Pangolin Fever

RARE

Today was a wonderful day! We woke up at 5:30 am for a day out in the African bush. We received word that a couple of roads that have been off limit to us were now accessible, so we wasted no time to see what we had been missing out on.  I was extra excited to explore today because I was on the tracker seat, so it was up to me to find us something good! ( no pressure ; ) Our first sighting started with a 3 week old buffalo carcass. When we checked the perimeter to make sure whatever had been feeding on it was gone, we jumped off the vehicle and got a better look. The smell of it was almost unbearable, but it was really neat to get that close and check out all the bones and evidence around. I felt like I was in CSI  walking around the buffalo looking for cat prints and vulture feathers. We decided we had enough of the smell,  took a couple of  loose buffalo hooves and put them in a bag to add to our interesting collection in the classroom. As we continued on the path I spotted something unbelievable! At first glance it looked like a cross between a rock and a snake , but as I continued to focus on it I noticed a slight movement! I quickly yelled for the driver to STOP! and when he did everyone asked me what I saw , but I didn’t know what to say , because I have never seen anything  so odd in my life! All I could manage to do was point my finger behind the vehicle and tell the driver to back up. Just as our instructor Sean started to look at me as if I was hallucinating, his eyes fixed on the creature and he shouted out ” OH MY GOD”!

I had spotted a Pangolin! for all of you who don’t know what this is , its one of the top 5 rarest species to see in Africa. You can live your whole life here in the bush and never see one because of its shy and nocturnal nature, but there it was,  walking around scavenging for food.  Everyone quickly pulled out their all cameras and snapped away at this once in a lifetime sighting! When we sent a radio message through to the other vehicle , we had to repeat ourselves multiple times before they believed us and left to meet us.We decided to quietly get off the Land Rover and approach this strange creature who did not seem affected by our presence. I was so amazed by the appearance of the pangolin and how it moved. It reminded me of a little dinosaur as it walked on its tow back legs with its front arms off the ground. I was in awe! As the other vehicle approached everyone jumped out and was very anxious to see the pangolin. Nellie one of our instructors, said that she has been guiding for 12 years and has never seen a Pangolin, so the look on her face was priceless! As we all sat and watched it for about an hour , Sean decided that since this may be the only time we will ever see this we should go all out. We got within inches of the pangolin before it curled up into a ball. A few of us cautiously put our fingers down lightly on its scales to see what it felt like, but not for very long if we wanted to keep our fingers in one piece!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.