Page 33 - Blue Valley News June/July 2021

NATURE

They performed flamboyant and pointless
antics, getting perilously close to dangerous
animals, seemingly to show off just like circus
lion tamers used to when they put their
heads in lions’ mouths. Other TV programmes
depict wild animals in an anthropomorphic
way, often insinuating there can be a sort of
Doctor Dolittle bond between humans and
wildlife.

Influenced by this, a few years ago some
Southeast Asian students driving in a South
African lion park saw a group of lions and two
of the students got out of their vehicle and
casually walked over to them wanting to pose
for photographs. They were instantly killed.
About that time, I was driving a Hungarian
visitor in Kruger Park and stopped because
there were elephants in the road. My guest
leapt out of the car and ran towards the
elephants gesticulating for me to take his
picture. Fortunately, the elephants fled. Buffalo – an uncompromising beast. They
can be as docile as cattle, but taken by
Nature has always been neutral. As John surprise, anything can happen.
Burroughs wrote a century ago, “Nature does
not care whether the hunter slays the beast
or the beast the hunter. She will make good
compost of them both and her ends are tragedy, a man was witnessed in the same editors stood one behind the other behind
prospered whichever succeeds.” national park luring bears with food offerings the tree, Player stood his ground and shouted,
and then whacking them with a stick. He “Voetsek!” and the rhino veered away. Talking
We can make pets of lions, even romp with explained, “I’m teaching them that humans of which, a friend from Johannesburg was in
them. We can tame African elephants enough are bad.” a Connecticut store when he saw a group of
to ride on their backs. But in the wilds, no agitated people unable to control a frenzied,
bond exists between us and them. Wild When at night lions walked into James snarling dog. My friend pushed his way
animals live in fear of man and even some Stevenson-Hamilton’s vegetable garden at through and shouted “Voetsek!”. The dog
normally timid species, such as the sable Sukuza (he was warden of Kruger Park from slunk off.
antelope, tsessebe and giraffe, have been 1902 to 1946), he would go outside and, in his
known to attack, lethally, in their defence. high, piping voice shout “Shoo!” They would Most animals have predictable ‘flight
flee. Rural villagers resort to shouting to keep distances’, the distance at which they decide
This naivety about bonding with wild lions, hippos, elephants and wild pigs at whether to flee or take aggressive action.
creatures was epitomised in 2003 in Alaska bay and have turned charging rhinoceroses. South African hunter, FJ Pootman, writing
when Timothy Treadwell (46) and his South African farmer, R de la B Barker, writing of his experiences almost 80 years ago,
girlfriend, Amie Huguenard (37), were killed in African Wild Life magazine many years calculated these distances and concluded
and partially eaten by a bear or bears near ago, told how one of his workmen turned a that lions retreat when a person gets to
Kaflia Bay in Katmai National Park, southwest buffalo nine times in succession by screaming within 80 metres, elephants at 150 metres in
of Anchorage. Treadwell, a popular ‘eco at it. Big male baboons will repulse a hunting open country, and crocodiles at 150 metres
warrior’ on Discovery Channel, would get up leopard by screaming at it. Ian Player, who when discovered out of water. He said most
close to brown bears (powerful cousins of the was for many years a wildlife conservationist antelope rush off at about 20 metres. This last
grizzly) unarmed and call out, ‘I love you.’ The in Zululand, was with a group of editors in one, if it were accurate for those days, which I
couple decided to camp in bear country to the Umfolozi Game Reserve (now part of doubt, certainly no longer applies. Nowadays
prove the point that bears would not harm Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park) when a white rhino they’d flee at a minimum of 50 to 60 metres.
you if you did not harm them. Soon after the charged. There was one tree and, while the But outside protected areas, many antelope
will flee at 200 - 300 metres.
A course at an Mpumalanga college for
prospective game rangers offered advice
If you're on foot and the hippo is out of on what distances various wildlife species
the water, stay as far away as possible. will remain and not feel threatened once
they become aware of one’s presence. To
move to within a certain distance will cause
an animal to display displacement activity –
just as a domestic cat (or even a lion) when
uncertain about a situation, will pretend to
groom itself while deciding what action to
take. An elephant will make as if it is feeding
and then, as you draw closer into its flight-
or-fight zone, it will decide whether to attack
or flee. The ‘no nonsense’ hippopotamus,
throughout its range, has been indicted as
Africa’s most predictably aggressive mammal
when approached – hence its reputation as
the world’s deadliest large land mammal. BV

BLUE VALLEY NEWS • Issue 3 2021 • 31