HIDE AND SEEK

BUSH BEHEMOTHS

Michael, joined in 2015. His job is crucial. Every day, he ventures into the bush to find rhinos, identify them and convey the information to conservationists, building up a picture of their territories and health, and informing future relocation plans. We start to track in the traditional way, looking for spoor (footprints) and scat (droppings), and I am hooked.

What might be just dung to you and me is, in fact, the rhino equivalent of social media, letting fellow rhinos know if they’re ready to mate or impinging on territory.

Intrigued, I learnt how the shape and contents of dung could help identify its perpetrator.

The midden, or dung pile, we had found was roughly the shape of a children’s blow-up paddling pool. It had been used repeatedly by the same rhino, who had kicked it around, as males do, to spread their territorial scent. Its contents were grass, not sticks, which are eaten only by black rhinos. And nearby lay a footprint the size of a dinner plate, with a clear W-shaped indentation and two lobes at the back, distinguishing white rhino spoor from black.

“This is probably Serjeant, a male white. It’s his territory. He can be very cheeky,” Michael warned. “He gets jealous if he’s with females; he’s even attacked our cars…”

We drove on, following Serjeant’s tracks (somewhat nervously on my part) but lost them on grassy terrain where they were no longer discernible. Then we spotted a notably fat rhino wobbling calmly across the golden plains. “Take a photo of the ears,” Michael said, and we zoomed in to the image on the camera.

All rhinos here have different triangular notches cut into their ears, which are documented on a chart alongside their name, age and gender. Using the chart, we discovered this was Mary. “She’s heavily pregnant,” Michael divulged. “And, unusually for black rhinos, she’s always very calm.” He gave me a data sheet to record our sighting. Instead of stuffy scientific jargon, it had cartoonlike sketches of trees and bushes to signify habitats and drawings of rhino shapes and actions (left), a work of art even a child could complete.

Suddenly, a message crackled over the radio from a guide who had spotted four rhinos some distance away. Our Land Cruiser kicked up scents of wild sage as we bumped hastily through scrub, over rutted

‘We had no idea the poaching situation was so terrible. It’s great that they’re doing something positive about it.’

MAKING TRACKSSue Watt with ‘Michael’, above, the rhino monitor from Chief’s Camp; a white rhino, left