Living in the Rhenosterspruit Nature Conservancy is a constant source of surprises. From finding a black-tailed mongoose on the garage roof to spotting a jackal trotting across the lawn and a large leguan slithering over the road in front of your vehicle...

But - imagine being confronted by a hippo in the road on your way to work! This is what happened to my neighbour, Morag, recently.  She was driving in thick fog along a dirt track not far from home at about seven o'clock in the morning when she suddenly saw this huge animal coming down the road at her!  She slammed on brakes and the hippo veered off the road and disappeared into a thick copse.

Morag immediately contacted neighbours and the search began. There was spoor in the muddy road but no sign of the hippo. The manager of a nearby quarry then phoned in. One of his contractors had spotted the hippo wandering around the quarry and reported it to him but he thought it was a practical joke. When the contractor insisted, he moved fast, managing to take a pic of the animal in the swirling fog.

The bewildered hippo took off at speed and disappeared. 

Morag wrote to neighbours later in the day: “To all my friends who called to ask me what I smoke and drink at seven in the morning - can I now please be released from the looney bin? But on a more serious note - what an absolutely amazing experience!”

Nobody knows where the hippo came from or where it went. And nobody has seen it since...

The lion that wasn't and the leopard that was
Now imagine driving out in a hurry early in the morning and spotting a very large, brown, hairy creature skulking among the dense trees near your home.  A neighbour (not Morag this time) decided there could only be one animal sporting a mane like that – a lion.

The Police were notified, the Nooitgedacht Lion Park was contacted and all neighbours given a warning that a predator might be loose in the area.  Horse owners were advised not to let their horses out into the veld.  The managers in the lion parks in nearby Nooitgedacht and in Kalkheuvel were asked to check on their lions but all of them seemed to be present with no intention of emigrating to the Conservancy.

Trackers finally found a spoor in the thickly wooded area along the Jukskei River– a brown hyena!  Brown hyena spoor has often been found in Hennops River near the Schurveberg, the northern boundary of the Conservancy, but the animals have seldom ventured so far south. 

The Schurveberg is a haven for wild animals.  On 1 April last year a leopard calmly walked across a dirt road in front of a truck on its way to a chicken farm.  The truck driver aimed for it, "because it steals chickens" but the leopard managed to escape unharmed. 

Someone called the local radio station but it was declared an April Fool's joke!  We contacted the Leopard Conservation Project and they interviewed the truck driver, found leopard spoor and took fur samples from the fence where it had (the leopard) escaped into the veld.

What next? A rogue elephant?

Helen Duigan

www.rhenosterspruit.co.za