Hello all,
I had a brilliant weekend, For all of us hunting folks I would strongly advise all to try out some game capture and release.
I own a piece of bush that borders a mates land, we have game fenced both the properties and are in the process of introducing game animals onto it.
This past weekend we brought in some zebra the actual darting and capture of these animals is an experience of its own.
The herd was located and then the selected animal had to be isolated, The chap doing the darting is also a local PH. The distances are considerably small as the dart does not have much of a range, so superb stalking skills are a pre requisite.
Once the animal is down the vets do their medical bit and the animals are loaded into custom made crates and then brought back to reality.
This is when the fun begins as the crated animal realises that all is not well.
Although the crates are rubberized the animals do kick them out of shape.
The stallion who we have named "Physcho" actually broke the crate and definately has a grudge against being handled.
The broken crate did make the release very risky as the only thing keeping him in the crate was a net that we were holding onto, every time he reared we would all get jolted and I think he actually knew when exactly to rear as most of the time he did get us off guard.
I am sure most of us are aware of what rug burns are! well we got burn on our palms as the net was of rough nylon
Glad to say the release went smoothly and as of this morning the zebra seem to have settled well as they are drinking and feeding.
We will know in a weeks time as prior to release they are injected with a slow acting anti anxiety drug on how they are doing on their new home.
Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures as it was way past mid night by the time we were ready for the release and we were told that the flash would spook them. I will try to post some pictures once they have settled down and hopefully I will be able to get some pictures of the other animals we intend to release soon.

Zambian

I was lucky enough to be involved in a helicopter game capture operation where giraffe, zebra, eland, wildebeest were captured by the semi-truckload. Much quicker than darting individual animals .

Most interesting, Thank You. Keep us posted! Any concern of lions there, so late at night??