African Wildlife Environment Issue 75 FINAL

Dancing Lady forest in Akagera NP

winter conditions normally produced clear perfect weather for flying. I loved flying as an observer and would volunteer to fly in anybody else’s place who for whatever reason wanted to opt out. This gave me the perfect opportunity to see the KNP from the air from the far north all the way down to the extreme south. When it takes you a couple of months to fly the whole of the KNP you realise how big the Kruger National Park is, but also what a responsibility we have as the custodians to protect it. Hugo van Niekerk and Piet Otto who were the helicopter pilots that year, also afforded me the opportunity to fly with them at times. I was always amazed at their skill in handling the blue and white Bell Jet Ranger Mark III helicopters. They were at one with their machines and the term ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ was very apt in their case. Apart from culling operations, game capture and security work, they also flew the whole of the KNP doing the larger herbivore census of the elephants, rhino and buffalo in the helicopter, after the fixed-wing ecological aerial surveys had been completed. They flew at a higher altitude and would fly all the drainage lines, and when the herds were too large to be counted easily, Dr Ian Whyte would take photographs of the herds and these would be analysed later. One must remember that this was before digital cameras took over, so this necessitated having many rolls of film to load into SLR film cameras, but this ground-breaking work led to the more sophisticated

visibility, and the high wing configuration enabled the observers to also have a good view. The aircraft provided comfortable seating for six people including the pilot, and joy of joys it also had an air-conditioner, which made a big difference on those very hot days! This aircraft was acquired after Dr Salomon Joubert who was piloting the single-engine KNP Cessna 206, had to make an emergency landing in the bush after there was an engine failure. Fortunately, he was able to land the aircraft after the crankshaft broke, in an open area in the Mopani Woodland close to Shipandze windmill, with minimal damage and the observers all stepped out unscathed. I did hear from Hugo van Niekerk, the KNP chief helicopter pilot who rushed to the scene, that when he approached the area of the incident, he thought there might be trouble with a fire starting. However, it turned out to be one of the relieved passengers who had lit his pipe and was creating a smoke plume that rivalled a coal- fired power station chimney stack! When I was a conservation student in 1987, I flew many of the ecological aerial surveys as an observer and the whole of the vast two million-hectare KNP was flown every year in the dry season. Dr Petri Viljoen was a very accomplished pilot who we flew with, and he had just taken over the ecological aerial survey role from Dr Salomon Joubert when the latter was appointed the Head of the KNP. On days when there was dense cloud cover or adverse windy conditions we would not fly, but fortunately the

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