There’s a rule in the safari business – the ten metre rule. This means that you should not get closer than ten metres to the animal you are viewing in a vehicle. This is for the animal’s comfort, and so they do not feel threatened in any way. In Tau Pan, since we are in a Game Reserve, we also cannot go off road, but it is still amazing to see how many times in this huge open area, we have to use the 10 metre rule as animals happily snooze – by chance? – just under the tree next to the road. Sometimes, it’s too late to use the 10m rule – as happened this month when a bend in the road around a low bush resulted in us finding 7 lions on the other side of the bush. Being part of the Tau Pride, they did not even blink an eyelid at the sudden appearance of a car. They were, however, less than happy about an intruder male lion who appeared a few days later, and the speed at which seven lions can move when something really interests them is quite amazing.
What is also amazing is how many times the animals have not read of, or appear to have even heard of the ’10 metre rule’. Their complete disregard for our comfort zone, and nonchalance in the presence of our vehicles, is a little disconcerting. A wonderful example of a regular flouter of the 10 metre rule, is a female leopard that has a territory near the eastern fire break. Having been seen ever since the camp opened over five years ago, we have become part of the furniture as far as she is concerned. Spotting her on game drive will often result in a ‘stroll by’ – at a distance of around 1m from the stationary vehicle!
Three different cheetah sightings in four days was a good record for the end of the month. One of the males that was seen is a regular visitor to Tau Pan waterhole, but moves exceptionally cautiously as he moves through the area, always on the lookout for the resident lions that chase him out. Two days later, we saw a female with her cub in the same area, fairly relaxed in spite of the potential for a lion to happen upon them.
Like hyenas, vultures have been given a bit of a bad rap from the Disney marketing executives. Admittedly, their looks and the sound effects they make – not to mention their rather dubious dietary choices – have not done them any favours. However, without them, our land would be disease-ridden, covered in noxious animal waste and a few extra flies. They help the environment return all the right nutrients to the system, and allow for something else to make use of it. So it is alarming to realise how endangered these birds are. Subject to poisoning by poachers and farmers alike, their numbers in Botswana could reach critical levels soon. So it was a delight to see on the 18th April, one special vulture: he had been tagged. A tagged vulture helps researchers and conservationists track the movements of individuals, and by the number of reports that come in for each individual tag, extrapolate the movement and numbers of the different species. So, on that day, the number was excitedly recorded and forwarded on to the research team, as the relaxed vulture looked on from his post
