“Big cow” The Cape Buffalo

Intellect and consciousness
Nature’s guru who
Understands the world of Natural living
Very few
men could even contemplate
The knowledge they possess
Their power of thought
Deliberative
But so put out by stress

Lindsay Hunt was a hunter
A killer in his way
Who lead a team of trophy hunters
Teaching them to pay
Attention to these wild beasts
The great Cape Buffalo
With their unpredictable aggression
And their genius on show

One beast he had slaughtered
For him a coveted prize
A ton of massive power and strength
Which he did realize
A thunderingly thoughtful soul
With a fight in him so large
An assassin in reality
With his perfect camouflage

The dynamism and vigour
Made them a target too
Trophy hunters everywhere
One of the big five who
Could take them down and rapidly
Explosive to the core
Forcible and brutal
So designed for war

They possess lethal aggression
And a liability
A mightiness beyond their age
A superiority
An ableness an faculties
Of Electromotive force
Irrestible heart strength
Just a matter of course

A wildness like no other
Socially adept
Pathfinders seen as leaders
Their confidence is swept
Up into emotion a mistrust that remains
A fundamental principle
Encircling their brains

Lindsay used his patience
And an understanding he
Had for the Cape Buffalo
Used his personality
And His energy
To get into their soul
To observe their inner being
And with love came to control

Kruger a great space
Where wild souls lived and died
A deadly threat was coming
Bovine TB relied
On herds and herds of many
This wide ranging, gene pool
With The threat of animals dying
So Going back to school

Working with Enkbert Schinger
To tame them down appeared
To be an answer, to be a way
To distress them thus they cleared
A way built on understanding
Not arrogance but care
The whole group dynamic
Which very much was there

So they chose Phalabora
And built their boma’s there
Of really tough construction
Being so aware
The buffalo can go crazy
And can destroy at will
With their powerful set of horns
Just one nod can kill

Go and dart some wild ones
Not an easy thing to do
They run off at a blistering pace
And seek cover all through
36 cows and 4 bulls
Were captured in one day
Lindsays farm was up and running
Really it had to pay

Before the calves were thought about
He had bank rolled a lot
100,000 dollars yes paid it on the spot
Wet noses and those great big horns
Bearded too lets say
Mutual trust was what he wanted
And getting more each day

He needed interaction
And learned from them each day
An energetic level a sixth sense so to say
He would never touch their horns
Remaining sub servient too
Every single Buffalo
Who stood there good and true

He put his weight down on them
They liked his tactile stance
He scratched their tails and unmatted them
When he had the chance
His 160 hectare farm of stress free living made
All the difference to the herd
Who on his shoulders laid

Gestation and their own calves
And all were Tb free
Experimental nurturing
Somehow had to be
Sedate cows to remove calves
And look for surrogates
Jersey cows were allocated
With their similar traits

Calves on jerseys drink from side
Buffalo’s from the rear
But very soon they accomodated each other
It was clear
A nucleas herd was possble
To sell on later on
To the various refuges
Thats where they had gone

Then the Jerseys took a hit
Foot and mouth appeared
Lesions clearly this was it
Its what all farmers feared
Every jersey separated
And put down to die
That really struck us through
Our losses
Were real high

Stress causes a compromise
And pressure does effect
Keeping the calves with their mothers
Was how they did elect
Despite risks of infection
Accross habitation they
Given a stress free life
Improved them day on day

Within their rumination
Their vitalism wore
An intuition a reasoning
They pondered more and more
Engrossed in admiration
Absorbed and preoccupied
Their enquiring minds were seeking
Out what others had denied

Unbiased and dispassionate
Sound judgement all the way
Repecting their acumen
They sagaciously display
Enlightened beings clearly
Able to think things through
They work with trust
And thus the thrust
Is within a committed view