Conservation Articles

Written by Prof Gerhard Verdoorn | 12 November 2008

A Dangerous Beast

A bone chilling growl with sputum spraying like poison and yellow fangs that seek the soft and vulnerable parts of the body is what a leopard attack is all about. Pioneers and hunters live to tell the tales of buffalo and elephant attacks, but few survive a full blown attack by a savannah leopard. It is one of the most beautiful yet most feared large felines in the world. Only the jaguar is more powerful by body weight, but seeing a leopard male scaling a tree with an impala carcass renders the jaguar claim somewhat doubtful.

Written by Prof Gerhard Verdoorn | 15 November 2008

Like a flash of lightning across the plains

Being the fastest land animal does not necessarily guarantee survival as a species. In the context of a man-free natural world the cheetah is successful, but the human footprint has left little hope for the survival of the cheetah. It once roamed across the African continent and the Middle East stretching as far as India, but those are days gone by. The fastest predator on earth is now limited to a very small portion of its original distribution range and numbers are estimated to be around 10, 000 animals in the wild. Given the history where it is estimated that in Roman times there were literally thousands of cheetahs in captivity, it is quite sad to acknowledge that it is heading for disaster.

Written by Prof Gerhard Verdoorn | 01 November 2008

He who cries for his own departure

When hunting eland, the San people of the Kgalagadi believe that the hunter should throw sand in the eyes of the animal when it eventually goes down after a struggle against the slow-acting but lethal poison on their arrow tips. This, they believe, is to cover the tears in the eyes of an eland as it cries before it dies.

Some of the San people simply look away when they approach the antelope to avoid seeing the sorrow in the animal’s eyes before it departs to the next life. Whatever they believe is testimony to a people that have lived all their lives in symbiosis with the wilderness and all its creatures.

Written by Prof Gerhard Verdoorn | 01 November 2008

Obelix of the great rivers

Lieutenant Andrews was a butterfly enthusiast. After the usual drills and operations, he was under his net searching for the rare beauties of the Angolan wilderness, often returning with a spectacular specimen to show the rest of us. I usually made myself comfortable in a tree to have a better view of the birds that I was watching. Lt Andrews often featured in the lenses of my old military binoculars as he ventured at great speed through the reed-beds and tall grass.