Where The Buffalo Roam

Wild World by Ben Waddams: A home where the buffalo roam...

The following is a tale of two ungulates (hoofed animals).

Flying in a light aircraft over the desert and savannah of Namibia, is not the most rewarding experience wildlife-wise.

The only animals you can really appreciate from this vantage point,are the exceedingly big ones.

On the continent of Africa, the elephant, hippo, rhino and buffalo are the main contenders for Biggles-esque naturalists.

However in Namibia there are very few desert elephants, a handful of rare rhinos and scant rivers providing negligible chances for hippo-watching.

As for buffalo, there is none … at least there none now. Why might this be? Not because of hunting but, ironically, because one ungulate is swapped for another. Buffalo have been swapped for cattle.

In southern Africa, there are, sadly, still frequent bouts of foot and mouth disease. It has been deemed that domestic livestock must come before wildlife and so veterinary fences have been erected around the entire northern part of the country.

This keeps the cattle in and the buffalo (the main carriers of foot and mouth) out.

Buffalo, however, play a key ecological role as a bulk grazer, one that smaller domestic cattle cannot fulfil.

By removing a large overburden of tall grasses, they create access for other large mammals which would normally avoid such habitats.

If you have buffalo on your land, their grazing tends to alter the grass make up in a manner which favours other grazers and so you attract more species of herbivores and in turn, carnivores.

Cape buffalo are one of my favourite animals so I was slightly annoyed to be told by the pilot that there were none actually in the country.

However, ‘he would see what he could do’. Flying low over the border, there is one small section of veterinary cordon which contain a handful of the creatures.

These are kept in quarantine as an experiment to see if they can cope with the new Namibian landscape of farms and cattle ranches.

Ducking and weaving over the treetops we circled for an eternity until we picked out a couple of shady looking bulls skulking in the shade. Irritated by our presence, they lumbered off and I got my reference material.

But how does this tie in with Bucks? Well, our ungulates (deer) are not all they appear to be. Our most common species, the roe deer, are a natural part of the Buckinghamshire landscape, but a smaller ‘micro-deer’ is invading our county – the Muntjac.

Where The Buffalo Roam - Blog - Murderati

Although when I posted this pic on Facebook, I got shooting tips from no fewer than four men. Only one of whom I actually know in real life. No women offered comments--perhaps because I didn't actually ask for advice? Testosterone is funny stuff. Go figure.

Also, I beat Uncle Bill at chess three times. Which was pretty great. But then again, he's 93 and he's only been playing for a year. And he beat ME six times. So... well... it's kind of like the time my sister sent a postcard home from Switzerland in eighth grade that said, "Dear Mom, I was in a ski race the other day. I came in third. Unfortunately, there were only three people in the race."

Although as my sister likes to point out in retrospect, "the other two people made the Swiss Olympic ski team, so I didn't suck THAT badly..."

Don't even ask how many times he kicked my butt at Go. Because that's just embarrassing.

But the best thing about being there, other than the fact that Wyoming is so gorgeous:

(this is where we stopped to picnic, on the drive up from Jackson)

Was getting to hear Uncle Bill's stories at dinner.

I posted a link to the interview he did with a naval research institute magazine about getting shot down in the Phillipines during WWII the last time I posted here, but I got to hear way more details about that adventure in person.

Like, about how he had a COMPOUND FRACTURE of his leg and they were on the island for six weeks, and he made himself a crutch out of the bomb cradle from this Japanese plane that got shot down a couple of days later--wrapping the metal with the shrouds from parachutes in the Jap plane. Which had thirteen dead guys in it. 

I asked him what they ate while they were there.

"Coconuts," he said. "Although I did see one of those Komodo Dragons, and thought maybe I could get it so we could grill it and have it for dinner, but then I realized that it was going into the plane to eat the dead Japs, so I decided against it."

They finally got the two guys in the best shape to build a raft and go to another island for help--from the Phillipine guerrila fighter dudes. They finally got picked up by a submarine.

"What was that like?" I asked.

"Food was good," he said. "Always is on a submarine. But the view's terrible."

He ended up in a hospital in Australia for a couple of months. The guy in the bed on one side of him had his arm in a sling after cracking up a Jeep. Guy in the bed on the other side had his leg in a sling. He told Uncle Bill that everything had been going fine "but then her husband came home.

Where the Buffalo Roam, Restoring America's Great Plains

Where the buffalo roam

Where the Buffalo Roam

Where the Buffalo Roam, Restoring America's Great Plains

Where the Buffalo Roam