Bush Vet

by Clay Wilson

  By this time the police had arrived and we handed our suspect over to them at the lodge’s dock. The man we had arrested gave up the fact that he had ferried four men across the river to Botswana, and he told the cops their names as well. I later heard that all of the criminals were rounded up, so our quick response led to a success.

  Still pumped with adrenalin when I arrived back home I posted a short entry on Facebook about the action-filled night’s events. My post gave a few facts and mentioned that I was proud of the way the police, BDF and I had acted as a team and that we’d had success. My entry didn’t go into nearly as much detail as I have just given.

  The shockwave from that one post was enormous, and in time I would come to regret my little burst of honest news reporting. In the following hours I was severely berated by players in the local tourism industry for suggesting that crime was occurring in Kasane. I was told by my National Parks superiors that anything I wrote for Facebook or my blog, or otherwise destined for the public realm, had to be approved by them from now on. I immediately apologised to everyone involved for my comments and removed the post; it was online for no more than six hours.

  There was nothing that I was aware of in the local or international media about what had happened to the tourists – many of them foreign – in town that night. It seemed to me that censorship was alive and well in Botswana. If a foreign tourist is held up or stabbed in Johannesburg, which has a reputation as a dangerous city, then it is worldwide news, but the public myth of Botswana’s status as a crime-free paradise had to be protected at all costs.

  This head-in-the-sand attitude galled me, as it seemed to me that if the authorities would not admit they had a problem with crime and poaching, then we would never get the resources we needed to fight these evils.

  Frustrated, I resolved to be quiet from then on, and to toe the line. But I was too late.

  Chapter 12

  Services no longer required

  One bright sunny morning in July 2011, a perfect midwinter’s day in Kasane, one of the guys from the National Parks office knocked on my door and handed me an envelope. I opened it and read a letter from the Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, thanking me for all the work I had done for National Parks in the past.

  That was nice, I thought, but as I continued to read my mood changed. The minister went on to say that my honorary game wardenship was being revoked.

  I read the letter again. There was no reason provided as to why I was being given the sack. I hadn’t asked to be made an honorary warden – it was National Parks’ idea as a means of formalising the relationship under which I operated. This was my fifth year of living in Kasane and I had been under an official contract with the DWNP for two and a half years.

  I was devastated. I got in my truck and went to see Mogau immediately. He was as surprised as I was and said he had had heard nothing about this decision. He asked to read the letter. I handed it to him and after reading it (the letter was only about four paragraphs long) he looked up at me. “I don’t understand this. Why would this man do this?”

  He did some investigating and the news just got worse. Mogau informed me, reluctantly, that my contract with National Parks, which was due for renewal that month, would not be signed, meaning my authority to act as Chobe’s vet was also effectively cancelled.

  Back home, I tried to work out what had happened. I had made enemies in Kasane and in the National Parks service, of that there was no doubt. It’s not in my nature and nor was I brought up to be subtle or to play at politics. If I see something that needs doing, then I do it, and hang the consequences. I know this can be a problem, but I can’t help how I am, and I get things done. But had I been brash enough to be fired?

  I had upset the SPCA by killing the town’s stray dogs during the distemper outbreak. I had gone over the state veterinarian’s head to get approval for the vaccination. I’d had several run-ins with another local wildlife NGO, who I think was worried about me muscling in on its turf. In fact, the opposite had happened. There was a woman I had met on Facebook, a wealthy benefactor who was prepared to donate $250 000 to help me carry on with my work in Chobe and Kasane, and when she started checking me out her trail led her to the rival organisation. They slammed me, coming up with all sorts of wild allegations about things I had done wrong, and I missed out on the money. I was sure those people wanted me barred, but I doubted if they were really that well connected.

  There were local landowners who hated me because I had stopped them shooting elephants on site, although Mr Aupiti, the farmer with whom I’d had several run-ins, and I had buried the hatchet and we had become something like friends. Also, the Facebook episode, where I had posted about the crime in Kasane, had put me on the target radar of the local tourist operators and the government, both of whom were clearly sensitive to bad news.

  Three days later, while I was still trying to work out who was behind the termination of my contract with National Parks, I received a call from the immigration office in Kasane. A man on the line said there was something wrong with my paperwork and that I needed to report to the office.

  I went with my friend, with whom I had invested in the tourism lodge on the river, to the immigration office on the Chobe River. The office’s main function was to process the passports of tourists who were going on day trips across the river to Namibia, and vice versa. I reported to the female officer at the desk.

  “What have you done?” the woman asked as she slid a letter across the counter to me. I picked up the facsimile transmission and read it. It advised me that my visa and work permit were being cancelled and that I had 30 days to get out of the country.

  I looked at her blankly. I was shocked.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “I have no idea. My job is simply to inform you,” she said. “This happens often.”

  That was no consolation to me. My partner and I walked out. The notice had come from Gaborone and there was no point in arguing with the official at the counter in Kasane. She was very polite and actually quite helpful. She suggested I contact a lawyer immediately.

  Even though my status as an honorary game warden had been revoked and my contract to provide veterinary services to National Parks had been abruptly terminated, that didn’t stop people calling me during this very confusing time in my life. As far as most of the community and the rank and file of the National Parks service were concerned, I was still Doctor Clay, wildlife vet, not persona non grata.

  Amidst all this kerfuffle I received a call from a private citizen telling me that there was a wounded elephant near Kazungula. He had heard gunshots the previous evening and found a blood trail near Aupiti’s farm, and he asked me if I would come with him while he followed up the elephant’s spoor. I didn’t know what to do. Under the letter of the law, if I was no longer a warden and I had no contract with National Parks then I was not allowed to treat any sick or wounded wild animals.

  The hell with it, I thought. There was an elephant in trouble and I could not bear the thought of it suffering needlessly. I met the guy and drove around with him until we picked up a blood trail running across the main road that led to the car ferry to Zambia at Kazungula. It had gone into a triangle of bush bordered by the road to the river crossing, and the road that runs east–west to the Kazungula border crossing into Zimbabwe.

  It was easy to track the elephant because of the blood and a distinctive scuffing of the soil and ground cover that indicated it was dragging one of its rear legs. The amazing thing about elephants is how quietly they walk through the bush. I couldn’t hear the elephant but its blood became fresher and the tracks cleaner. We eventually found it and approached cautiously; it was a middle-aged female, maybe around 30 years old. She was exhausted and when she tried to take a step she almost collapsed. She had been shot high up in the backside, near her spine. This was a terrible injury she had suffered.

  One of the spiteful claims that had been made against me by the rival NGO was that I
darted animals for fun, even healthy ones. That was ridiculous. At the time, I was busy helping the American wildlife expert and documentary-maker Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, and I had submitted an application to dart a healthy elephant as part of the permit process. Jack wanted to film an elephant being tranquillised, but that wasn’t a good enough reason. In fact, my application to dart an elephant was all about a programme I had been involved in with other National Parks staff and vets to set up a data base of “normal” animal blood samples so that we could compare them against samples taken from sick animals. We had already taken samples from healthy sables, kudus, impalas and a range of other animals and I wanted to get a sample from a healthy elephant. The fact that this coincided with Jack’s filming request was an added bonus.

  Anyway, despite people thinking I could shoot and dart animals willy-nilly, I knew there was nothing I could do for the poor distressed creature we found near Kazungula. As my contract was no longer valid, I was not allowed to dart any wild animal. We pulled back to a safe distance and I got out my cellphone and started making calls. Mogau, I knew, had gone to his grandmother’s funeral, and he was not picking up. Likewise, I couldn’t get hold of Seema. As a last resort I called the head warden of all National Parks in Gaborone. It was getting late, about 5.30 in the afternoon. I got his voicemail and left a message.

  A short while later the head warden called me back, telling me that he, too, had tried to contact the local Parks people in Kasane and had had no luck either. I could have told him that I had already tried all of them. He said to leave it with him.

  Reluctantly, we had to leave the elephant as night closed in. The African darkness descends like a theatre curtain and the bush is not a nice place to be in after hours. Leopards and lions hunt, and elephants, hard enough to spot in broad daylight, move like phantoms.

  Eventually, around 6.30 that evening when I was back home, I received a call from the PAC warden on duty at Chobe National Park. I had been unable to track him down earlier. He told me that he and a fellow warden would come out with me the next morning, and that they would collect me.

  They did, and we drove to the spot on the main road where the blood trail was still visible. We followed the spoor to the place where I had seen the elephant the previous day, but she was gone. She must have been in incredible pain as she dragged herself away. Undeterred, the wardens and I carried on, tracking her as far as we could. The sun climbed high and my throat was dry as dust as we trudged on, doing our best to stay alert.

  We spent all day, nine and a half hours, looking for that wounded elephant. The problem was that she had moved into grassland, and the more open country was covered in the spoor of other herds that had passed through the night before. In the process they had obliterated her telltale tracks.

  We never did find the elephant, but it wasn’t a complete waste of a day. During our long walk the wardens and I found and cut dozens of wire snares attached to trees. Sadly, our noses led us to a sub-adult buffalo that had been trapped by a snare around his neck and tethered to a tree. He had died where he’d been caught, and his carcass was badly decomposed.

  Deep in the bush we also came across two impala heads and skins stretched out to dry over improvised racks. In contrast to the buffalo, these were fresh kills. The anger inside me at the senseless killing and cruelty was threatening to boil over. But here, if we played our cards right, was a shot at revenge.

  After our fruitless search for the wounded elephant we went to a nearby BDF camp and told the officer in charge about our find in the bush. The freshness of the skins told us the poachers had recently been in the area, perhaps that day. The wardens and I felt the criminals would be returning soon to collect the skins.

  The army officer in charge told us he was newly transferred to the area and that his orders were to get tough on poaching. I’d seen a BDF-helicopter flying around and the officer told me they had use of it for a week for anti-poaching operations. I had been pushing Parks and the government for a helicopter for five years with no result. It would be ironic if the government had finally come to its senses at the same time it was in the process of kicking me out of the country.

  The wardens and I took the BDF guys back to where we had found the skins and heads and a more thorough search of the area revealed a cache of fresh meat from the impalas hidden in a nearby anthill. We all knew the poachers would be back from their other harvesting soon, before the meat went rotten.

  An ambush was planned and the soldiers, armed with assault rifles, were deployed. As bitter as I was about the way I was being treated, it was encouraging to think that this time, at least, the poachers might get their comeuppance.

  At about seven that night, after I had got home, Seema called and told me he had been travelling, and that was why he had been unable to call me back. I was exhausted. I am not a young man and I had blisters on my feet from walking all day in the bush, and I was sunburnt and sore all over. He had some good news: the BDF ambush had resulted in the arrest of a poacher, a local man who worked on the Kazungula Ferry. He had a job – he wasn’t starving – but was simply greedy for bush meat.

  It was a win, of sorts, but a small one compared to the slaughter I had witnessed over the years. Poachers usually received only a paltry fine, and were then released from custody. It troubled me, thinking about the injured elephant dragging her wounded leg behind her. She would die a slow, painful death. Who knew, perhaps I could have treated her if I had been allowed to dart her. At the very least I could have put her quickly out of her misery. But I could do none of that; I was hamstrung by bureaucrats who had decided my fate without even telling me the reason.

  I doubted Seema was behind the termination of my contract, and my friend Mogau had seemed genuinely surprised when I told him the news and showed him the letter. I tried to think of what I had done to be sacked and ordered out of the country.

  The rival NGO had accused me of taking people into the park under the guise of being assistants to my veterinary work, and that I had therefore avoided the need for them to pay park fees. I knew that other people involved in wildlife research did this, and that it was against the rules. I will admit that I once took a friend who was a local tourism investor and operator into Chobe with me on a job and he did not pay entry fees. He showed up on my doorstep as I was racing out to a call, and it was easier and quicker for me to just sign him in as an assistant so I could get on my way.

  Seema found out and I was called into the headmaster’s office and reprimanded. I apologised, told him it had been a one-off, and we closed the book on the episode, as far as I knew. Certainly I was never fined or asked to pay back the man’s entry fee, so I considered it a slap on the wrist and a lesson well learnt.

  I went over and over the catalogue of things that could have led to my dismissal and none of them seemed major enough to get my wardenship revoked or my visa and permit cancelled. The business with not paying a fee would have earned a tourist or a local a spot fine, but Seema had not even seen fit to issue that.

  My friend the tour operator, in a bid to help me out (my money was really running out by that stage), had discussed the idea of me leading tours into the park. I took friends and acquaintances into the park all the time, and if they wanted to shell out a few pula to cover my fuel bill then that was just fine by me. They all had to pay their parks entry fees – I had learnt that lesson good and proper. My friend went ahead and pinned up a flier advertising tours with Chobe’s wildlife vet – even though I was not being paid by him – and no sooner had he done so than someone in the community reported me to National Parks.

  Again, I was carpeted by Seema. I did not have a guide’s licence, so I could not take paying tourists into the park, and he also alleged that me acting as a guide, in any capacity, created some kind of conflict of interest with my National Parks voluntary veterinary work. I tried to point out that there could only really be a conflict of interest if I was being paid by National Parks – an
d I wasn’t. The most annoying thing was that none of these proposed tours ever happened.

  However, Seema and I talked it through and I was left with very clear guidelines on an issue that had been grey at best. Again, I was not fined or charged, and this was long before my wardenship was suddenly revoked. If this misguided incident was grounds for terminating my services, then I was given no indication it was being taken that seriously. And would it have been enough to have me kicked out of the country? I doubted it.

  Another breech of the rules that I was guilty of was leaving Chobe National Park by an unauthorised exit point. This was the old gate near the Chobe Safari Lodge and I – like many, many safari guides – occasionally used it. In my defence, I usually only did so when I was engaged in official veterinary business that kept me out in the park after dark. It was a shortcut home and easier than rousing the rangers at the main Sedudu Gate from their nocturnal slumbers or whatever else they were up to. On these occasions I usually had rangers with me, and nothing was made of my use of the exit.

  I was busted, however, using the unofficial exit when I was driving a vip around the park. This was a man who was highly connected to the top echelons of government (I will say no more about his identity). This man wanted to see lions and I had asked and been refused permission to stay after dark to call up some of these felines. We did, however, happen to see a lion kill a buffalo at Serondella on our game drive. Despite the impression given by Animal Planet and various wildlife documentary-makers, “kills” – the actual act of one animal taking down another – are not something you see every day.

  The VIP was as impressed by the experience as I was, and although I knew I had no chance of making the main gate by the dusk curfew, I could not resist the urge to stay a little longer. He, too, wanted to stay. A crowd of game-viewing vehicles full of tourists had also happened upon the kill and they were still there when I eventually made the call that we should leave.