Archive for February 1st, 2001
Day 29
Our drive to the meeting was quite an experience. For a relaxed, quiet man like Tyse who likes a simple life, I was astonished by the ferocity of his city driving - burning acceleration, big speeds, careering around corners - scary. However, this seems to be the norm for city driving in South Africa - he is simply keeping up with everyone else!
We stopped outside a bank while so Tyse could do some business, leaving me in the car. He came back to the car almost immediately, and pulled out a pistol (!) from a leg-holster, berating himself for nearly forgetting to disarm himself before going into a bank - apparently they all have metal detectors. I didn’t even know he was carrying one! But, as I discussed with him later on, this is a common safety precaution in South Africa, which has one of the highest murder rates and shootings in the world. I don’t see how arming yourself is going to do much help, however, but there we go, I don’t live here.
The meeting was fascinating. I learned a lot about the running and issues involved in managing something like conservation of cheetahs - sadly, the defining issue always seemed to be money. The main issue at the meeting was a strategy to award farmers for cheetahs caught on their farmlands alive, with about R5000 (South African rand). It may seem an odd thing for a conservation trust to fund, but it does make a lot of sense - farmers will normally simply shoot a cheetah to kill if they are found on farmland, understandably because they will kill livestock, which outs the farmers out of pocket.
We drove back to Kapama that night.