Day 22

I had to get up at 2.30 this morning to get ready to go out. Stacey, Siseko and I left at 3 and drove into Grahamstown to Will's house there. We left the car we drove in there and got into Will's car. We dropped Stacey off at her Mum's house on the way out of town. We then drove for 2 hours out the other side of Grahamstown to a private game reserve up there.
Once we had sorted out the drugs and things that were needed and Will had got his darts ready we drove out onto the reserve and Will went in the helicopter. It is much easier to dart Giraffe from a helicopter and to then keep close to them. Giraffe are very sensitive to the anaesthetic and so once they have been given it you have to give them the antidote as quickly as possible. I was with Siseko in Will's Landrover and we had to follow the first car which had the antidote in and then Siseko had to give the giraffe a multi vitamin injection and some antibiotics to help it recover from the darting, so I helped him to draw these up in syringes. Once the Giraffe has been given it's antidote it is then blindfolded and has ear plugs put in and has a lead rein (like for a horse) put on its head and ropes tied from that under its body and then through its back legs, to enable us to get in into the trailer, by providing a lead and a break. There are two more ropes with come from the trailer so once the Giraffe gets close they are cross behind it to help to push it inside. Once the Giraffe is inside all the ropes and blindfolds are removed and the Giraffe is ready to be transported.
We were supposed to dart and load 6 Giraffe today, but in the end we only darted 4, because 2 of those 4 died. Will has never had 2 giraffe die in the same capture before and prior to starting the darting he was concerned about the coat colour of the giraffe, as they looked a little grey. So after the second Giraffe died Will did a post mortem, but it didn't show anything abnormal. It was very sad.
Once we had finished at the reserve we drove back to Grahamstown and helped Will to sort a few things out and then we went to collect Stacey, who had done the food shopping in the morning for us. Then we drove home. This evening Stacey and I watched episodes of a programme called Vet Safari School, which was filmed with Will on Amakhala and surrounding reserves for ITV and will be broadcast in the UK in February. It was good to watch as I have now done some of the things involved and I know the rangers and the vets involved.