Three big bulls gone over the fence
Wednesday, 30 April 2014
Two big old-bull spoors on the Hereroland road before seven. A long morning of tracking, a long loss at the pan, a long recovery — and then, on the fence road south, two more big tracks walking a line straight into Botswana.
Between five and seven in the morning we picked up two big old-bull spoors on the gravel to Hereroland. We followed them a kilometer and a half before a water pan took both lines under a riot of cow-and-calf sign. The trackers worked an hour and a half and, quietly, miraculously, put the bulls back in our hands.
Four more kilometers and we lost them again. This time the trackers could not put them back — the country was thick with other elephants, and the two bulls had walked through their own erasure.
We drove the fence road south. Two more big bull spoors along it. We followed them a kilometer — and saw where both of them had lifted over the border and dropped into Botswana. Three big bulls over the wire in one morning.
On the way back we saw the same young bull from yesterday. After lunch, three old-bull spoors on the main gravel to Tsumkwe, too late in the day to start after any of them. Northwest: five kudu cows, three roan cows. The line of bulls we wanted was, again, in another country.
