Bountiful Botswana: Life lessons learned in the bush

Botswana is truly a land of plenty, with more to offer than just the Big 5 — lion, Cape buffalo, elephant, leopard and rhino. Hippos and crocs swim in the swampy waters of the Okavango Delta. Cheetahs stroll along gentle, grassy mounds. Young wild dogs romp about in their den, watched over by a single male adult. Honey badgers scamper on the dessert grass. Meerkats wake up, alert and ready to dig up their breakfast of termites and scorpions under the sand. A rare aardvark makes its nervous appearance on a startlingly beautiful starlit night in the 360-degree horizon of the Kalahari saltpans. Countless impalas, lechwes, giraffes, warthogs, zebras and wildebeests graze, until the presence of a predator disturbs their peace.

Adaptation. Animals evolve and adapt to the harsh environment, developing skills that help them survive changes. Life in the bush depends on water, energy conservation and reproduction. Herds travel thousands of kilometers because they must move towards water sources. Many animals, especially the predators, sleep in the day to conserve their energy and hunt at night.

Survival or death. Animals have a way of alerting each other when lions or hyenas come. Some have convenient holes in the ground for a quick escape. There is safety in numbers. The elephants (and rhinos) position themselves in an impenetrable phalanx to protect their babies. No lion will dare cross the line. Smart is sometimes better than strong.

We were told that when elephants arrive, some plants excrete a certain scent that elephants don’t like. This also serves as a warning to other plants, which, in turn, do the same thing.

Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, called Jau/lazi, are ancestral people. (Have you watched the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy?) They, too, have survived because they know their harsh environment very well. They can make fire from twigs, hunt for food using poison arrows, find water in tubers underground. They have kept their language with clicking sounds and enjoy playing a game using their arms — similar to our “jack and poy.”

Breeding ensures continuity. Propagate or disappear. (Sadly, there are many endangered species in the bush.) The breeding herd is composed of females, with only one male head. Males are normally kicked out of the group, and they go with other bachelor males. (Hmm, does this sound familiar?) Should a male decide that it wants to head a group of females, he must defeat the existing leader.

Timing is everything. Eat now or go hungry. Animals take the opportunity to feed whenever they have a chance, since they don’t know when the next meal will come along. A lion uses the element of surprise to take a young impala drinking in the water source, or waits until dark to catch its sleeping prey.

Resource partitioning. Zebras and wildebeests are buddies, never pushing the other away for a delicious patch of grass. Because of the way their teeth are constructed, wildebeests eat the tender tops of grass and so they eat first. The zebras, with larger, stronger teeth, then eat the tougher bottom parts of the grass. The brown hare and the meerkat eat the same insects, but they forage in a different way — no fighting here either.

Symbiosis. Cattle egrets hitch a ride on the backs of buffalos as they travel to the next water hole or grassy patch. The birds need not fly too far on their own and, therefore, save energy. They, in turn, eat the insects that bother the buffalos’ hides.

Strength in numbers. A clan of spotted hyena cubs romp and play with each other. A female hyena carries a newborn protectively, as a mother would. But don’t be fooled — hyenas are fierce. Hearing them chomp on fresh meat and crunch on bone is a graphic reminder of their strength.  Sometimes they wait for lions to finish feeding, but if they attack as a pack, they can actually send a lone lion back to its den.

Unavoidable presence of predators. The strong will always take advantage of the weak. In a herd, the young calf is easy prey. Elephants are a threat — they eat the precious leaves and bark off trees. When they cannot reach the leaves, they simply push the tree down. The devastation left behind by hungry elephants is chilling.  These gentle animals are causing an imbalance in the environment. Birds who have nests in these trees become homeless.                                                                                                                                   Man is also a threat.  Poaching is lucrative — 15 kilos of rhino horn fetches $70,000 on the black market. Concessions spend a lot of money protecting the animals in their areas of responsibility and are allowed to shoot poachers. Botswana makes it expensive for tourists to visit — the smaller the human footprint, the better for the animals.

Attitude of gratitude. This powerful phrase comes from a priest’s homily we heard at a Mass in Capetown. When an impala lives another day to eat the sweet grass, he must be grateful that he wasn’t last night’s dinner for a lion or a leopard.

Indeed, being with wild animals in their natural habitat is a reminder that life is precious and humans, while similarly threatened by vicious entities, might do well to practice simplicity, tolerance and respect for other species, and gratitude.

Just For Fun: Collective Nouns For Animals (Taken From A Wilderness Safari Camp)

A herd of antelopes/ a cloud of bats/ a murder of crows/ a parade of elephants/ a clan of hyenas/ a rank of impalas/ a crash of rhinos/ a sounder of warthogs/ a dray of squirrels/ a pack of wild dogs/ a confusion of guinea fowl/ a shrewdness of monkeys/ a troop of baboons/ a pride of lions/ a dazzle of zebra/ a business of mongoose/ a tower of giraffes/ a pod of hippos/ a leap of leopards/ a prickle of porcupines/ a stand of flamingos/ a parliament of owls/ an implausibility of wildebeest/ an army of frogs/ a coalition of cheetahs/ a romp of otters/an obstinacy of buffalo/ an ambush of tigers.

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