Catching camelhorses

It is only 4am and it is still pitch dark as we walk through the forest from our room to the kitchen. For some fresh coffee. We pick up our packed breakfasts from security and soon Phillip arrives. Rendezvous at Izwe is at 4:45. We are there in good time. The Robbie 44 is on the airstrip. Pilot, Danie, will fly this machine. Gerry will “spot” from the Robbie 22. Today we capture giraffe. The most exciting, and dangerous, of animals to capture.

Young vet, Stuart, has traveled down from Thabazimbi to do the darting. He gets all his tools for the job in order. A converted .22 rifle will be used to dart the giraffe. Marinus’ team gets their tools ready. We will be two teams. Each one needs a capture rope. A lead rope with a halter. Cotton wool to put in the ears. Cloth and duct tape to cover up the eyes. 

I turn around and Kristal is already in the chopper, seated next to Danie. With 12,000 hours of flying he is surely one of the safest pilots one could hope for. Flying 24 hours a day it would take you almost a year and a half to catch up with Danie! Kristal gives a big smile and a little wave.

All ready now, the chopper takes off. Two giraffe were spotted close to the airstrip. We stand by. Two teams on two Cruisers.

The dart is in! The chopper chases the first giraffe, a small two year-old female towards the air strip, for the dart does not completely immobilize them. She breaks through the bush on the air strip. The team in the other vehicle is off now. Two guys, with the main capture rope in hand, run towards the giraffe. One runs in front of her, just metres away. The rope is spanned in front of her as she runs straight into it. One guy is pulled right off his feet and dragged for some metres along the grass. The giraffe has broken free. They pick up themselves and the chase again. And again she breaks clear. JR has joined in. Rope over his shoulder he sprints after her, a Bundox guy in tow.

The second dart is in! The second giraffe. Our vehicle speeds off. The chopper does its best to chase the giraffe onto the air strip, but the bush is thick.

Phillip maneuvers the Cruiser along a small track, just off the strip. The chopper has landed and taken off again. We pull up and run through the bush, capture ropes, blindfolds and everything else.

Just 50m through the bush and we are with her. Kristal and Stuart are sitting on her neck. I join them. Three is what you need to safely keep her pinned down. Blindfold goes on. Cotton wool in the ears. Halter and lead rope. And then the main capture rope, with a large knotted loop, is placed over her neck and fed between her legs. Towards the back. Everyone keeps as clear as possible from the dangerous legs, which can kick any direction at any moment. Everything is ready within no more than 2 or 3 minutes and Stuart gives her the anti-dote to the M99.

We all jump off her neck. With a little help from the electric cattle prodder she rocks up onto her feet. We wrap the ropes around her hind quarters and pull her forwards. Step by nervous step she is led, blindly, through the bush and onto the air strip. The chariot trailer already has the first giraffe loaded and without too much difficulty we coax her up the ramp. Cross-poles go in after her. To prevent her reversing or kicking. The trap is closed behind her.

Marinus gives me the go ahead. I will fly with Stuart and Danie. I join Danie in the front. He finishes his coffee and leaves the cup at my feet. Stuart jumps in. Rotors start to wind up slowly. We put headphones on and lift off. Soaring above the green bush of Phinda below, cut into blocks by tiny gravel roads. Dams shimmer in the morning sun. We head south and spot a large herd, or journey as they are correctly called. Maybe 10 giraffe. Danie and Stuart discuss which are “catchable”. The giraffe are still being unloaded and we land, waiting for the capture teams and chariot to arrive.

We hear they are on their way and soon we airborne again. The catchable giraffe are located and we move in close to the first. Flying maybe 10m above them Stuart lets the dart fly. Dart is in! One of the vehicles speed towards her. The capture team dismounts quickly and take off after her. She skips over the capture rope several times. Danie is not happy. We didn’t give the signal for capture to go ahead. Eventually she goes down and the team is on her. We repeat this again. Soon a second giraffe is darted and down. We land. She has fallen badly, her back legs splayed.

Anti-dote in, and a cattle prod on the bum and she is up. I join the team again on the capture rope, walking her toward the trailer. We give her a rest just before we load her. Soon she joins the first giraffe in the  chariot. The ropes are removed with a bit of kicking and spinning around in the trailer. One cannot help but feel sorry for these now confused, distressed animals. The Cruiser and chariot set off for the truck at old main gate.

A few of us pile into Phillip’s Cruiser and take off back to Izwe. We pass Xhimungwe Dam. The small, white, Robbie 22 is parked just next to it. Not by choice though. Out spotting with us, Gerry picked up a big problem. One of the belts that drives the rotor packed in. He was forced to do an emergency landing, an auto-rotation. From just 100 feet! He’s lucky to be alive…

Kristal and I take Stuart’s Hilux bakkie to the truck at old main gate. With an injection for the giraffe that fell badly. We arrive in a cloud of dust, for they are waiting for us. Before they can unload and go after the next two.

The chariot trailer is already reversed up to the big game truck. Simon gives the injections. Climbing on top of the trailer I help coax the first giraffe into the trailer. And then the second. The door on the truck is closed. Another two giraffe safely loaded.

Soon Phillip arrives. The chopper is off again. The two teams are loaded up on Simon and Phillip’s Cruisers. Our team starts ragging the other team, “We are the A-team. You are the B-team”. The jokes fly back and forth. In Afrikaans. I get chatting with an old chap, whose Zulu is pretty good. He is Shangaan, and the language is quite similar. Dressed in a blue overall he has an old veldskoen on his left foot and an older skate shoe on his right. Quite a character!

The dart is in! The chopper chases a big male towards us. The B-team sets off in pursuit. Tripping, falling men do their best to chase after him, ropes in hand. Eventually they bring him down. The dart is in the second one and the chopper chases the smaller male towards us. Hold. Hold. OK, go!

We stream off the back of the bakkie and gallop towards the giraffe. Lala has one end of the capture rope. Myself and couple of guys hold the other end. Lala runs just in front of him, but the rope is too low and he just skips over it. We hare off after him again. JR is with us. Another attempt fails and my muscles are starting to burn from sprinting after the loping giant. I can’t go any more. Again JR grabs the rope and runs, another guy with him. Up the Sodwana Bay road. Once. Twice they try. No luck. Eventually the giraffe goes down, just off the road. Unnecessarily, a Bundox guys jumps high, tackling it around the neck. Three of us sit on the neck, careful not to block the windpipe.

All the ropes are in place. Blindfold is on. We prod him onto his feet and try leading him down the road. He struggles to climb out the ditch at first, but eventually we get him up on the road. And up towards the trailer. Left foot on the ramp. Right still on the road. The guys on top of the chariot try reposition him. Eventually, with a bit of a stumble, he is safely in the chariot. With a bit of difficulty we load these two on the truck closeby. Six giraffe loaded and ready. These last two are big. Space for just two more.

The chopper is airborne again and quickly another is darted. The B-team is after her. It is just chaos. Everyone running. All with different plans. Eventually she falls on the Sodwana Bay road. The second dart is in and on the back of Simon’s vehicle we speed off. And then wait. The chopper chases her towards us. And we get the OK. Ropes in hand we give chase. It is frantic. She is quick and we stumble along the uneven ground as quickly as possible. Men fall and others grab the capture rope to keep up the chase. A second large rope is also used. Lala and I have the capture rope. He runs across her front. It looks good. I’m ready. And then a guy trips and falls straight onto our rope and rolls into a thorn bush. With our rope now on the ground the giraffe just steps over it and keeps going. The chopper tries to herd her into a good position again as we re-gather ourselves. Simon shouts for us to span the two ropes between a gap in the thicket. The chopper will try chase her our way. We do, but she has gone the other way around the bushes. We chase after her. She is tired now and eventually goes down. Quickly we are on her. I’m sitting on the base of her neck. She is breathing heavily and is warm under my skin. We wait for Stuart. And then she starts twitching badly, as if having a seizure. I wonder if it is a reaction to the drugs.

Stuart rushes over and tells the guys at the front to lower her head. She has regurgitated food and seems to be choking. He shoves his arm down her windpipe to try remove the food and keep the airway open. “Is her chest moving?” He asks. No! Lala starts to pump her chest with his hands. We take turns. Stuart comes over and both feet on her chest jumps up and down, trying to get her to breath. Lala takes a turn, resting his hand on my shoulder to balance. Simon rushes over and takes a turn too. Then Lala. And then I offer to take a turn. I climb up onto her chest. “Nope, she’s gone hey” Stuart tells me. No point.

It turns out the giraffe that fell in the road also didn’t make it. Same story. We all stand around, dazed by the tragedy of what has just happened. It was going so well. We just cannot believe it. To lose two giraffe like this is just so hard for all of us to swallow. No more joking. No more excitement. Just a heaviness that hangs thick in the air.

Stuart cuts open the windpipe and we can see traces of food. He thinks perhaps both these two had just drunk water and that with the exertion of the chase and the fall this made them throw up and choke. The stress, the heat the chase, all of it, would also have contributed to this very sad loss.

The six giraffe in the truck are soon on their way. We wait for the TLB to come and bury the two carcasses in the bush. With M99 in their blood for up to a month still it is not safe for other animals to consume the meat. After the burial we head back to Izwe. It is hard to accept but this is the nature of game capture. Things can and do go wrong. We can at least be thankful that Gerry managed to evade a tragic accident and is around to fly another day.