Wild life | 23 March 2016

Laikipia

‘Awayoo,’ was how our head stockman Apurra said ‘how are you?’ in his texts from Pokot country, where I had sent him on a mission to search for thin tribal steers for us to buy. Now that we have plenty of pasture, we are looking for large-framed beasts that we can fatten and sell to the butchers. ‘Boss, Awayoo,’ Apurra’s message asks, with news that he has gathered a good mob of steers that are now being trekked to the farm.

When we first completed the electric fence, which now extends 15 kilometres around the entire ranch perimeter, I thought that was largely the end of the game for wildlife. Electricity flows like a river, a 6,000-volt stream, enough to kill an entangled zebra. Claire and the children were dismayed that I aimed to exclude wild animals in favour of productivity. I, on the other hand, rejoiced when I observed how, inside the fence, the pasture grew thickly into a rippling sea of red oat grass. After prolonged rains that continued through January, we had 1,000 hectares of grazing in good heart. This was a completely different picture from March of last year, when we were a dusty hell, overrun by scores of spearmen with their thousands of cattle. Though I expected the electric fence to stop the movement of game, the main aim was to prevent trespassing cattle and goats. The fence posts are just three feet high.

One evening I was on the farm boundary when I saw a harem of about 30 impala antelope leaping over the wire into us in a graceful ballet. Each night lion have been waking me up because they are simply crawling under the electric strands. One roared from a garden flowerbed so near my bedroom that I considered shutting the windows in case it joined me under the duvet.