VN October 2023

Vetnuus | October 2023 4 BEWARE IT’S PUFF ADDER MONTH! The story below was told by Dr. Tod Tollins, master storyteller. Wewere called out to rescue a group of hikers trapped in a cave after a heavy snowfall in September 1984. A 15th Squadron Oryx shuttled the school children and their gung-ho master back to their buses, and we the brawny rescuers heaved back to Vergelegen on our Shanks Ponies. As the rescue leader, I received a phone call from a newspaper reporter that evening. She fired questions at me, trying unsuccessfully to pry some amazingly heroic story from the incident. One of her questions was, “Isn’t it most unusual to have snow in September?” Mike Clark’s records will confirm that the Southern Berg area has recorded snow on the mountains, and frosts on the farmlands in every month of the year. However, on the reporter’s question, a Zulu bungese (beetle) crawled through the impish part of my brain. Perhaps it had made a quick detour through my subconscious memory of a Natal Parks Board guard who lived near Bucklands Store up past the Mkhomazi bridge on the Lotheni road. Most unusually for the normally slow-responding me, I gave her a crisp reply. “Not really. It iswhy the Zulu traditionalists here call September “inyanga ye-ibululu” or “puff adder month.” “Oh, is that because those awful snakes come out of winter hibernation?” She asked. I replied, “Oh no! It is from incidents where one is walking along a path through tall thatch grass, and a puff adder is lying across one’s way. A careful but long stride is taken to get over and past the snake, but just as one thinks the danger has been passed, it whips around and strikes one in the heel. So it is with September, thinking one has gone past winter!” The following day’s Mercury headline was, “School Party in Dramatic Rescue during Puff Adder Month!” The actual rescue took a few paragraphs, my thumb-suck folk-lore occupied the bulk of her column! September has proven to be the stormiest of months of 2023. Not only on the weather side but also on the animal health front. Where we just ‘celebrated’ World Rabies Day we have another storm brewing in the chicken industry. Bird-flu has bit into the industry, with many many birds culled it looks like the disease is as rampant as the high swells and waves as well as the many veld fires we have experienced all over the country. There is not a province that has not been devastated by a disaster this month. My prayers go out to every person who suffered losses. The 4th of October isWorld AnimalWelfare Day – may we be able to educate and train young and old to treat all animals with respect. May this education help in the eradication of brutality and abuse of all animals. ‘First, do not harm’. Since 1996 the second Friday has been celebrated as World Egg Day, this year it falls on Friday the 14th, as announced by the International Egg Commission. We hope that by then the flood of chicken cullings will be slowed down and that by the end of the month, there will be light at the end of the tunnel. The earliest evidence of captive elephants dates to the Indus Valley Civilization about 4,500 years ago. Since then, captive elephants have been used around the world in war, ceremonies, and for labour and entertainment. Captive elephants have been kept in animal collections for at least 3,500 years. The first elephant arrived in North America in 1796.[1] London Zoo, the first scientific zoo, housed elephants beginning in 1831. – Wikipedia It is obvious that human beings have for generations been captured and entertained by these large pachyderms. They have also been the subject of many scientific actions to better understand them. May elephants always roam free and many generations of children be able to enjoy them in the wild. Andriette v From the Editor Editor’s notes / Redakteurs notas Andriette van der Merwe