by Joe Nkuna, Section Ranger, Letaba
It was a clear, day with a slight South Easterly wind blowing. I had left Letaba very early for a meeting at the Phalaborwa Regional Office. While there, I received a call from Letaba Camp’s Duty Manager reporting that there was a giraffe trapped in a donga about three kilometers north of the camp on the S95. My team was already out on patrol and I decided to quickly leave Phalaborwa for Letaba to assess the situation.
As a Ranger and a Nature Conservationist, my job is to look after wildlife and save animals’ lives when needed. I knew I had to get to this giraffe before it injured itself or succumbed to exhaustion and dehydration. I didn’t waste anytime getting to the Ranger’s office where I quickly asked two of the general workers to come with me to help rescue the giraffe.
All we had with us was a rope. Would it be enough?
When we got to the donga, we saw the giraffe kicking up and down trying to get out. What probably happened was that the giraffe bull was browsing on an “acacia tortillis”, not realizing that the other side of the tree (a bit obscured), is a donga. The soil there is very soft and was damp due to the showers the area had recently received. Munching away, it accidentally stepped on a loose bank that collapsed into the donga, taking the giraffe with it.
We needed a plan to rescue the trapped animal. The visitors were asking questions: "Will the giraffe make it?" “Will you try to pull it out?” “Will the lions get it? "
If our efforts to save the giraffe's life failed, then it was very likely that giraffe would be lion food... But as the donga was not natural and was caused by human-accelerated erosion, we had to try and save the animal.
The right hind leg of the giraffe, the whole weight of its body and the fore leg were deep in the donga. The left hind leg, the neck and the fore leg were free, but helpless. The poor animal was trying its best to get up by lifting its long neck up but the end result was that the head was hurt and the horns covered in blood.
At first we tied the giraffe's neck with the rope and pulled, to help give the animal leverage whilst it was trying to get itself out. I took responsibility for this to avoid possible injuries to my colleagues, the visitors and the giraffe. I at some stage told myself that I have to do this difficult work because you never know when the danger could strike and if it did, there would be no fingers pointing to anybody else except me.
Our initial plan to help the giraffe pull itself out did not work. My Mazda Drifter also failed to help pull this heavy animal up. We tried to clear a few branches that were blocking our way and had to send a vehicle back to Camp to fetch a panga and a saw.
A man from the Cape, Mr. A J Murphy from Pringle Bay, offered us the use of his Jeep to help pull the giraffe out of danger, as it is more powerful than my Mazda. We tried the north-eastern corner of the donga first. We then decided to change the approach by pulling the giraffe out to the south-western side of the donga.
This time it worked well, because we managed to pull it as far as to the bottom of the donga where it managed at one stage to get up just where the donga joins the stream that leads to a culvert. It looked like we would manage to save the giraffe after all.
However, the danger was not past. The animal was very tired and thirsty by this time, and it collapsed whilst trying to find a way out. Luckily the Jeep was powerful and even though this operation took us almost two hours; it finally pulled the animal out, dragging it to safety on its side.
I untied the giraffe while it was lying flat on the floor and it did not react at all. The animal was finished. Were we too late?
Some of the onlookers donated bottles of still water for the giraffe which we simply poured into its mouth to drink. Re-hydrating this animal worked magic because it did not take long for the animal to regain power and it managed to get up and walk away.
The giraffe has been in the donga over night and was lucky to have survived predators and the ordeal. Thanks to employees like Jimmy Manganyi and Freddy Chauke who played an important role in this operation, and Mr. A J Murphy and his Jeep, this situation had a happy ending: Giraffe 1, Donga 0.
Says Louis Olivier, Regional Ranger: Nxanatseni South, "if this is not a good Ranger story to tell, there will never be one. What a team effort and great subsequent result!"
