Never Run in the Bush
James Carne • November 12, 2024
Solid advice based on us being mostly the slowest species in the bush and we frequently remind guests of this here at Sausage Tree Safari Camp.
However there are always exceptions and our old friend, the Leopard Tortoise is of course one of them.
We still have not received any substantial rains other than some prolonged drizzle which is enough to bring the leopard tortoise back out of its winter hibernation.
It is the most common common tortoise in the Greater Kruger Lowveld area and is the largest reaching a maximum of 700mm and 40kg and can live up to 75 years.
It is the only South African species of tortoise that is able to swim thanks to a V notch in the shell area above its neck which allows it to keep its head above water.
Why “Leopard” Tortoise ? They have no teeth and enjoy a vegetarian diet so its all about the leopard like colouring of their carapace.
You can distinguish between the sexes by the longer tail of the male and its concave underside plastron , a design for ease of mating.
The sex of tortoise hatchlings is determined by the incubation temperature in their chamber under loose sand and vegetation. 26 to 30degs C means males , 31 times 34 degs C means females. As your Sausage Tree guides will tell you in their relentless pursuit of assailing our guests with fun filled facts, this is easily remembered as … cool dudes , hot chicks,
You might witness a Leopard Tortoise snacking on hyena scat (poo to you and me ) . It might be taste driven but more likely its for calcium absorption for she’ll maintenance.
Running away from predators is not an option and they are vulnerable to Leopards , hyena, rock monitors and ground hornbills.
Unfortunately locally tortoise meat is considered a delicacy. This and unauthorized pet trafficking means they are currently an endangered species .
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A truly rare sighting...
It is a very rare sighting indeed and a few days ago very lucky guests staying at Sausage Tree Safari Camp here on Olifants West Nature Reserve had a very close up view of an unusually relaxed mother and cub.
We were privileged to attend a lecture on Pangolins given by Professor Raymond Jansen of Tswane University, predominantly for the benefit of our Black Mamba all female, anti poaching environmental monitors, at their Operations HQ here on Olifants West Nature Reserve in the Greater Kruger To write that it was fascinating would be a significant understatement . The professor opened up with a banger : the 8 species of pangolin are in the unique order of Pholidota . The closest order is Carnivora! In fact medical treatment for pangolins follows along the same lines as for domestic cats. The pangolin has been traced back 85 million years to an ancestor fossil found in Germany, a relic from Pangea times. The pangolin is the only mammal to be covered in scales which are made of keratin, the one and the same substance as our fingernails and the horns of rhino. It is also unique for an African mammal, bipedal. The four Asian species are perilously close to extinction and the four African species are heading the same way. Two of the four African species are arboreal, the white bellied pangolin ( the most frequently encountered) and the black bellied pangolin. The rarest is the Giant ground pangolin weighing in at a staggering 44 kilos plus. These three species are predominantly found in Central and West Africa. The Temmincks ground pangolin weighing in between 6 to 14 kilos is the the most widespread species and is the one that if you are incredibly lucky, can be found in our area. Many a field guide has spent years in the field without ever having seen a pangolin. They are solitary and nocturnal and feed only on ants and termites using a tongue which is as long as their entire body attached to their sternum, which when not in use curls up within the abdominal area. Ground pangolin mortality has for many years been caused by electric fences when they walk unwittingly into one with the bottom strand being live, and on contact triggers their defence mechanism whereby they curl up into a ball and die of electrocution. Wandering onto roads and becoming roadkill is another. Traditional medicinal use in sub Saharan Africa is another as the scales are considered to have healing powers to treat a host of serious to minor ailments. However field research conducted by the Professor’s students found this to be possibly sustainable as a traditional healer attested to needing just two scales a year for grinding down into potions for an entire village. However the other traditional use of gifting a pangolin to tribal chiefs and elders as the most prestigious gift that can be made, is not sustainable and is said to be the reason why pangolins can no longer be found in KwaZulu Natal. In West and Central Africa traditionally pangolin have been hunted for their meat and openly and legally sold on the side of roads at around $20 per animal. The scales having no perceived medicinal or cultural value were discarded as waste. In more recent times the arrival of Chinese doing business in Africa has dramatically altered the pressure on the African pangolin. There has been a very longstanding tradition of using pangolin scales in traditional Chinese medicine and with the demise of the Asiatic species the illegal trade in African pangolin scales has rocketed. 90% of African scales are estimated to be China bound where they are eventually sold at very high prices and 75% of the trade is routed through Nigeria . Here in South Africa , our province of Limpopo has become a hotspot for pangolin poaching. The professor reports that entire containers full of scales have been confiscated in Hong Kong which represents a staggering number of pangolin poached. Efforts by a relatively recently formed pangolins anti poaching unit which includes members of the Hawks special unit of the South African police due to the Nigerian organised crime involvement has resulted in 267 arrests to date and recent sentences have risen to eight years. Hopefully this sends a strong message out, discouraging people from entering the illegal trade. Recovered pangolin from sting operations has led to rehabilitation sometimes as long as a year. Even after the pangolin has been medically treated for the inevitable dehydration and pneumonia acquired during its capture, it may take many months to stabilise it from the stress it has sustained. The sound of male voices ( poachers are usually male) is enough to make it curl into a ball which is why female volunteers are normally used at pangolin rehabilitation centres. The rehabilitation process is highly intensive as one cannot feed them in captivity but need to be accompanied on very long foraging walks . However these efforts are proving to be 85% successful. Sausage Tree Safari Camp supports these efforts via putting up free stay prizes at fundraising auctions, Back to the question, what fate for the pangolins? Something radical needs to happen if this extraordinary mammal avoids extinction within 10 to 15 years at the present rate of loss. It’s in a worse predicament than that of the other keratin carrying much poached African mammals, the rhino. The rhino can have its horn removed without harm to it and it regrows , no such option for the pangolin and its scales . The rhino can be kept in full and semi captivity and breeding farms . The pangolin cannot be kept in any kind of captivity. In an open letter to Director General of the World Health Organisation and the Executive Director of UN Environment program which can be found on the website below, Professor Jansen highlights the zoonotic origins of all the pandemics known to man including the current Covid - 19 virus which is thought to originate from a wet market in Wuhan whereby a natural host species, in this case the horseshoe bat, came into close contact with an intermediate species thought to be a pangolin via blood and/or excreta and was then consumed by a human. The proposal is not for a global ban on wet markets as this would be unrealistic and unfair to millions of people whose diet is wholly dependent on the animals and plants sold therein. Rather, to educate and regulate against the known SARS virus-carrying mammal species being sold in wet markets is the way forward to avoid further pandemics. The bycatch of this strategy, if adopted, could be the survival of the pangolin. If you want to help save the pangolin then please make a donation via: http://www.africanpangolin.org/
Also known as the Southern Lesser Galago, and the “lesser” is fairly apt in terms of it is a lesser known mammal of the bush and for first time safari goers usually an unexpected and surprising sighting. As we are now in early winter here at Sausage Tree Safari Camp in Greater Kruger , the sparser vegetation makes for easier spotting of these endearing lesser primates. The first glimpse of this small, nocturnally active animal is often two bright orange eyes caught in the tracker’s spotlight up in a tree. If the bush baby remains still then its entire head ,body, arms, legs and tail will be visible to the general comments of how cute it looks. This may be followed by a display of its phenomenal leaping ability, bouncing from branch to branch as far as 5 meters in one jump. It has very large eyes which are fixed and fill up their entire sockets, so to compensate its head can swivel within an arc of 180 degrees. Its large ears can also move independently of each other. It’s nighttime vision is very good but its hearing is remarkable. Slow motion filming has revealed that a bush baby can grab an insect in mid air during one of its prodigious leaps, and has been concluded that this is thanks to a finely developed sense of hearing as it has its eyes shut for protection when the catch is made. Its tail can be as long as its body and helps it to maintain its excellent balance. Its diet during summer months is composed of insects and spiders, and during the insect free winter months it dines on the gum from acacia trees. Although highly social living in family groups of two to eight , it will forage on its own at night and sleep huddled together in its group tree nest during the day. They will groom each other using forward facing lower canines and an elongated second digit on their hind claw. They even have a secondary tongue below the teeth to clear hair trapped in their teeth. They are territorial and the dominant male and female will mark their territory by urinating onto their cupped hand and rub it onto their hind feet, spreading it as they move. The young males will leave their natal group on the onset of puberty to find another group, which avoids inbreeding. The gestation period is around 125 days and one or two babies is the usual. They grow quickly, are independent within eight weeks and can have a lifespan of ten years. Their enemies are many such as genets, civets and owls ie nocturnal predators active hunting at the same time as they are foraging, travelling as much as 2 km and visiting 500 trees in one night. Sometimes, in houses with thatched roofs in the bush, a mother will drop one of her newborns and doesn’t retrieve it. This is an opportunity to hand raise a bush baby, Sonja and James having raised several. They are not called babies for nothing though, as they need feeding every 3 to 4 hours around the clock (the real reason for being called bush babies is from the baby like cries of its much larger cousin: the Greater bush baby). After 8 weeks, a window is left open at night to encourage them to forage outside and thus the process of introducing them into the wild begins. They may take a few months or up to a few years, but eventually one morning they won’t return, having integrated with a local group, the way it should be.
GREATER KRUGER PARK
25 Cambridge
Olifants West Nature Reserve,
Hoedspruit, 1380
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