Nkululeko

The Dolphin Coast North Coast KwaZuluNatal whose beaches were once recipient of Blue Flag status and holiday Mecca for visitors became South Africa's first victim of our planet's irreversible climate change. Tourism entrepreneurs offering holiday venues "on the beach front" found their installations either teetering over the edge of the beach or in some cases sharing the tide with Dolphins. Broken sewerage systems spewed raw effluent onto the swimming beaches, black flags replaced blue and visitors stayed away. That was March 2007 when the autumn equinox, a cyclone in the Mozambique channel and strong on-shore wind came together to wreck havoc in a matter of hours. Mdloti to Ballito and was wiped off the tourist map. I was also a victim that day when a Tsunami sized wave swept me and my friend Meg Jordan over a wall and left bleeding and somewhat broken on the beach requiring the help of a local Titan Wayne Labuschagne who helped us out seconds before the arrival of another wave.

One year later a lone hippopotamus, seemingly a messenger of hope, suddenly appeared in the shore break off Ballito. Once empty car parks filled to capacity it seemed like a holiday mood had returned to the depressed Dolphin Coast. Another hippo called Huberta that walked and swam from St Lucia to the Eastern Cape over a two and a half years in 1934 captured the imagination of the nation getting more media coverage than the spectre of an approaching world war. Sadly her journey was cut short when two ignorant farmers shot her and she now stands mute as an exhibit in a museum. The latest wanderer became another flagship icon a relief from the xenophobia, crime, and economic woes that dominated the media. At last we could send some good news from our troubled country. Bateleurs flying for the environment in Africa once again responded to my call for help supporting daily flights in ZS-DLI Spirit of the Wilderness tracking the peregrinations of our hippo as it wandered beaches at night seeking pasture and sanctuary in various estuaries of the North Coast. Naming the hippo (Freedom) won Ms Maryann Grafetsberger a prize of an hours flight in Spirit of the Wilderness helping track the hippo by its distinctive spoor above the high water left from the previous evenings wandering. Finally Nkululeko found the Mdhloti River with its fresh water and abundant pasture but this was short lived when the custodians of KZN's wildlife without attempting to capture and translocate the animal had it shot at night as it grazed the banks of the river. A local man had been found dead with head wounds for which Nkululeko was accused as perpetrator. Nkululeko was unceremiosly dumped in a landfill without even determining its sex and we still do not have the details of the autopsy that was supposedly done on the dead man. I do not for one moment believe that Nkululeko was responsible for the man's death. Once having been a game ranger in KZN the killing of this icon by the wild life authority iZemvelo bespeaks so much as to how little thought is given to caring for our country's natural wild treasures.