by WILBUR SMITH
This is a time for you abandon any zeal you may have for complete and utter truth and enjoy a good story (which may have a grain or ten of truth in it). I do hope so. After all, strange things do happen…..
The plight of the Black Rhinoceros is, of course, due mostly to the value of its horn and the ferocious poaching that this engenders. However, a contributory factor to the declining rhino population is the animals disorganized mating habits. It seems that the female rhino only becomes receptive to the male’s attentions every three years or so, while the male only becomes interested in her at the same intervals. A condition known quite appropriately as “Must”.
The problem is one of synchronization, for their amorous inclinations do not always coincide.
In the early Sixties, I was invited, along with a host of journalists and other luminaries, to be present at an attempt by the Rhodesian Game and Tsetse Department to solve this problem of poor timing. The idea was to capture a male rhino and induce him to deliver up that which could be stored until that day in the distant future when his mate’s fancy turned lightly to thoughts of love. We departed from the Zambezi Valley in an impressive convoy of trucks and Land Rovers, counting in our midst none other than the Director of the game department in person, together with his minions, a veterinary surgeon, an electrician and sundry other technicians, all deemed necessary to make the harvest.
The local game scouts had been sent out to scout the bush for the largest, most virile rhino they could find. They had done their job to perfection and led us to a beast at least the size of a small granite koppie with a horn on his nose considerably longer than my arm. The trick was to get this monster into a robust mobile pen, which had been constructed to accommodate him.
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(Thanks to Mukul Dube)