I witnessed a death today

Death is not pretty and I witnessed this one today.

Today, was a really hot day, just like it has been for the last week.

The dogs were snoozing limply in the coolest of spaces they could find. I had already had at least three swims in the swimming pool and it was only 11.00 am in the morning with the thermometer already registering a blistering 36 degrees in my office !

I glimpsed out of my window and I noticed on gazing out, a mother Warthog and her three babies grazing on my lawn, I was thankful the dogs were non compos-mentos otherwise they would have chased them off.

I enjoyed the little family scene playing out in front of me for a few minutes. I went back to work on my computer.

A terrible heart rending squeal then hit the air, it was from a baby warthog and with it in the next second came the terrible barking of a lone male baboon. I jumped up and ran outside. The mother Warthog was running toward me as the screaming of her little one and the terrible barking of the baboon continued. With this, the dogs, were also galvanised into action and sped past me and out of my office sliding door. In a total state now, I was worried for the mother warthog, and the dogs, as she would be really aggressive, I agonised over the baby warthog and was anxious as to where the male baboon could be. He was barking on a none stop basis from about 20 meters from my house.

I felt sick as I thought about the little warthogs demise and hoped his death had been quick and painless. The baboon carried on barking for at least another twenty minutes and I could hear he was moving around the house and was headed for the gorge. Heart pumping and home alone, I felt the trauma of death, the hunt, adrenalin, worry and the power, cruelty and beauty of nature all rolled into one.

As my father so often said to me “Africa is not for sissies” .