Victory Does Not Come Easy in 100 Ha Camp!

Rambling Rose


A pair of brothers

Another pair of brothers

The Brothers in Hunter Palace


ITV news crew was so lucky. They were here to report on our story and while we were filming Hulooo brothers in the new 100 Ha camp late afternoon on March 25, 2010, we saw King Henry and Princess hunting across the open grassland, chasing the 15 blesbok. In no time however, we heard distress calls, which caught the attention of Hulooo brothers (that were being filmed), who took off immediately in the direction of the kill.

We drove quickly into 40 Ha and found King Henry and Princess in the riverine area, with King Henry playing with and subsequently protectively guarding his kill when we approached. Dr. Gary Koehler who was visiting remarked: "Li, I can see this will work!"

Next day was the first time we EVER drove inside a camp where 327 is around. As we knew, 327 loved humans and was very fond of playing with us when he first arrived at Laohu Valley.
I had to let him into the 3 Ha wilderness camp eventually after he refused to mate with the tigresses, and amazingly he became less and less interested in us humans. He stopped standing up trying to play with us and later even stopped coming to the fence to greet us. These were all very good signs. What amazed me even more was when I decided to let Cathay try again mating with him, he performed and became a father in December last year!

In the past I would have never dreamed of driving into a camp with him, wary that he might stand up against the vehicle. However, now that he seems to be behaving more like a wild tiger, I decided to take the risk and see his reaction towards us humans. I took Dr. Gary Koehler inside the 7 Ha camp in the Rhino and 327 was right at the gate. However he showed no interests in either our vehicle or us people. We drove next to where he was lying, he even walked away. What a positive change!

I had some trouble though! 327 decided to "possess" me by spraying. He didn't do it just once! Twice he directed his spraying intentionally at me and his juice shot right inside my open Rhino, covering my full face and body. I felt however proud that he was marking me as part of his territory, against his rival TigerWoods, who lay on the other side of the fence observing him.

Eleven weeks passed since Cathay mated with 327 and she still has not come into oestrus (she is with 327 in the same camp for monitoring). According to our experience, this means she is pregnant! If that's true, we should be expecting her and 327's babies around 20 April. 10 weeks had also gone by since Madonna mated 327. If our past experience is any indication at all, Madonna is also pregnant and should deliver beginning May.

It rained all night and pot holes popped up on the dirt road leading to Tiger camps, and when we arrived in the 40 Ha camp in the early hours of March 26 2010, King Henry was lying in the grass, with a half eaten kill lying a few meters away- another blesbok lost its life overnight. Then one more blesbok was taken in each night of Mar 29th and March 31st.

Meanwhile, ten days into the 100 Ha camp, Hulooo brothers are still trying to find their feet. They weren't being fed for about 4 months while King Henry and Princess occupied the 40 Ha hunting camp so were becoming a bit reliant, like many spoiled teenagers do. From time to time, they would chase the blesbok but for the most part, they spent their time exploring and sniffing the new large area. Tigers are territorial, they must familiarise with every piece of rock and every blade of grass in their domain.

On March 31st, JenB and Coco turned to 2 years of age. Seeing that Hulooo brothers didn't have the will to hunt, I decided to first put them back into the 40 Ha camp, where they hunted only too well before, to get their drive back in familiar ground. I also wanted King Henry and Princess to go into 100 Ha, seeing they have been hunting for 4 months successfully in 40Ha.

It proved to be a challenge to swap the two groups of tigers. It took several days and some re-work on the iron gates linking the two camps before we finally succeeded in getting them swapped. Hulooo brothers were certainly busy, as they made 2 kills in the first night, and one can see their confidence was back as they no longer whined for food when we finally found them among the trees, just quietly enjoying our company.

King Henry and Princess were not idle either. We saw them busy stalking prey the second day inside the 100 Ha camp. 4 days into 100 Ha they were still not successful. King Henry came to the Gate when he saw us Monday April 5th, but left with the look of disappointment when he realised no food were forthcoming from his human carers. He ate grass while he walked away in the thunderstorm as if protesting. He also tried to call his sister-the first roars we ever heard from him. We were just going to give them another day to see if they would catch anything before we fed them. It would not be good to starve them too much that they loose the strength to hunt.

The next morning April 6th, we first tallied the number of blesbok in 40 Ha -three blesbok missing. Good hunting weather certainly aided Hulooo brothers who were getting too good. And in 100 Ha, it was much harder to count the blesbok. We counted numerous times and would not believe that the actual number had indeed dropped to 42 from 43, though we were all praying for that. Well, we could no longer deny the fact any more- King Henry and Princess had actually made their first kill in the 100 Ha camp overnight! These young ones also took advantage of the bad weather and their victory made history.

Snarl and Night Drive at Laohu

Over the years, I have seen more small wildlife in Laohu and its surroundings than any other national parks or private game reserves: aardwolves, porcupines (one often eats the tree bark at night outside my bedroom door), bat-eared foxes, meerkats, hares of all kinds, and even the very rare anteaters - once in slow motion zigzagging ahead of my vehicle.
My reserve staff have of course sighted other precious wildlife such as black-footed cats, african wild cats and caracals, which I have not had the pleasure of seeing in the wild and have been meaning to make an effort to see them. During this visit, I asked our Reserve Manager, Hein, to take me on a night drive to see if I would have the good luck of finding a black-footed cat, which fascinates me particularly as my cat Sisi probably has some Black-footed cat blood.
Hein has had a lot of experience in wildlife before he joined us. We set out after dinner at 8.30pm. All game were active now at night that the temperature had become very pleasant and they seemed to be less agitated than during the day. We could get very close to game probably because they don't see well in the dark. We saw elands, mountain reedbuck, kudos, etc, etc and herds of black wildebeests - some of them with twin calves. When we passed the tiger camps, Hein showed me the difference in reaction to lights between cat eyes and other eyes. When light is shone on cat eyes, their irises close. In the distance, we saw three pairs of lights in straight line dimming and brightening again, as our spot light shone on and off them - these were eyes of Hulooo and brothers.
In order to increase the chance of sighting the very shy black-footed cat, Hein has to call them. He does this by imitating the squeaking sound of mouse using his own lips, or blowing distress calls of rabbits on a predator whistle. In the first round of calls, he got the attention of an aardwolf. Hein also blew jackal howls on the whistle to which real jackals would respond by howling back, but not tonight, as its breeding season and they are nurturing the young in their dens.
After the second round of whistle blowing at another spot, about 9 bat-eared foxes came from different directions to investigate. They were curious little animals with big ears. They ran off as soon as they realized there were no distressed rabbits.
Still no black-footed cats on my sighted list, I had to contend visiting "Snarl". She is a 8/9 month old orphaned caracal whose mother was poisoned by local farmers and who was saved by a friend of Hein. We offered to take her so she could leave the small cage behind and live in a big enclosure. Four months ago, when I first saw her, she was hissing and spitting. It is very hard to tame a wild cat after she has opened her eyes around 10 days of age and the first object she sees is her mother. The power of caracal is legendary - its the fastest land animal by body weight and size, and they can take down a springbok several times their body size piecemeal. I had seen a tame one jumping in one leap to the top of a room door.
Now that Snarl has moved into her large enclosure, she hid herself under the little rock cave, snarling at us but looked a lot calmer compared to being in that small cage. What happened next surprised us all. Hein was watering the grass in her enclosure with a water tube, while suddenly Snarl dashed out under the shower to cool herself down! She dashed back to her hideout afterwards, licking herself dry with contentment.
Our plan is to rehabilitate Snarl and release her back into nature at her natural dispersal age about 20 months old. Thankfully, like most small wild cats, their hunter instinct seem to be stronger and it would be much easier task to send her back to the wild successfully than the tigers!