A Breed Apart

Northern Cape game reserve allows thrilling insight into conservation strategy

- Jo Kromberg

Adrenaline surges through my entire body like the sluices being opened on the Three Gorges Dam. I have a hard time bringing my weak knees to put one foot in front of the other as I walk across the tarmac to the small helicopter. The sun peeks over the horizon, spreading its soft morning glow across the African bush, verdant with recent rain.

I find myself at Mattanu Private Game Reserve, about 40 minutes’ drive from Kimberley in the vast, semi-arid Northern Cape Province of South Africa. At 6am in the morning the heat is already making its way across the land, and we have to do this thing relatively quickly before it gets too hot.

“This thing” is the darting of buffalo from the helicopter. We are the guests of wildlife veterinarian Dr Johan Kriek and his family, who own and operate the lodge and rare-game breeding farm.

“Don’t go near the back rotor – it will take your face off,” says Kriek’s pilot son, Johan Jnr, nonchalantly as I strap myself in the back seat – sans door. “Also, leave anything behind you don’t need. If any type of small item or paper flies out and gets stuck in the blades, we’re going down and we die. Now, are you ready?” he adds with a smile. I nod silently, unable to speak.

Initial terror turns quickly into fascination as the helicopter lifts into the air and we begin our search for the buffalo herd. We spot them and Kriek shouts instructions to Johan Jnr. We descend quickly to what seems like a hair’s breadth above their gleaming, sweating hides while Johan Jnr negotiates trees and such. Then he shoots. The dart sticks and we fly off. We dart and tag four more buffalo that morning.