Goodbye Snarl?

Nov 19th, 2010

THE world's small cat authority, Dr. Jim Sanderson told us in September during our Rewilding Workshop that the caracal Snarl who had been under our care since last year looked strong and mature enough to be released back in nature and suggested we radio-collar her as well before releasing her. We started preparation immediately afterwards.

Our chief scientist Petri organised the re-fitting of an old collar once used by Cathay which was ready and sent back to Laohu Valley by the manufacturer just before our planned release time for Snarl. Petri and Hein tested the radio collar, tracking receiver and antenna- all working fine.

In order to put the radio-collar on her, we would need to sedate her. Though about third bigger than an average domestic cat, the caracal is strongly built with powerful legs and muscles and can do serious damage if she feels threatened by us monstrous sized humans.

Therefore it was not an easy task to put the radio collar on Snarl. Our Reserve Manager Hein built a trap cage and a few days before the collaring and release, the cage was introduced into Snarl's enclosure with food inside, in order to entice her into the cage. The plan was to make her comfortable going inside the cage to retrieve food for a few days. Then during the day before she was due to be released, food was put much deeper inside the cage so her body will have to be completely inside to retrieve it, which would actually activate the trap that triggers the cage door to drop, closing the cage.


All went according to plan and Snarl ended up closed inside the cage today. The Vet Gavin, who was very resourceful in treating Madonna's dehydration a few years back (he used a blanket to capture Madonna), was recruited to sedate Snarl with anaesthesia so she can be radio-collared. Gavin and his wife arrived at 3pm punctually, after one hour's drive from his clinic in Colesburg.

To avoid doing damage to the caracal, Gavin chose to apply contact-injection, in lieu of darting her with a dart gun. He was worried that the dart gun's strong force might fracture Snarl's leg if the dart went into the wrong place, which was not unlikely given that she was extremely agitated with human presence. Gavin's invention worked. He tied an old nylon bag to two strands of steel wires and pushed the bag into Snarl's cage. Snarl, not knowing what this large white-ish thing was, backed into the end of the cage, making it easy for Gavin's wife to inject her with sedative.

An antidote was applied quickly as soon as the caracal was collared and Snarl woke up soon after. She was still drowsy so we waited till about sunset time to release her when it was cooler.

We loaded up the cage to the back of the truck and drove to an area about one km from Hein's house, where a little stream runs with a lot of trees for cover. Snarl certainly didn't know she was going to be free, snarling along the way and trying to attack our us when we carried her cage.

She was about 4 months old when Snarl was brought to us, her mother poisoned by farmers. Caracals are formidable hunters and can take down a sheep in no time. They can even take down a blesbok which is probably at least 6 times their body size. Farmers continue to poison them as well as other smaller predators such as jackals in our area to protect their livelihood.

Snarl was wild and got her name because of her non-stop snarling when humans are present. Although she calmed down a bit, it was not possible to tame her. So we had to take the decision to release her back into the wild instead of letting her spend the rest of her life inside the enclosure. Thankfully, even those hand-reared caracals are known for their wild survival ability. We waited till she would be 1.5 years of age, fully grown so she would be able to deal with competitors such as jackals or other even other caracals. Meanwhile, we started training her to eat wild animal carcasses.

Now, while time had come to open the cage door so she could be free, I wondered how she would survive her first night? Where would she make her territory? Would she stay in this release area, go far away or return to Hein's house? How soon would she be able to hunt? Snarl's pretty little face with beautiful, shining and intelligent green eyes stared at us with hatred, and rightly so. We humans killed her mother, making her an orphan. Now she has to learn, all on her own, how to fend for herself.



We opened the cage door telling her to go out into freedom, expecting her to dash out and disappear into the trees. But she was not aware of her predicament, snarling at us continuously without budging. We had to move the cage eventually to leave her out of it. She turned around to look, suddenly realising she was no longer confined. Crouched low, she slunk away towards the densely forested little stream.

I repeated to her, "Go Snarl, Go! You are free". Inside my heart, I was tortured by the desire to have glimpses of her again, and the hope she can strike it out on her own in the wild.

Nov 22 2010

Hein went early the next morning to check on Snarl's movement again. She moved about 1 km away from the release spot within 6 hours of her release, but walked a only few hundred more meters overnight. The food left for her during her release was untouched. Hein even saw her standing on a cliff during his evening tracking.

Yesterday, she was found to be moving towards north, the springbuck carcass left for her was again untouched.

This morning however, no signal from her radio-collar could be detected. Where did Snarl go?

P.S.: a regular update of Snarl's radio-collar info map can be seen HERE.

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!