has to be managed by humans – game rangers - to simulate the appropriate ecological conditions for the ecosystem to continue to function. Predators, particularly, need to be closely monitored to minimise interbreeding. The radio collar we gave the lion will facilitate this process and help prevent any unwarranted interaction with the communities living right on the reserve’s doorstep. The dispatched intestines will provide a poison-free feeding site to vulnerable vulture species and prove an attraction to guests visiting the reserve (and thereby supporting its ongoing management)...

(a real-life extract from an article written for Africa Geographic Dec-Jan edition 2008/9 www.africageographic.com)

Plums for the Chiefs

The great thing about the bush is that there is always something happening in spite of the weather or season. On a recent visit to the Pilanesberg Game Reserve in the North West Province (its a cool place, a natural system inside an ancient weathered volcano!) we stopped to stretch our legs at one of the picnic sites and to my suprise (and delight!) I spotted a Jacketplum in full fruit. Yes, this is me getting excited about a tree but its a really awesome tree that one seldom finds in fruit and when one does, one has to compete with baboons, monkeys and fruigivorous birds of every description to get a look in - especially this deep into winter! The fruit in the picture was sampled by myself immediately on taking the snapshot...and they were delicious!

Whats cool about this tree? The jacket plum (Pappea capensis) is often called the Indaba Tree. ‘Indaba’ is the Zulu word for 'meeting' and the tree was traditionally used as a meeting place. The boughs of a fully mature tree droop down towards the ground but do not become dense around the trunk. Tribal chiefs would hold meetings under the boughs of the jacket plum as they could be screened from view but could still see out through the branches to keep an eye on their village. The tree does not have a dense canopy generally and the hot air easily rises up from below, sucking in cooler air from the sides and providing a well air-conditioned conference facility.

The tree gets its name from the fruit which has a hard but velvety green skin. When it ripens, the fruit splits open along a clean seam revealing the juicy red flesh which makes the fruit look as if it were wearing a dinner jacket. The yummy fruit can be eaten as is or stewed up into a jelly preserve. Vinegar and an alcoholic beverage are also made from the fruit. Inside is a hard seed. This contains a great deal of viscous oil which may be extracted from the roasted seeds and traditionally this oil was used for curing baldness and ringworm. It has been used more recently by farmers to oil their rifles. The oil is edible but may have a purgative effect if consumed. It is also used for soap making and as a lubricant.

When not in fruit, the Jacketplum is one of the easiest bushveld trees to identify as it has especially distinctive bark - the bark is mostly smooth and looks as though it’s been sponged down with two tones of grey paint but older sections form rougher, blacker blocks that resemble small bricks on a peeling plastered wall. The bark has been used in the past to cure venereal diseases.