Latest News - April 2020
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In just 31 days during the month of March, the world has been turned upside down and inside out. Who would have believed that, in such a short period, we could have gone from relative normality to a reality in which most of the worlds population has been confined to their homes under threat of arrest if they venture out, all sporting events have been cancelled, social events of any kind have become taboo, businesses have been shut down entirely, and a deadly virus is overwhelming our medical facilities? This scenario has often been the subject of horror fiction and movies, but this time it is happening in real life.
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After being mostly confined to China and one or two neighboring countries, the coronavirus has spread with terrifying rapidity. At the beginning of March, the USA had just 60 confirmed infections – right now, that number has quickly climbed to almost 200,000, and it is still increasing exponentially. Scientists and virologists cannot seem to agree on where it will eventually end up, but some models predict that tens of millions could be infected, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Hopefully that won’t be the case, but the picture is fairly grim at the moment.
Many countries have adopted very stringent measures to try and slow down the rate of infection, and new terminologies, like “lockdown”, “self-isolation”, “social distancing”, “flatten the curve” etc. have become part of our everyday speech. Some of these methods have proven to be highly effective if rigidly applied or enforced, but not everyone seems to be taking them seriously.
The virus has had a devastating effect on the economy of the world, and business, to a very large extent, has ground to a halt. This applies in particular to the travel and tourism industry, which is non-existent at the present time, and probably will be for the next few months at least. In South Africa, where 1 in every 23 working persons is employed within the sector, the ramifications are dire indeed, not only for the individuals themselves, but for the country as a whole.
But it is not all doom and gloom. Most people that become infected do recover, and some of them don’t even present with any symptoms at all. The actual fatality rate is estimated to be below 1%, and many of the victims are those with underlying medical conditions. Children and teenagers seem to be infected less often, or are only mildly affected. There are definite signs that the disease is peaking in some countries that were first afflicted, and medical researchers are hopeful that various experimental treatments will soon begin to pay dividends.
In the meantime, do whatever you can to protect yourself and your family. Follow all of the guidelines (there are a host of websites which detail these) and keep yourself safe. Hopefully, within a few months, things will return to “normal”, although it is doubtful that the world will ever be the same again. This is not necessarily a bad thing – let’s face it, we were all on a slippery slope to nowhere, and the slap in the face that the coronavirus has delivered might just turn out to be the wake-up call that we all needed.
Many countries have adopted very stringent measures to try and slow down the rate of infection, and new terminologies, like “lockdown”, “self-isolation”, “social distancing”, “flatten the curve” etc. have become part of our everyday speech. Some of these methods have proven to be highly effective if rigidly applied or enforced, but not everyone seems to be taking them seriously.
The virus has had a devastating effect on the economy of the world, and business, to a very large extent, has ground to a halt. This applies in particular to the travel and tourism industry, which is non-existent at the present time, and probably will be for the next few months at least. In South Africa, where 1 in every 23 working persons is employed within the sector, the ramifications are dire indeed, not only for the individuals themselves, but for the country as a whole.
But it is not all doom and gloom. Most people that become infected do recover, and some of them don’t even present with any symptoms at all. The actual fatality rate is estimated to be below 1%, and many of the victims are those with underlying medical conditions. Children and teenagers seem to be infected less often, or are only mildly affected. There are definite signs that the disease is peaking in some countries that were first afflicted, and medical researchers are hopeful that various experimental treatments will soon begin to pay dividends.
In the meantime, do whatever you can to protect yourself and your family. Follow all of the guidelines (there are a host of websites which detail these) and keep yourself safe. Hopefully, within a few months, things will return to “normal”, although it is doubtful that the world will ever be the same again. This is not necessarily a bad thing – let’s face it, we were all on a slippery slope to nowhere, and the slap in the face that the coronavirus has delivered might just turn out to be the wake-up call that we all needed.
Upcoming tours
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Ride The Dragon
Did you know that, in addition to the "standard" wildlife, scenic and adventure trips offered by Close Encounters, you can also enjoy an amazing self-drive adventure tour through the rugged Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa and Lesotho? No off-road driving experience is required, and everything that you will need is supplied as part of the package - vehicles, fuel, accommodation, all meals and drinks (excluding alcohol), all entry fees, adventure activities and sightseeing expenses, as well as four nights at an exclusive private game lodge in the Timbavati. Throughout the trip you will be accompanied by an experienced national tourist guide and off-road driving instructor, and all of the vehicles will be in constant communication with each other via crystal-clear VHF radios, ensuring your safety and enhancing your experience with detailed information about the history, culture and attractions of the region. Click here to see the detailed itinerary. |
Focus on conservation
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Revenge of the pangolins
It’s been one of the most under-reported stories of recent times, the link found by researchers in two entirely separate studies between the deadly coronavirus epidemic which swept through China, and now the globe, and the consumption – or contact with – pangolin scales and meat. The two studies were reported almost simultaneously by Daily Maverick in South Africa and Xinhau News Agency in China. The Daily Maverick story, by Don Pinnock and Tiara Walters, broke the news of both studies, one by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, the second by a team at the South China Agricultural University, while the Xinhau report, which was not bylined, reported on the South China study. |
Both are the kinds of studies that in a normal world, would have gone virtually unnoticed. But this isn’t a normal world; the coronavirus has already become a global pandemic.
Some reports claim that coronavirus could rival the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, which according to Wikipedia killed “anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million” people, a staggering 1% to 5% of Earth’s population at the time.
Understandably, the World Health Organisation, while declaring coronavirus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (a “global health emergency”), has tried to allay fears of a global pandemic on the scale of the Spanish flu: the world is a very different place 102 years later, the quantum leaps in health, science and technology are light years more advanced.
But the news that a global health emergency can be traced back to the consumption or handling of the humble pangolin (to bats, actually, with pangolins as the vector), the most trafficked mammal on Earth, is staggering in its implications. And at the same time, it is a ray of hope for endangered species globally.
Previous outbreaks of disease have been traced to animals – Ebola to bats, SARS to Asian palm civets, MERS to camels. Many (albeit not all) of the threats to endangered wildlife – and African wildlife in particular – come from the East and the trade in wildlife products for their traditional culinary, status, and medicinal uses.
Rhino horn, ivory, abalone, tiger and lion bones and claws, and bear bile are just some of the sought-after products. But the pangolin trade is particularly destructive – a previous news article stated that “it takes around 1,900 pangolins killed to produce one ton of scales. In 2018, 48 tons of scales were seized, the equivalent of 91,200 pangolins, but a lot more gets through undetected. Pangolin scales are much easier to smuggle than rhino horns or elephant tusks.”
China reacted fast to the news of the pangolin breakthrough; on 10 February, its legislature, the National People’s Congress, announced it would update wildlife protection laws to “toughen the crackdown on wildlife trafficking”. Xinhua reported that “the supervision, inspection and law enforcement should be strengthened to ensure that wildlife trade markets are banned and closed.”
The sad fact is that it takes a global health emergency for the world’s biggest consumer of illegally trafficked wildlife products to take action.
The happy fact is that there may, finally, be hope for that most endearing of creatures - the humble pangolin.
Some reports claim that coronavirus could rival the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, which according to Wikipedia killed “anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million” people, a staggering 1% to 5% of Earth’s population at the time.
Understandably, the World Health Organisation, while declaring coronavirus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (a “global health emergency”), has tried to allay fears of a global pandemic on the scale of the Spanish flu: the world is a very different place 102 years later, the quantum leaps in health, science and technology are light years more advanced.
But the news that a global health emergency can be traced back to the consumption or handling of the humble pangolin (to bats, actually, with pangolins as the vector), the most trafficked mammal on Earth, is staggering in its implications. And at the same time, it is a ray of hope for endangered species globally.
Previous outbreaks of disease have been traced to animals – Ebola to bats, SARS to Asian palm civets, MERS to camels. Many (albeit not all) of the threats to endangered wildlife – and African wildlife in particular – come from the East and the trade in wildlife products for their traditional culinary, status, and medicinal uses.
Rhino horn, ivory, abalone, tiger and lion bones and claws, and bear bile are just some of the sought-after products. But the pangolin trade is particularly destructive – a previous news article stated that “it takes around 1,900 pangolins killed to produce one ton of scales. In 2018, 48 tons of scales were seized, the equivalent of 91,200 pangolins, but a lot more gets through undetected. Pangolin scales are much easier to smuggle than rhino horns or elephant tusks.”
China reacted fast to the news of the pangolin breakthrough; on 10 February, its legislature, the National People’s Congress, announced it would update wildlife protection laws to “toughen the crackdown on wildlife trafficking”. Xinhua reported that “the supervision, inspection and law enforcement should be strengthened to ensure that wildlife trade markets are banned and closed.”
The sad fact is that it takes a global health emergency for the world’s biggest consumer of illegally trafficked wildlife products to take action.
The happy fact is that there may, finally, be hope for that most endearing of creatures - the humble pangolin.
Shoreline snippets
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Playground of the whales
Every year from June to November, the large sheltered bays between Cape Hangklip near Cape Town and Plettenberg Bay on the Garden Route become home to hundreds of Southern Right Whales. These colossal visitors from the Southern Ocean are amongst the largest of the baleen whales (whales that lack teeth but use baleen plates to filter plankton from the water). A fully-grown Southern Right can reach 55 feet in length and weigh up to 60 tons, and these gentle giants can live to more than 50 years old. Every year, Southern Right Whales migrate from their feeding grounds in the cold Southern Ocean to their mating and calving grounds off the coasts of South Africa, Australia and South America. In South African waters, the main mating and calving areas are separated, with Walker Bay and Plettenburg Bay representing the most important mating locations. The area around Cape Infanta is the most popular nursery area; 50 percent of all calves are born in the calm waters off De Hoop Nature Reserve and in St. Sebastian Bay at the mouth of the Breede River. |
The heavily pregnant females that arrive at the calving grounds carry a single calf - conceived the year before - in their womb for nearly 12 months. At birth, a Southern Right calf is 20 feet long and weighs about a ton, but lacks the insulating layer of blubber needed to survive in the open ocean (adult whales possess a 14-inch-thick layer of blubber). From its first day, the calf drinks about 26 gallons of fatty milk and gains close to 220 pounds per day.
After three and a half months, the calf is ready to embark on the journey back to the Antarctic feeding grounds, but it will continue to suckle and stay dependent on its mother for another 3 to 9 months. The mother and the calf will continue to maintain a strong bond until the calf is ready to face the enormous expanse of the ocean on its own. A juvenile calf reaches sexual maturity at roughly 6 years of age, at which time it will make the journey back to South Africa to mate and begin the whole cycle once again.
After three and a half months, the calf is ready to embark on the journey back to the Antarctic feeding grounds, but it will continue to suckle and stay dependent on its mother for another 3 to 9 months. The mother and the calf will continue to maintain a strong bond until the calf is ready to face the enormous expanse of the ocean on its own. A juvenile calf reaches sexual maturity at roughly 6 years of age, at which time it will make the journey back to South Africa to mate and begin the whole cycle once again.
Folklore & legends
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Jack the baboon
During the latter part of the 1800s, travelers to Cape Town, South Africa, along the Port Elizabeth railroad frequently saw a curious sight as they entered the train station. The signalman operating the levers that set the signals in the control tower was a Chacma Baboon named Jack. As strange as it may seem, Jack was an employee of the railroad. He belonged to James "Jumper" Wide who worked as a signalman until he lost both legs in an accident. Wide earned the nickname "Jumper" due to his habit of jumping from one railway car to another and sometimes swinging from railcar to railcar. One afternoon, he attempted to leap to another car and fell underneath the moving train. The massive metal wheels of the train severed both his legs. |
Jumper was devastated. Not only had he lost his legs, but he would be of no use to the railroad. Eventually he made himself two pegged legs that he carved from a piece of wood and built himself a small trolley which he used to get around. Still, he was limited as to how well he could perform his job.
One afternoon, he was visiting the marketplace when he saw a baboon leading an ox wagon. He met the owner who demonstrated how smart the primate was. Soon, Jumper was convinced the baboon could serve him well. He pleaded with the owner to let him have the baboon. The owner didn't really want to give up his favorite pet, but he felt sorry for the crippled man.
He gave the baboon to Jumper, and thus began the most unusual friendship in the railroad's history. The two lived in a cottage a half mile from the railroad depot. Each morning, Jack would help Jumper get to work on the trolley. He would push the trolley up a hill and, once at the top, he would jump on the trolley for a fun ride as it rolled quickly down the other side. Once at work, Jack operated the signals that instructed train engineers which tracks they would take.
Jumper kept a key at a signal-box at the station that unlocked the points which enabled the locomotive drivers, or engineers, to reach the coal sheds. Whenever an engineer needed coal, he gave four blasts on his train's whistle, and Jumper would hobble out on his crutches and stumps and give the key to Jack who would take the key to the engineer.
The working relationship between Jumper and Jack worked well and the two forged a strong friendship. Many locals would go the tracks to see if the story of a baboon working the signals was true. All of them marveled at how well Jack performed his job.
Then one day, a prominent lady on route to Port Elizabeth observed Jack working, and was horrified at the prospect of a baboon running the signals. She notified the railroad authorities, who were unaware that Jumper's assistant was an ape. At first, they did not believe her wild story until the system manager and several authorities visited the station. Jumper and Jack were immediately fired.
Jumper pleaded for their jobs, and the system manager agreed to test the Jack's abilities. An engineer was instructed to blast his train's whistle signaling Jack to change the correct signals. Jack made all the changes without fail. He even looked around in the direction of the oncoming train to make sure that the correct lever and signal were changed.
Jack passed his test with flying colors and the railroad system manager was so impressed that he gave Jumper his job back, and even hired Jack who became the only baboon in history to work for the railroad. From that day forward, Jack was known as Jack the Signalman. For his labor, he was given monthly rations from the government, payment of twenty cents a day, and half a bottle of beer each week. He also received an employment number.
After nine years of duty, Jack died of tuberculosis in 1890. It is widely reported that during all of his years of employment with the railway company, Jack never made a single mistake.
One afternoon, he was visiting the marketplace when he saw a baboon leading an ox wagon. He met the owner who demonstrated how smart the primate was. Soon, Jumper was convinced the baboon could serve him well. He pleaded with the owner to let him have the baboon. The owner didn't really want to give up his favorite pet, but he felt sorry for the crippled man.
He gave the baboon to Jumper, and thus began the most unusual friendship in the railroad's history. The two lived in a cottage a half mile from the railroad depot. Each morning, Jack would help Jumper get to work on the trolley. He would push the trolley up a hill and, once at the top, he would jump on the trolley for a fun ride as it rolled quickly down the other side. Once at work, Jack operated the signals that instructed train engineers which tracks they would take.
Jumper kept a key at a signal-box at the station that unlocked the points which enabled the locomotive drivers, or engineers, to reach the coal sheds. Whenever an engineer needed coal, he gave four blasts on his train's whistle, and Jumper would hobble out on his crutches and stumps and give the key to Jack who would take the key to the engineer.
The working relationship between Jumper and Jack worked well and the two forged a strong friendship. Many locals would go the tracks to see if the story of a baboon working the signals was true. All of them marveled at how well Jack performed his job.
Then one day, a prominent lady on route to Port Elizabeth observed Jack working, and was horrified at the prospect of a baboon running the signals. She notified the railroad authorities, who were unaware that Jumper's assistant was an ape. At first, they did not believe her wild story until the system manager and several authorities visited the station. Jumper and Jack were immediately fired.
Jumper pleaded for their jobs, and the system manager agreed to test the Jack's abilities. An engineer was instructed to blast his train's whistle signaling Jack to change the correct signals. Jack made all the changes without fail. He even looked around in the direction of the oncoming train to make sure that the correct lever and signal were changed.
Jack passed his test with flying colors and the railroad system manager was so impressed that he gave Jumper his job back, and even hired Jack who became the only baboon in history to work for the railroad. From that day forward, Jack was known as Jack the Signalman. For his labor, he was given monthly rations from the government, payment of twenty cents a day, and half a bottle of beer each week. He also received an employment number.
After nine years of duty, Jack died of tuberculosis in 1890. It is widely reported that during all of his years of employment with the railway company, Jack never made a single mistake.
Creature corner
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The African Bush Elephant, also known as the African Savanna Elephant, is the largest living terrestrial animal on Earth. Big bulls can stand up to 13 feet tall at the shoulder, and can weigh as much as 10 tons. They are widely distributed across 37 African countries, and inhabit forests, grasslands, woodlands, wetlands and agricultural land. They have always been ruthlessly hunted for their tusks, and are also threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation of their traditional home ranges.
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Feather feature
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Common Name: Cape Gannet
Binomial Name: Morus capensis Status: Common breeding resident Red List Status: Least Concern The Cape Gannet is a large seabird, easily identified by its substantial size, black and white plumage, and distinctive yellow crown and hindneck. Endemic to southern Africa, they normally nest in large and dense colonies on flat islands close to the shoreline. The largest colony, with over 140,000 birds, is found on Malgas Island, South Africa. |
Did you know?
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Although the Great White Shark is often referred to as the apex predator of the sea, that title should actually belong to the Orca (or Killer Whale, as it is sometimes called). Although not common in the region, Orcas are often seen off the southern and western Cape coastline on a fairly regular basis, and numbers appear to be increasing. A member of the dolphin family, Orcas are at the top of the food chain and have a very diverse diet, feasting on fish, squid, penguins, seals, whales and many different shark species including Great Whites, several of which are known to have been killed by Orcas in South African waters.
Although they are more than capable of killing humans, for some unknown reason there has never been, to date, a recorded instance of an Orca attack in the wild which has resulted in a human death. But at least 6 fatalities have been caused by captive Orcas – whether these have occurred by accident or design is not completely clear. |
Words of wisdom
"Few can sojourn long within the unspoilt wilderness of a game sanctuary, surrounded on all sides by its confiding animals, without absorbing its atmosphere; the Spirit of the Wild is quick to assert supremacy, and no man of any sensibility can resist her." - James Stevenson-Hamilton (first warden of the Kruger National Park)
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