Peregrination

Peregrination-(n) a journey

I embarked on a peregrination traveling to South Africa because I wanted to find direction and context for the rest of my life. I might have found it this week.

I am writing this in bed in a home that belongs to the owner of a private game reserve named Samara. I’m spending the week here as a part of my Conservation Biology module and I’m having a great time! Here’s what we’ve seen so far: waterbuck, gemsbok (Oryx gazella), kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros), red hartebeest (Alcephalus buselaphus), Eland (Taurotragus oryx), bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis), black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas), steenbok (Raphicerus campestris), nyala, dassies, hammerkop, corrie bustard, giraffe, secretary bird, familiar chat, ant-eating chat, yellow mongoose, Burchell’s zebra (Equus burchelli), vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops), Cape Mountain zebra (Equus zebra zebra), black wildebeest, blessbuck, cheetah, spronghares (not sure about that spelling), and Cape ground squirrel. I need to go look up the rest of the scientific names. 

This reserve is breathtakingly beautiful: quiet, removed from society. Apparently, it’s the third largest private nature reserve in South Africa but no one I told had ever heard of it. It’s marketed to high-class, high-profile individuals who have the means to spend twenty-thousand rand per night on luxury accommodations and private chefs. It houses a tracker academy, a cheetah breeding program, two guest lodges, a volunteering program, and 27,000 hectares of succulent Karoo, savannah, thicket, and mountain grassland. The property is owned by a wealthy family who lives in London and comes to South Africa to visit a few times a year. It would be incredible if places like these were accessible to the average person. I think if anyone came here, stayed for a week, and was shown to appreciate the beauty, diversity, and complexity of the natural world, conservation biology would face a lot fewer problems. People would still exist who would choose parking lots and satellite television over sunset cast wide open spaces but the average person would have a basic understanding of how important the world outside society is. Conservation biologists will reach goals, will learn more about ecosystems and how to manage them, and we will still be combating human ignorance, human expansion, and lack of human compassion. 

I have immensely enjoyed discussions with Prof Kerley simple listening to the informed mechanations of an expert ecologist regarding the problems faced by the natural world. Even more, I am thrilled to be posed challenging questions whose answers will unlock more solutions (and more questions in a ceaseless spiral of knowledge). Critical thinking is the aspect of the human psyche that is a) incapable of replication by artificial constructs and b) crucial to the successful existence of world, both the societal and environmental components. I would like to become a conservation biologist. I want to use my knowledge and experience as a scientist for something I believe in. I want to be challenged with these questions that need answers and I want to be equipped to provide answers that both solve problems and contribute to the general knowledge of humanity. It seems conservation biology is an ideal balance between scientific rigor of discovery and hand-on action that legitimately aids threatened populations (both bipedal and quadruped). So much of what we have discussed this week hinges on the idea that if conservation is to be successful. a drastic shift in human thinking is necessitated. I think we could exploit the charisma and cultural endearment of endangered species to persuade people to change their lifestyles. Connecting driving your SUV to the extirpation of chinchillas or vampire bats or redwood forests might motivate you to think before you hop in the car. It’s not just consumption though. It’s population and habitat fragmentation and lack of morals in business practices and a shift toward clawing one’s way up to the top no matter whose face is buried away in your exhaust fumes. I’m not sure we can fix all that with the wonder of the bat-eared fox or the curlicue kudu. Not in today’s extant population, anyhoo. The children of the future? I have some hope.

Can you see the Mountain zebra in the foreground? They had a foal and everything! Samara has 18 of them, which is about 1% of the world's population.

 

I think conservation biology has a largely anthropogenic/centric focus but in this day and age, it needs one. Humans are the driving forces of our extinctions, humans are the ones who need to be persuaded to change and humans, eventually, are going to be the source of all of our environmental solutions. Unless, of course, a giant asteroid hits and then we will no longer have any environmental problems to worry about. It is somewhat depressing that we have to relate our problems back to the threats they pose for survival of Homo sapiens sapiens when so much of the world is precious in its own right. 

We lecture/discuss in the mornings and take game drives in the afternoon, exploring the vast property. The stars are cold, clear, and like I have never seen them before. The whole disk of the galaxy was stretched across the sky like a gash in the cosmic existence. 

Lecturing in luxury, aww yeah.

Today was rather spectacular: woke, breakfasted, packed a picnic lunch, watched the waterbuck wading, drive to the mountain grassland biome, watched blessbuck, black wildebeest, Mountain zebra, and eland sprotting about the plains, had our lunch on the edge of the klip watching giraffes below and open empty space above, drove down the pass, had a lecture on the theory of nature reserves, went to watch a habituated cheetah with her kudu kill from that morning, had a braai and roasted vegetable supper, then sat in front of the fire reading and writing. It’s ludicrous that this place is enjoyed by so few. I am one of the lucky few this week. 

I spy with my little eye, Sibella! The Cheetah! No zoom! Her kudu calf was lying bloodied on the other side of that bushy pedestal, just out of frame.

In a career sense, this week will likely mark the start of another peregrination, one that hopefully lasts a lifetime.