Moholoholo Rehabilitation Center's mission is, first to the wildlife and then to education. Brian Jones, one of our guides for the morning, was very quick to point out that, sad as it is, the Center and Kruger National Park (close by) are zoos of sorts. They are a non-profit organization that relies on donations from the outside. They opened their gates to visitors to educate them and for the resources it brings to them. Their own resources make the decisions on how much they can do.
Brian was an excellent speaker as he explained the life cycle of the Lowveld. Every creature depends on the other to exist, it's as simple as that. The monkeys and baboons sit high in the trees and strip off leaves, fruits and nuts from the trees (damaging to the farmers) and what they drop off of the trees is then eaten by the grazers of the field. The monkeys and baboons have sentries to watch for predators and when they see one, they send out the alarm. The alarm is also picked up by the grazers who also flee the area! The predator picks out the prey and attacks and if he's lucky, he has a meal. Once he's finished then other pack animals move in for the left overs and from there come the insects.
You thought I left out the vultures didn't you? Yes, the vultures are the Birds of the Dead, but they are selective as to their "diet". The predators and scavengers feed off of the fresh kills but not the vultures! The vultures have an immunity to the diseases of the mammals. Let's use anthrax for example. When an animal dies due to anthrax or other diseases, the vultures swoop in. Each variety with his own job to do. You've all seen National Geographic photos of circling vultures right? They circle for a reason, they are calling in the rest of the "family" for dinner. First comes the larger birds with the razor sharp beaks to open the soft skin of the animal. He eats his fill and moves on. Then come the more medium size vultures with their hooked bills. They are equipped to open those holes even further and eat their fill and once they are done they move on. Then the smaller birds move in for the smaller pieces of meat still on the bone. In a matter of 3 hours they vultures can clean a carcass! That's kind of interesting but what's the hurry? The hurry is that these animals died from a disease and if those bones aren't cleaned in a hurry a fly can move in and carry the disease to an entire herd of animals, killing them all, because of 1 small fly! A fly is used as an example here, but small pack of scavengers would do the same job in a lot less time.
Amazing to think about it isn't it? The vultures are natures way of controlling disease within a population. Not that they are very pretty birds by any means, in my humble opinion, but their task given by nature, is one of beauty! Vultures fly (or I should say soar) high in the sky and have very keen eye site. They watch the sky as they soar looking for "invitations" to dinner. When they see another vulture beyond what you or I could see, they flock to the area and wait their turn at dinner! No one is in a hurry, everyone knows that they will have their fill before the bones are picked clean! Their seating arrangement for dinner is bases on the shape of their bills! It's really amazing if you stop and think about it. The smaller hook billed vultures can't open the flesh of an animal, so they wait for the big boy to show up and "carve" dinner as it were. They "show" the larger birds the way by circling in the sky, marking the spot. As the others see the circling they join in and continue to circle until everyone is there and it's time to begin.
OK so vultures are not the most "romantic" of the animals, I agree, but there isn't much of a chance for the larger herds to continue to thrive without them! So maybe in nature it isn't all about how you look, but about how you do your job! I'm not going to pretend to remember the names of all of the birds or what their job is, I'm sure that there is information on the Internet that gives specific information and I'm sure one day, when there is time, I'll go back and investigate it further. It is interesting to scroll through the photos in the album and note the differences in the beaks of the birds. The orange faced vulture has a face only a mother could love, but look close at his eyes and see his eyelashes! I think it was Elsa who got me hooked on the eyes of the animals, at her website photo gallery! Thank you Elsa!
In the last set of vulture photos at Picasa, you'll see an enclosure that the public is invited into. Our guide explained that we would be very safe as long as we stayed alive! I felt pretty chipper so I ventured into the enclosure to get a closer look at these guys. They stand with their wings open to cool off by the way and if that doesn't work, then it's off to the bath for a proper washing and cooling at the same time :) I also thought it was cute that while one was in the water it seemed as though there was a line forming in back of him!
It in this set of photos that you'll find Stefan who got very brave and dawned the leather glove to feed the vultures a snack. The demonstration was to actually feel how heavy these boys get! I've had a macaw before, so knowing the weight of him and seeing the size difference, I had a pretty good idea as to how heavy he was, so I passed on the opportunity to feed them myself! Stefan even kind of dropped his arm a bit when the bird hopped onto his arm, so again, I got a pretty good clue as to his weight!
The DO NOT signs... yes, we've all seen them, Do Not Touch the Animals, Do Not Feed the Animals etc. First, I have to wonder why someone would have to be told not to stick their fingers inside of a lion enclosure but then I hope I'm smarter than the average monkey! What I find most aggravating are the "tourists" in these tourist traps! LOL Yeah, I know how that sounds, but you all know what I'm talking about! Everyone wants to get up close and see the animals and take pictures of the animals and then there are the ones who think that they are the only ones allowed to see... grrrrrrr!
Take the father with his $1000 (or more) Nikon camera with all of the fancy lenses and his approximately 7 year old son. Most of us would be fussing at our kids and watching them closely in an area that has a DO NOT sign posted, wouldn't we? Oh no! This dad is actually ENCOURAGING his son to touch the leopard! OK so the leopard at the time was laying against the fence with his back to us, does that make it any safer? Those big cats are fast, they have to be to survive in their world! Personally I was rooting for the leopard to have a little mid morning snack! Seriously, has this father been watching too many cartoons or what?????? Do you know why I could never be a guide at one of those kinds of places? Seeing the father encouraging his son, I'd invite the kid and his father inside the gate to play with the big kitty cat! Pppffffttttt! LOL
OK I'm done with that little ranting session! Granted, our guide through the Center has done this job for several years now (was asked) and so he goes through the same description over and over and over again, watching his visitors "do" when they should be "Do Not"ing (is that a word? It is now.) I'm not sure how many times he repeated that these animals cannot be released into the wild again. Every animal we visited he would repeat the sentence. OK I got it after the first few times, not to mention that Brian had explained in detail why most would never be able to be released, their exposure to man and his interference with nature. So the guide says, "these animals cannot be returned to the wild" and the next question he gets is???? The problem children of the day were a bus load of tourists from I don't know where but I was so happy when they had to leave with Tours Inc.! I really don't think anyone was sad to see them go, they were the pushy ones... So remember tourists, when you travel, be considerate to those with you or you may be thrown into the lion enclosure by the person next to you!
OK so I'm not done yet, sorry. One "tourist" asked if the animals "liked being here." Hummmm, I could see the wheels turning in the guides head as to how he WANTS to answer this question, but he shows more restraint than I would have with his non-committal reply. Most of the animals at Moholoholo were predators (outside of the birds of the dead), they weren't like the elephants that Cara and I spent time with the day before. Elephants are grazers not predators. These kids were clearly less happy to be there than the elephants at the Elephant Sanctuary were. The leopard paced most of the time we saw him, now part of that was that when he saw the guide he knew it was time for his snack from the guide but you could also kind of see the restlessness in their eyes.
I don't know, maybe it was part of the sadness of this wonderful place that I found most annoying. I saw the lion and lioness in their enclosure and my heart went out to them. The lion is a beautiful animal who is much bigger and muscular than I ever imagined. Again, yes, I've seen his cousin in a zoo, but not this close up! His size was surprising as was the beauty of his gait. You really wanted to go hug the big kitties, but again, they are called WILD for a reason.
If you wander through the Birds of the Dead album at Picasa, take note of the size of the guides hand as compared to the lion's or the leopard's head and mouth. Note also how he keeps his fingers AWAY from the cats? Look at the size of the claws on those kitties! They are most impressive in stature, so regal and so ....????
Again, the wild dogs were not what I had expected them to be either really. I'm not sure what I expected, but these were big dogs, highly alert and watching the visitors as they filed by. Do you remember what I said before about the amount of range that these animals need to survive? Each species has it's own needs and it can share some of it's range with other species but it still needs what it needs to survive. These wild dog packs can run and run and run, they exhaust their prey and still have the energy to attack and bring it down. Amazing when you think about it. I know my Pugs at home can barely get off of the couch and attack their food dish!
Before we get to the baby rhinos at the Center, there are 2 cheetahs who reside there and have been there for a very long time. They put these 2 kids on leashes and take them to educate the nearby farmers. They did lay out in the shade while we were there and kind of waved a paw at us from time to time, just to be social and say hello ;) There is always a problem between the predators and the farmers. The farmers say that the predators eat their cows and sheep. The Center will come and get them to move them to a safer place for everyone when the farmers call. Most times the farmers just poison the predators and call it fair. The farmers say the vultures kill their livestock so they poison a goat and leave it for the vultures. They come, they eat and they die! Sometimes by the hundreds. What the farmers don't understand is the interdependence of all of the life in the area. Now when a diseased goat, cow or sheep dies, the vultures aren't there to clean up that little mess and the disease is passed along to the rest of the herd! Sad isn't it? So the Center is very keen on educating the local farmers and they use the 2 cheetahs to help teach them.
So now we can move on to the baby rhinos. The center received a call from Kruger National Park, they had been rejected by it's mother. The center was called because the white rhinos are on the endangered species list. Once they are old enough they will be moved to a preserve that specializes in breeding and from what I understand they are in need of males at this types of preserves. So, let's hope that this does them some good and we don't lose the rhinos! They are incredible animals, but then, aren't they all? The babies are adorable, they are very sweet and love the visitors almost as much as they like feeding time! They are playful and seem happy. Both came to the Center just after birth and about a week apart so they are being raised as brothers. You can see how much they bonded to each other by the way they play and romp around. One of them was quite insistent on getting into Betsi's purse! Once the other tourists left (you remember them I'm sure), the rest of us were able to take a few photos and pet them :)
I've always heard the expression, "tough as a rhinos hide", well, I can better appreciate that expression now! You cannot see movement between the shoulders and the hips when they walk! It feels almost like a tanned leather and it's very thick. You can see on their sides, scuff marks made by the other rhino as they played! They do seem to play a little rough with each other, but then, their hide can handle it! We were there when they got part of their 15 liters of rhino formula! For our metrically impaired, that would be 7 1/2 2 liter sodas, per day... each! And yes, I'm one of those metrically impaired thank you! To grasp the amount of formula they get I had to visualize all those soda bottles lined up in a row! Once they have lapped it up from the bowl, the staff comes and wipes their faces off to stop any bacteria from growing. Like any child who has just eaten, they really didn't appreciate getting their faces cleaned though. The kids have been bottle fed since birth and they are quite comfortable with human contact, I think they thrive on it. I never did realize or appreciate how social most of these animals are... it's very heart warming to see that.
Some of you may want to quit reading at this point. The topic is Conservation and it's a very emotional subject in many parts of the world right now. If you choose to continue reading, please understand that what you are reading is only MY thoughts and mine alone.
Karen, you and I have had the "tree hugger" conversation before and I know that you read this blog. My thoughts are changing and I think I'm leaning towards the tree huggers side of the fence right now. I don't know where the middle ground is on the subject of man's needs versus wild life needs, I don't even know if there is any kind of workable solution. What I do know is that this trip has been a very eye opening experience for me. In some ways I think I was happier being ignorant... I know I've repeated myself on this part about the amount of range that each species needs for survival and the truth is that they are running out of space. Right now in Kruger Park there are too many elephants. The elephants are using up the grazing area for so many other species.
I don't know the exact number of elephants that there are in Kruger Park but they are 200+ over what the land can support. The sad truth of the situation is that they need to cull that 200+ in order for not only the other elephants to survive but so many other species. Kasper and Kitso ended up at the Elephant Sanctuary during other periods where they needed to cull the elephants. At that time the culled the adults and spared the calves. What they now know is that elephants are more emotional animals than they ever realized. They have a family social structure that is so close to humans, that they will have to cull entire herds of elephants to ensure survival of the others.
I think you, above all others, know how this news hit me. Of course there are the political debates over the subject right now and they are very similar to our own when man needs the land to expand on so I'm not even going to go there. I think Mr. Spock put it in perspective when he said in one of the Star Trek movies that, "the needs of the many out weight the needs of the few".
Anyway, I'm going to close with that thought for tonight. If you want more information on the Moholoholo Rehabilitation Center, you can click on the link below.
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Wonderful blog Pat. So very vivid. I do believe in conservation and good stewardship. I do believe that all creatures, great and small, have their place in God's plan. I grieve for the animals that are destroyed with reckless abandon by idiots with no idea that there is a symbiotic relationship between man and animal. I get angry with the "animals/plants first" groups that also don't realize that there is this same relationship and hide their hypocrisy. End of soap box. Keep up the great blog honey...
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K