Zululand Rhino Reserve - Black Rhino Range Expansion Project

Special Thanks
David Attenborough for getting MACS MARITIME CARRIER SHIPPING PTY LTD to Adopt one of our rhino and thus sponsoring R10 000 to our Rhino monitoring project.

Struen Murless for loaning his Isuzu bakkie to the Reserve until we have sorted out a vehicle for the monitoring team.

Guy Hamlin for donating four office desks, one cupboard and one filing cabinet & one chair to ZRR office, and for getting us a great saving of R4000 on a projector.

2nd         Ryan saw a wildebeest calf on the 2nd that had just been born; it had a wet umbilical cord.
13th       June Caracal Male on a young impala female kill @ Koos Smit’s farm below
Mbulungwane hill. Wild dog tracks @ Abu Madi close to Boundary on Timmy Moodley’s farm.
14th       Elephant cow & new born calf seen at Iqina- calf’s sex unknown.
Another Caracal sighting @ Koos Smit’s below Mbulungwane Hill. A troop of baboons approximately 20 animals were seen at Leopard Mountain, and another different troop was seen at Wayne Stanford’s place, this is quite significant to see them there as the have not been seen in that area before and there has always only been one troop of baboons in the area and its seems like another has moved into the area (pers comm. Ryan Vivier)
15th        An Aardvark was seen on the district road @ 9:30pm and ran off towards Okalweni.
17th       Two bush pig were seen on Abu Madi in different places During the day 8:00-8:30am (1 boar & 1 sow). One Baboon troop was seen at Nyamazeneni hide at Leopard Mountain.
19th       A side-striped jackal was seen @ Abu Madi
21st       Serval was seen @ Abu Madi near the district road
25th       A large White Rhino Bull was seen at Mavela
26th       Young Black Rhino bull M67 was seen chasing crested Guinea fowl and horning the ground.
27th       Another Serval sighting at Abu Madi
29th       One large White Rhino Cow and her 3-6 year old calf was seen crossing the D240 from Mavela going to Mkuze Nyala, we got great pictures to start the monitoring of our White Rhino.

Aloes are in full bloom, lots of sunbirds about, Aloes took 1½ months from first spike to full flowering. (Mike Balcomb’s notes).

Black Rhino Monitoring
The rhino are very active and moving over large areas. Both the calf’s are healthy and in good condition. There are no major movements; most of the rhino stay within their range. F96 moved out of her area due to the Chromolaena clearing she was seen associating with another rhino for the first time and play fighting with M62 at Houthaak. We have had our third Elephant calf born early this month. It has been difficult to locate F89 as her transmitter is very weak and she is always walking in thick Chromolaena areas, her transmitter won’t last much longer. M86 walks in Luderitsia thicket and his transmitter is not working so getting a sighting on him is very difficult.

Rainfall 2mm at Kido.

General

Ephraim is doing well on the fence line; he is however having trouble with the community on the Luthuli boundary. I will assist where I can with this matter.

Ryan & I and Seven of our field rangers attended a control and compliance course donated to us by WWF. The course helped a lot and the staff learnt a lot about the law pertaining to their jobs. We had good results in the written exam with
Mr M.Ntanzi achieving 100%, the first time in four years of the course being instructed, the average for the rest was 78%. I will be sending two more field rangers for this training course at Phinda in July.