Wild life | 27 June 2019

Laikipia, Kenya

  On 5 April this year, my neighbour Torrie’s sister Vicki died during an operation in a Nairobi hospital. Torrie, who is the livestock manager on the next-door ranch of Loisaba, adored her and was terribly sad, as was Don, her partner for 40 years. To me, Torrie resembles a thin Dylan Thomas who has been left to bake in the tropical sun for decades. He spends his days out in the heat, caring for 4,000 head of cattle, 500 sheep and goats and 150 camels — and he does his job very well, losing few animals. On the evening of Good Friday, exactly a fortnight after his sister’s death, rangers brought in a baby greater kudu antelope. She had big eyes, enormous pink ears, a white chevron across her face, a coat of reddish-brown soft fur and several vertical white stripes down her flanks. Local pastoralists had rescued her after predators ate the mother, but she had abrasions from where she had been tied by the legs and she had a nasty, bleeding hole in one of her ears.