Tsukudu and Walking With Youngsters
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Tsukudu is a private game reserve that has gained a reputation for caring for orphaned baby animals. Besides their regular overnighting guests, they take reservations for a few people to come for breakfast, which includes accompanying the baby animals on their morning exercise walk. I'm not sure how, but these animals are successfully introduced into the wild as they mature.
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The three main baby animals that we walked with were a warthog, a zebra and a wildebeest. They really didn't pay much attention to the people at all. There were eight people on the walk--the four of us and four camp guests. We had a very nice, knowledgeable guide who told us about everthing as we went along.
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The wart hog came along too. She was a bit of a nuisance when we got back because she went up on the porch where we were having our breakfast and nosed around us when we were trying to eat.
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A little way from the lodge we were joined by two lion cubs accompanied by a Jock-in-the-Bushveld type dog and the boy who takes care of the lions.
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About a third into our interesting little walk, two trucks drove up and discharged 70 middle school children, who were attending an environmental camp nearby, to join our walk. At first we were upset that they would ruin everything we might have seen, but as it turned out, they were fairly well behaved and only made picture taking very difficult. The animals paid no attention to them--just continued their walking and investigating of everything. Actually it's a wonderful opportunity for the kids to be able to learn in the bush like that--we may have met many future biologists and guides.
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Midway in the walk we met Tombe who will be thoroughly shown on the next page. We ended up back at the owner's house which is where the younger animals get their morning bottles. The lion cubs began to whine quite a while before we got there and the kids got a big kick out of holding the bottles for them. And they took turns too, which was nice to see.
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There was also a serval cub at the house who was too young to walk, but it obviously enjoyed when the others came to visit. Here it is playing with one of the lions. They are chasing a little rubber ball that one of the children had.
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I was very pleased to see the serval up close, because I want to paint one soon.
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After a very delicious breakfast, when all the people and animals were fed, we were allowed to feel the coats of the three who hung around the lodge. You had to pet the zebra from the front because he kicks, the wildebeest from the back because he butts with his horns, and be prepared for the warthog to get your slacks all dirty with her habit of pushing (very hard) against your leg. I know it smacks a little of petting zoo, but we had a very pleasant morning there and learned a lot about young animals.
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Click on the cheetah to go to page fifteen
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