Week 233 (8-14 February 2008)

Eating buffalo; Changing camps

At the end of last week, 6 buffalo on a neighbouring farm were struck by lightning while resting under a tree. The carcasses were cut into pieces and offered to Laohu Valley as tiger food. These large animals can weigh more than 500 kg when they are fully grown, and each piece offered to Laohu Valley weighed more than the weight of a springbok. Madonna was lucky enough to be the first tiger to get the chance to eat buffalo meat. A chest of a buffalo was put in the cage for her on Saturday. However Madonna seemed more afraid of the cage and often ran out of the cage without even touching the meat. Later she finally had a few bites but then ran out again. Finally she dragged the whole chest to the 4 ha camp. 327 also got some buffalo meat and he quickly finished it.

Meanwhile TigerWoods and Cathay were still hunting for themselves in the 40 ha camp. To avoid the tigers, the blesbok in the 40 ha camp often hid very well and counting them was difficult. It took a few days to confirm that only 1 youngster had actually been caught. The strange thing was that TigerWoods and Cathay never looked very thin, so it was assumed that they might also have hunted other animals which occur naturally in the camp. One more young blesbok was caught at the end of this week, leaving only 4 youngsters and 9 adults in the 40 ha camp.

Since the work in the 9 ha camp had been finished, it was decided to put Cathay back into the 9 ha camp so that Madonna could enter the 40 ha camp with TigerWoods and get a chance to hunt. On Thursday morning, a buffalo chest was put in the 9 ha camp. Once the gate between the 40 ha camp and the 0.5 ha camp was opened, Cathay and TigerWoods ran inside almost at the same time. After half an hour’s effort Cathay was finally attracted into the 9 ha camp without TigerWoods. She began to eat immediately. Then a buffalo front leg and a springbok carcass was put in the 40 ha camp near the 4 ha camp. Madonna appeared in the grass and came towards it. She was attracted into the 40 ha camp using a springbok back leg and she ran into the 40 ha camp without any hesitation and immediately took the springbok carcass away to the river line. TigerWoods was then attracted back into the 40 ha camp using another springbok back leg. He happily took the leg in his mouth and ran into the river line. He had neither found the buffalo leg which was much bigger than the springbok leg he got, nor had he found Madonna who was already in the 40 ha camp.

327 lived in the quarantine camp most of this week. However besides eating he just kept pacing along the cage, trying to get into the breeding centre.