Selati

This past week was pretty slow up until the weekend. During the week all I really accomplished was to start baiting in the wildebeest for my upcoming bow hunt. As Friday arrived Mandi had a surprise for us. She told Susie and I that we were going to go to the Selati reserve for Friday night and all day Saturday, staying with the LEO group. This group was a nice group, consisting mostly of volunteers from the European countries. Susie and I were both very excited to go to Selati because we knew their main focus there is monitoring lions, elephants, and rhinos. Just before we left on Thursday night though, Darin showed up. For those that don't know Darin is in charge of the Nyati Conservation Corps and the one who organized for us to come over here to Africa. It was nice to finally meet him and he is a very nice man.

We headed off to Selati around noon on Friday. Once we got there we were informed that we were that our first drive was going to be at 3:30, so until than it was just a little bit of chill time while getting to know some of the volunteers a little better. Right before we left my only chore was to cut off the hind leg of an impala, that had died after getting caught in the fence, that we used as bait to bring in one of the lions later on in the night. The first hour or so was relatively slow as we spent our time using radio telemetry to figure out where a few of the focus lions were. Finally when we got good readings on the male Mbhurri we headed to a clearing were one of the staff quickly jumped out and attached the severed impala leg to a tree. We then got out an extremely loud predator call and pointed it in the direction of the lion and let it rip. The call was loud, but kind of funny in a way that "you had to be there to laugh at it" type of way. Not to long after we started the call he appeared. It was amazing to watch this massive cat walk towards us. I managed to snag a couple nice shots along with a video as he moved towards the meat. He grabbed it and ripped it from the tree with ease, soon after retreating to the bushes to eat his newly acquired prized in peace. After waiting a while to see if he would show again we started up the bukkie and headed on our way. We saw a few giraffes right before it got dark and then we ran into something none of us were expecting to see. There in the dark, in the middle of the road appeared Mbhurri again along with Acacia, one of the lionesses, and her two 4 month old cubs! Mbhurri was the father of these cubs and this was the first time since they were born that they have recorded the dad meeting his 2 sons. The volunteers were probably far more stunned by this than us since they were so close to the big cats. Nonetheless we were also amazed. This is the type of situation that you see and hear about in the movies, but I never thought I'd get to see it in person. Since it was so dark I couldn't get any photos, but the memory will always be with me. We sat and watched all four of them from about 20 yards for a good hour and a half. The 2 cubs were playful as could be jumping all over Acacia and annoying Mbhurri. After awhile Acacia and the cubs left for maybe 20 minutes and upon her return she jumped on top of Mbhurri as if she wanted to show him something, but he simply stood up for a second and lied back down. This happened several more times and then all four where back together. The playing continued until Mbhurri got so irritated he got up and left and we left for the lodge soon after. On the way back we saw one huge white rhino and then it was dinner time and off to bed.

The next morning we got up at 5:30 for an early drive. We were on a mission to go talk to one of the owners of Selati and hear about his sable breeding business. On our way there we got stopped several times by massive herds of elephants. Although we were unable to see most of them it was still very cool to hear them snapping trees and doing the typical elephant trumpeting we all know and love. One of the bulls halfway charged us, but as soon as we stopped the vehicle he stopped as well. Finally we arrived at the sable breeding area. There we learned just how much money was involved in this business. Not to long ago a big bull sable having horns measuring around 53 inches was sold for 12 million rand, which is about 1.6 million US dollars. The good breeding females with good genetics also sold for a good amount of money. There is a lot of history behind this business and these sable, a little more than I can type out so if someone wants to know more about it ill be more than happy to tell the, when I get back. Later on that day I took a nap since it was Saturday and after our game drives I knew it would be a long night behind the bar. After the nap we headed out on our night drive seeing a few rhinos and the big male lion once again. This time it was a little lighter so I got some awesome photos of this guy and I have to say he did a pretty good job posing. After seeing him we headed back to the LEO base and headed to Mahlahla where Susie and I started working behind the bar. It was a pretty laid back night, but we still ended up closing around 4 in the morning. The following day was laid back and I finished it off by sitting in the blind and watching my big old bull wildebeest come up to the watering hole. I can't wait until my time comes where I can finally hopefully take him with my bow.