We went out on a two day trip with our main goal being to capture 10 Cape Buffalo, the number 1 killer of hunters in South Africa, so they could be sent to another reserve to improve genetic diversity. We were also going to microchip some rhino, but as it turned out that was not meant to be.
We arrived at Ohrigstad Reserve and were greeted by members of the Mpumalanga district wildlife capture team, complete with mascot: the feared Bush Dachsund, a four month old pup named Peanut who went everywhere with us. We spent the first day building our Boma, a giant funnel shaped structure of plastic curtains and wire leading into a steel crush and a ramp where we parked the transport truck. The idea is that a helicopter herds the buffalo in, and then we run across with the curtains to seal it behind them. They then enter with trucks (and this time, a horse... Louie was dead set on that) and get the buffalo into the far end. Basically, things went wrong from the start.
Only 7 of our buffalo actually entered the boma, with the others running up the hill behind it. We sealed them off ok, but then the far curtain started collapsing and those of us on the downhill slope had to run over and cover that. I ended up back on the downhill, alone, holding the curtain shut so one of the local guys could go in and help with the actual herding. As my curtain started to fall, I found myself watching 7 upset buffalo from about 10 meters away, hoping they wouldn't notice my curtains slight gap. Just then, the guy who I'd replaced, Jeffery, drove his truck in between me and the buffalo, making him my hero for the weekend. Suffice it to say that after much swearing and trouble, and Louie's horse getting driven off by a pissed off bull, they got the critters down beyond the second curtain, where Cobus closed them in.
They were all the way into the crush, finally. BUT... no one was manning the gate. You see, someone had the brilliant idea to take the helo and dart the three original escapees. So they'd driven off to track them down and left the crucial end unmanned. The buffalo caught on pretty quick, and were out under the net in a flash. On the upside, at least they never got past us... it was the highly experienced professionals who blew it.
The end result was that a truck took all the students except three of us (one with a hurt ankle, me and another helping with the boma repair) and dragged the first three darted ones out of the bush into the trucks. We took a break for lunch, and the helicopter went out and Ertjis (sounds like ack eese) shot the last 7. 6 went down in a convenient lump in one area, while one bull stumbled down the slope a ways. We drove out, jumped off the trucks and blindfolded them. One by one, we rolled them onto stretchers and the crane truck lifted them up and into the transport container.
Next problem: the container only had room for five of them. So we had to put the last two into the buckies, pickup trucks. The crane worked for one, but the big truck couldn't get to the last bull. We ended up physically shoving a 1200 pound buffalo into the back of a pickup, using the tailgate as a ramp.
That was the end of our buffalo adventure, which was pretty cool in the end. Some of us were also given helicopter rides, which were awesome. However, the helicopter developed a malfunction of some kind and had to go back to Pretoria for service, thus ruining our chances of microchipping the rhino on this trip. A lot of folks were bummed about that, and the fact that only six of us got helo rides in the end. We spent the rest of the day in town getting supplies and then breaking down the boma before another fun night of BS around the campfire. And thus ended Thursday.