I haven’t been myself lately as I’ve been gravely worried about Thabo, the baby rhino I told you about at the Moholoholo Reserve. Shortly after I blogged about him, he fell ill. His tummy stopped working and there was no sign of any bowel movements. The staff and students on their wildlife conservation holidays were all deeply worried about him, especially his ‘mummy’ who had looked after the calf since his arrival.
The vet was called in and after countless check-ups and various courses of medication Thabo still had everyone stumped. After weeks of not passing any dung, you can imagine that Thabo should have been in a dreadful state, but instead he was running around the reserve and remaining his usual rambunctious self. The vet was mystified and said that in all his years of wildlife conservation he had never seen anything quite like it. Gravely, he told us to prepare for the worst and for the next few weeks Moholoholo just wasn’t the same. The reserve just seemed to exude sadness and Thabo was kept under constant surveillance.
Staff tried every possible treatment that they could to make Thabo better again. Then one day when the staff had pretty much accepted Thabo’s fate, he started passing dung. As you can imagine, everyone was ecstatic and days later Thabo is as right as rain. I’m so happy that he’s well and have already planned a trip to Moholoholo to see him in the next couple of weeks.
Conservation Volunteers Tackle Prickly Acacia Bushes
Posted by Zazu Oxpecker - September 14th, 2009
I’ve got some great news, my nest’s recently undergone a renovation and I now have a much better view. I have the conservation volunteers to thank for this, as after a quick fly around the reserve catching up with all the gossip down by the waterhole, I returned home to find the students hacking at my bush, with machetes and saws. You would have thought that I’d have been terrified, after all I have a cluster of eggs sitting in there, but I know that the students care deeply about wildlife conservation and would never do anything to hurt me, …
Conservation Volunteers Create Stone Fences
Posted by Zazu Oxpecker - September 14th, 2009
The conservation volunteers at Shamwari Reserve are a lot like us birds, in that they are pretty much used to getting up at the crack of dawn. They do say the early bird catches the worm, but in the case of the conservation volunteers they were getting up early to collect a pile of bricks lying in the middle of the game reserve. It was a cold day and most of the students had taken their sleeping bags along for the ride as the wind chill on a jeep can make the journey pretty cold. I was excited about all …
