Free Blood Safari by Deon Meyer Page A

authority guarding the plains.
    Mogale Rehabilitation Centre was displayed in fancy green lettering together with a logo of a raptor’s head and an invitation to enter. Plus a programme:
    TIMES OF OUR REHAB TOURS
Mondays to Saturdays:
* 1st Tour starts at 09h30     *2nd Tour starts at 15h00
    ‘We’re just in time,’ said Emma as she got out to open the gate.
    I drove through. Beyond the gate was another notice.
Wild Animals. Please remain in your vehicle.
Emma got in again. A kilometre further on she said, ‘Look’ and pointed out a swarm of vultures gathering at a carcass. ‘I wonder if they feed the birds here?’
    The centre was spread out – cages, gardens, lawns and covered parking for vehicles.
Visitors: Please park here.
A young man in khaki and green, apparently the standard uniform of the Lowveld, waited impatiently at the gate. We got out.
    ‘We’re about to start the tour,’ he said, but not in any unfriendly way. He was a head taller than me, with broad shoulders and an athletic self-confidence. Emma’s type.
    He led us to a thatched building that was a lecture hall. Several rows of tiered wooden benches descended towards a stage. The audience was already seated, people great and small, with cameras slung around necks and cool drink cans in hand. There was a wilderness scene painted on the wall behind the stage: raptors andvultures in the sky, a leopard, hyenas and buck in the long grass between the thorn trees. The young man positioned himself centre stage. ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Mogale Rehabilitation Centre. My name is Donnie Branca, and I’ll be your guide this morning.’
    He looked at us and said, ‘Vultures.’ For an uneasy moment, I thought he was referring to his audience.
    ‘They’re not cuddly, they’re not cute. As a matter of fact, we think of them as disgusting beasts – squabbling and squawking at a stinking carcass, fighting over decomposing meat. Carrion eaters with beady little eyes, scrawny necks and hooked beaks, often covered in blood and gore and guts up to their eyeballs. Pretty revolting. So most people don’t care much for vultures. Well, let me tell you, here at Mogale, we not only care for them, but we love them. With a passion.’
    There was something about the tone and manner of Donnie Branca’s words that was vaguely familiar. He spoke smoothly and easily, with conviction and zeal.
    He said vultures were the big game of the feathered kingdom, an indispensable link between mammals and birds in the broad spectrum of nature. They were an ecological necessity, the cleaners of the veld capable of consuming rotting carcasses from head to tail before diseases could incubate that would create havoc up and down the food chain. Vultures were part of the balance, he said, a perfect, delicate balance that had determined the cycle of life in Africa for a hundred thousand years.
    ‘Until we humans disturbed the balance.’
    Branca allowed his words to sink in before continuing. He explained that the problem with vultures was that public and private game reserves could not fence them in. Many birds patrolled areas that were four or five times greater than the Kruger National Park. And that was where the trouble began. They would nest in mountains and valleys, in trees and forests where their ancestors had brooded for thousands of years, but humans had taken over these areas. There was an incorrect perception that vultures preyed on the farmers’ small stock and poultry. So, they were shot.
    ‘And then there’s the belief among the local people that vultures have magic powers. They believe that vultures have supernatural eyesight that is not only able to find food over vast distances, but is so good that they can actually see tomorrow. In other words, see into the future. Since we started a National Lottery in South Africa, sangomas, as witch doctors prefer to be called, have been selling vulture heads for a small fortune to eager