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Good day to you all

I write to tell you of a terrible tragedy, and of a little ray of hope which resulted from that tragedy. Once you read the gist of this note, I’m sure you’ll all appreciate that I cannot tell you half of what I’d like to, due to the ongoing investigation that is taking place. I shall tell you what I can.

As some of you will already know, we in the Save Conservancy have lost several rhino to poaching in recent times. It is believed that all the killings have been the work of one man – a highly efficient professional rhino poacher. Over the Easter weekend, this bastard struck again, killing a female rhino on Humani, where I work.

Due to various factors (including the professionalism of the poacher), the rhino carcass was only discovered 4 or so days after the incident took place. I was off Humani at the time and therefore did not attend the scene on the day the discovery was made. But I conducted a follow-up operation the following day with some of our gamescouts, to thoroughly scour the area for evidence. Unfortunately, rain had long since washed away all traces. Whilst the scouts searched in the immediate vicinity of the carcass, I walked further into the mopani, hoping to come across I knew not what, but praying for a clue of any sort. I found no clue that may help lead us to the killer, but I did find something very special.

After walking a large semi circle through the vast mopani forest for about 30 minutes or so, I decided to return to the carcass and see how the other guys were getting on. On the way back, a few hundred meters from the carcass, I walked onto a baby rhino. We were well aware of the fact that the poached rhino had a very young calf (roughly six weeks), but the general consensus was that the calf had long since been eaten by lions, which are plentiful in that area. An abundance of fresh lion spoor strengthened that reasoning.

Of course, I was greatly surprised when I rounded a clump of bush and discovered the calf, lying on its side, staring wide-eyed up at me. My first thought was that it was dead, but then it blinked. Hardly pausing in my stride, I walked on, soon picking up pace and reaching the scouts in a fairly breathless state. The reason I did this was that I didn’t know how strong the calf was and didn’t want to lose it in the dense forest. It had already been alive about 5 days and I knew it wouldn’t last many more. As it was, it was an absolute miracle it had survived that long. Returning slowly to the place with two gamescouts, we converged on the calf from all sides. I approached from the front, whilst the scouts covered potential flight-paths to the rear. The little rhino did not stir as I moved in. As I knelt down and reached out a hand, however, it did move. And my how it moved! Up in a flash, the calf charged me at short range and butted me about viciously! Bowled over onto my backside, I managed to grab hold of an ear and then a front leg. The tussle was brief and very one-sided until the gamescouts grabbed the rhino from the rear. Even then, three grown men struggled to restrain a rhino that couldn’t weigh much more than 60 kilograms. What a feisty little fighter!

I sent one of the scouts back for the truck, and when he returned, we loaded the calf and proceeded to Roger Whittall’s house. Although rhino was now trussed up with mopani bark rope and I had its eyes covered with my shirt, it still fought us the whole way. We were all pretty beat up by the time we got home an hour later!

Jimmy is a little ray of hope in the story that is the Save Valley rhino saga and we have all fallen hopelessly in love with him. After only a few days, he has calmed down a great deal and I am now able to spend much time with him. He is feeding well and thriving, and we have high hopes for him.

I shall keep you posted on Jimmy’s progress, if you wish. I shall also keep you posted on developments with the poaching case, as and when I can. This write-up is simply to keep you informed.

Dave