Field Experiences 01 - Sand Forest Journey | Mark Haldane

0:00Academy sports and outdoors. Fun can't lose. Shop now. The fall hunting season is here. Make sure you're ready with the new Reveal 4.0. The 4.0 cameras are truly unmatched. Our engineers cracked the code on battery life and doubled the runtime, making it the longest lasting cellular camera on the market. Combine that with razor-sharp image quality. The Reveal 4.0 is the best cell camera on the market. Don't settle this fall. Check out the all-new line up at Taktakam.com. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability various 18-plus. Today's in the field experience follows Mark Heldane and I

1:00as we tour through the coastal sand forest to the Zambezi Delta floodplain in eastern Mozambique. What's unique about this podcast is I want you to come along with Mark and I as we drive through this coastal sand forest as well as take a trip into the floodplain of the Zambezi Delta. We're there filming Mark's origins foundation in better episode. And what I've wanted to do is create a podcast mechanism to essentially an audio listen to you, the listener, so that you can be with us in the vehicle as we chatted, conversed, and saw all the wonderful wildbive that Mark has to offer. So this podcast is just that. It's you, me, Mark in the cab of his land cruiser as we drive through the sand forest and flood plains. We chat about life, we chat about conservation, we chat about the origins of the origins foundation, and we're also in search of an elusive animal called Sunni that I've never seen before. So five years ago, there was a reason why I started this movement. And the truth then is the truth now

2:01that we need to champion our narrative. We need to champion the truth around what we do and who we are. There's a sweet spot where they go, you know, too heavy and it's a burden to walk with, too light and you whip in it. Why is the project so important to the hunting community? It's a, I think it's normally important. I think it's vital. I think it's just in time. It's night, snakes and ladders. You guys are climbing the ladder and then somebody does something stupid and you just slide that. That is such an amazing analogy, snakes and ladders. Yeah. You know, in my opinion, was the plastic of the tape, okay? The expensive will go and output those a long way with families. Well, families that do need it. Me close the store because I have a little weaner dog. Well, you're laughing because I said weaner. I'm so really glad you finished the sentence out. I'm sorry. It's crazy. I'm sorry. What are we doing here today? You're telling the whole world.

3:04Okay, so before we dive in, welcome back. As we wake up and decide what we're going to be filming today. So on that agenda today is we're going to film him in the coastal San Forest. We're going to get a little bit of anti-poaching under our belt. And we're also going to go out to the floodplain, which I have not physically seen myself. Teams are going to try and film some running gun segments, some wildlife segments as well as the same time I'm super keen to see some of these animals like Asuni that I have actually never ever ever seen before. So we just finished breakfast and now we're about to climb into Max Lankrisa. Thank you. You're welcome. Guys, if you wouldn't mind just climbing yourself as a glass or a bottle of water, I'm afraid I don't have my fridge all wired in here. They're meant for you to at least sit there, and they're pretty... Oh, what, cool drinks? Don't worry about it. You want to take them out to it? No, we just put them in. Oh, you just put them in?

4:04Yeah, I hope they're taking it. Thinking ahead of... In the fridge, I think. Unde. There's a messiah, interesting, hey. All your circumcision brothers, you say you all go get circumcised when you get to about 14. So they become your circumcision brothers. And if you and I get circumcised at the same time, and I'll visit you, you'll give me one of your wives for the night. It's just standard procedure. And it's actually got a very, very important purpose is once you get old and maybe then tadpoles on a string swimming so strongly, someone else will help and preganate you off for you. Because your wealth is not in your cattle, your wealth is in your children. Because without children to tend to cattle and goats, you can't have a herd. No one else tends to own your family. There we go. That's quite an interesting way of handling business.

5:07Rod, guys, have you got space for loretto, squeezing with you guys on the back? We do. Good? I'll stand up. Just because your girlfriends had date nights last night and you're feeling a bit insecure, you don't mean to see a rubber leg or anything, you know. There we go. You see, they're increasing their automatic. Yes. I've returned at home. They are the nicest vehicles ever. Interesting. But... Actually, this runway was alive with animal last night when it came back. It was it. Yeah. With y'all a waterbike or a bee, pushback. Yeah. They love it, they. And then when you drove onto the pan to find the penguin, like Reedbuck, just buried themselves. You drive right past the Reedbuck and you just sit right there.

6:09It wouldn't move. Last night driving this road. It just felt like a tunnel. A duck and tunnel. It's so thick here Mark. That is, we get a leaf drop in a normal year towards late September. But still, man, you can't see 50 yards. You know we had buffalo in the ship too, right? Yeah. Some of the dagger boys, they go out and open and they come and laugh and yeah. And you've got to hand them in the early morning with these two on the leaves. And otherwise it's like walking on, on bloody cornflakes in a ball pufferle, as you're from a hundred miles away. Another Reedbuck. Another Reedbuck. You go early in the morning and you pick them up. Like that, that's what they're just stopping. They're just two trucks off the road. They're picking them up. And what's a big Reedbuck? Like what are we talking about? You know, two and a half inches is, is, is well, well in the book.

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9:14We are not hard to find. Good luck. Okay, don't skip past this. This isn't your regular ad. This is me asking a favor of you, our listener. We have a new YouTube channel specifically for our podcasts. The origins foundation podcast. Just Google it, put it in YouTube and subscribe and then share it with your friends. That's where we're going to have all of our podcast videos in one spot. So if you don't want to just listen to this in your vehicle, you want to watch it on YouTube as you are sitting working during the day. You put it on your headphones and listen and watch at the same time. I need you to subscribe to the origins foundation podcast channel on YouTube. You know me just randomly, I'm going to pick probably one or two or three YouTube subscribers to the new podcast channel and send you something. We've got great partners that give us free stuff to give away. Why not give it to you guys? So go ahead and subscribe the origins foundation podcast channel. Not only are you going to watch some cool podcasts, but you could win some cool stuff too.

10:16Three and a half absolute monster. We picked up my anti-poaching unit, picked up a red dyker a couple of years ago that I entered and rolled in ward. She's still on over the show this morning. And it's a full inch, not a total horn length, but in, no, an S.I. sorry, an S.I. It's a full inch and score bigger than anything else in the book. It's neat, it's neat. But heavy, heavy, broomed off horns. The red dyker in the scene, we hold every record that is to be held with him. We've had genetics done on our blue dyker here. They don't look like blue dyker. But in cup and shape, they're a little smaller than like the Eastern Cape Blue Dyker and the body.

11:17They horns are all nice. And what are you typically shooting these small swaths? We use two to your hornets. We've got three camp hornets and your head shooting. No, you put your sheep in. It's an amazing round there, though. The dove's off. The dove's lurid. Don't you guys talk here on the back room, a spot, eh? It seemed very quiet this morning on the back. Eh? Don't you guys talking on the back, you must be spotting. Sweeney, Robbie's never seen a Sweeney. None of these boys have seen Sweeney either. These trees here, this is a local language called Punga Punga, in our language, partridge wood. And with a white bark, it's deceptive. Inside is almost pitch black. And they've got a white fleck in it. It's like a fleck in a partridge. It's beautiful, beautiful wood.

12:19We should have battled the pickies, little swans up until it's a little bit more light. The red dyker, oh, good in the mornings. And little guys, all good in the mornings. You've got it, you've got up and you'll see, you'll see, bugger wood, and then on the way back, you start seeing it. Well, they're like a little bit later. I must ask tomorrow where the bloody... We've coloured one of the naughty boys. He's causing all the shit with the villagers. Sweeney, we caught him in the bloody cornfield and darted him. But the colour on all the villagers arrived, Robbie. And they thought we'd shot him. And they arrived with knives and what... And then I had our Mosin Beacon vet, Olga, in the last step. Yeah, we had Hugo for our Cheetah thing. He's one of the best there, I love Olga. And he had to tell, no, no, no, no, look at that. Look at that. That's where he had me confused. The elephant kept it straight back here.

13:20He said he was out of our area where we'd coloured him. Came all the way back into the forest up in here. We're about a weeky salt. Then he was back in the maze again. Did you see him coming in, huh? Was it a cosy... Is it good enough to be proactive, like catching before he gets in there? He would be... You can get the drift of where and he's moving with another eight other bulls. If you take a spotlights up here at night, it's amazing what you'll see. You'll see like 200 soon. And the morning now, it's not a bed, a shaped bull. What's that, they're just crossing the road. Is it a sooner or the same size as the road? No, it's about much shorter. Much shorter. It's like a lot to have. Probably half the weight. So much for the predicted rain this morning.

14:20That's a very good mail-out. Thanks, Deception. You see how much warm you can see. And thick at the bottom. Yeah. Unfortunately, a sooner or so easy departure. Why is that? Because they're coming with dogs and headlamps. And they hold the dogs. They carry the dogs. And as soon as they lay when they put the dogs down. I mean, we've caught cars coming out of block 12 next door with over 100 seedy. What? Yeah. They'll clean a forest out like this way. So we have... They come in, you know, 20 KZ. They don't get this far in. But we under attack on the edges. So we have quite an ectic program trying to control them all. You still get to hunt, Matron? You know... You're not going to be guys as soon as you see them run.

15:23Yeah, they go out the back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's one there. You should run into the right. Yeah. It'll find one that you can see red. What color are they? They are light tan color. Very small. Yeah. There's one. On the road. There's no red danger. Is it a red danger? Yeah. Well. So that... You see it's got fruit in its mouth. The red danger and the suny have a very close relationship with the monkeys. Have you seen the Samangas that they even camp? No. Oh yeah, they call them the Bivots. No, they're Samangas. They're the better of the monkeys. We have to pop the other one, but they behave better. And when they're in the trees, they drop the fruit down because they wasteful eaters.

16:26And the little sunion red dyke pick up everything on the meat and the blue dyke actually. We've probably got about 50 kilometers of this type of stuff. And afternoon, it's absolutely... It's like turning the key in switch on. We've probably seen 21 now. But it's just a lot. They don't move quite as much until it's warmed. They don't need water. It's funny you put a water point in and the blue dyke. Yeah, that's how they hunt them in the eastern cave. Yeah, they love it, man. So Bridger, who does a lot of our bow hunting, he puts some little water points. Some yada, don't they? Wait a minute. I'm so busy looking for the little chips, so you can see the big one. Why have we just parked our tier? Because this is... I can see the boy setting up and showing this long, long, long, long, long corridor behind us. You stop here on the one hand.

17:27Yeah, and we'll shoot that way. What's wrong with you guys? You can only show us running soon. This is a pretty magnificent part of the world, huh? It sure is Robbie at Special A. I mean, what's so incredible about this area, half a million acres of pristine habitat. But in that half a million acres, we have several distinct ecosystems. There wasn't always pristine, though. You know what? The ecosystem was... When I got you in 1994, it was as wild as it is now. It's a very little difference in the ecosystem, but the wildlife was missing. It saw Suni and Red Diker, a handful, but the big game was way down.

18:32I mean, the buffalo, 1200 buffalo in the first survey. Now we're 35,000. Why was all the wildlife gone? So this was... this was an area that the war... the civil war really raged in. It was kind of a war between the government forces and the rebels. And they all used it as their meat locker. There were about 45,000 buffalo in the Delta, prior to the war. A couple of varying reports on the water back, but some up to about 75,000 water back. So it was a meat locker for both sides. There were even stories of the Russian gunships who were very involved in the war. Coming in and... Just gunning them down. Gunning them down, putting them in nets and slinging them off today to a boat of the ship of the mouth. Whether they true or not, I don't know. I wasn't here, I can tell you. So yeah, the actual ecosystem was very intact.

19:34So it was ready. It was ready. It just needed a little bit of protection. I think nature... I think nature, if we take care of your reward, you end. This is one of the most prime examples. Really been kind. As you can see here, where we are, we are in San Forest, which is quite unique just to this block. Even in this region, it's some of the only San Forest that is. We've got probably about 40 miles of roads through San Forest. And what's special about it is we get all the little guys in here, livingston, Sunni, Blue Daker, lots of red Dakers we've seen on the road this morning. So special part of the block. We've got several ecosystems here. We've got delta or trusswamp, floating papyrus. And that's where our big herds of buffalo live. We've got open floodplain, tropical savannah with the short palms.

20:35Into the San Forest and then through into mature Mionbe woodland. So that variety of habitat supports a huge array of wildlife from little Sunni all the way through to Africa. And you were telling me that the Sunni are very susceptible from a poaching perspective. They are. In the early days, the poaches used to just use a single strand of fine wire and pretty successfully. But more recently they have, you know, they would look better at their job of poaching and they come in with dogs and headlamps at night. They carry the dogs and they lamp the little Sunni. They come on dognights when there's no moon. And the Sunni stand for the lamp and you'll see when you drive these roads at night. They cover it up in the Sunni. They put the dogs down and we caught a poacher very sadly or a group of poaches two or three years ago, and they were coming out of a neighboring block and they had over 100 Sunni with them.

21:36And one night. And well, probably a couple of nights, you know. They open them out and smoke them and they're coming out with all these and bags. So, yeah, you can imagine what that'll do to a San Forest. Especially over years. Yeah. So we have a very strong presence in the San Forest area. We have a permanent camp. I didn't point out but we passed it a little way back. And we rotate ranges through it constantly. Looking for tracks on the roads. And we work a lot on intel as well. We have informers that really, really help us a lot. So, more often than not we know when someone's coming in and trying to stop it before it gets anywhere. Cool. Yeah. Thanks. Good stuff. All right. Caleb, you're turn. I'm turn.

22:43Roby, where did the original name blood origins come from? So, the actual original name, the original original name was in the blood. In the blood? That's why when I made, when I made just said what you said yesterday, I'd already done three episodes. I filmed three episodes and the final line was everyone has their own story. This is mine. It's in the blood because that was what it was called. Yeet. I didn't know that. Not people because I was sitting in, we had filed for trademarks in the blood. And there were two people that were one, the guy's trademark was in front of mine. Because you do searches, right? Yes. And his company was called Fire in the Blood. Yeah. And he was a hunter out of California owned a global Wi-Fi company. And I'd already, I'd seen imagery of him shooting of Neil Deere, Big Brown Bear, bonefish in the take-tooks in Cacus.

23:45I was like, yeah, man, like, okay. And then there was a kid up in Wisconsin called In the Blood Outdoors. And so when I was pitching this idea, I was lucky enough to get in front of World Primus because one of the original episodes that I did was of one of his cameraman. Yes. There was one of my students. And we'll watch this piece, the radio. And what was very complimentary about World Primus and Jim Shockey is they both were like, how did you film this? And I was like, no, I'm not going to tell you, you know. And it's about will, but will said to me, is like, do you own it? I said, what do you mean? It's like, do you own it? And I said, yeah, I've got the trademark for In the Blood. You know, I'm getting it. It's in process. And he says, in your backyard right now. And I said these two guys names. And he goes, change your name right now. And he goes, because you're going to have heartache in the future.

24:45When somebody does something bad with that name and you're associated with it, even if you're not associated with it, there's going to be lawyers and legal and whatnot. It's not worth the emotional investment that you've put into this in two years' time or three years' time. It's not worth it. So I said, okay. So then my wife and I thought and thought and thought and we're like, well, what is that? Does that be allable in the front? Jack, look at the allable on the road. Jack, there's a nialable on the road. And so my wife and I started thinking, what is it about in the blood? Well, it's about where you come from, right? It's your DNA, it's your heritage. It's like your way, where do we come from? What is our origin, right? What is the origins of our story? And so your origin, your true origin of who you are, your character, your heritage, your tradition, everything's buried in your blood because that's your DNA. So that's why we call it blood origins. So why did you drop the blood? Because as we grew, I needed to get the, where's that bull?

25:48Should be right here somewhere. So to start with, and I didn't think this way, just happened to be this way, blood origins was something that the hunting community really understood, right? Yeah. But if my job is to communicate hunting to somebody who doesn't understand hunting, I'm already... There's the bull right there. Then I'm already putting a hurdle in front of me right away with the name of my organisation. And so we just dropped the word blood and added the word foundation. So it's called the origins foundation now. And it's very straightforward. And we changed the mission statement to just say to convey the truth about sustainable use of wildlife globally.

26:48And that's it. I think we haven't picked up my beard. I had this group doing that conservation and we shut off too, but we found him. But... You know what? The conservation group I did the other day, they wanted to see the same forests. And they'd never been to Africa, not one of them. What? Were they from England, right? This is the Scotson Trouble. Yeah, they were actually a mixture. They were from... They were all family, but they were from all over the world, some from the states. And the one who's here soon. They wanted to see a sweet deer. They were interested. So it was actually... They're in the right debt. That one never looked. Looks like a red-nark. Even the red-nark. You guys are doing a very good job on the backer.

27:51Stop, stop, stop, stop. There's a fucking senior right there. Do you have these as soon as you can? Okay. Got it. No! It was a blue-diker. It wasn't as soon as you can. Come on, Ravi, you're the spot you're on, as soon as you can. Dude, I spotted one, would you call it a blue-diker? It was a little female blue-diker. And this is tough seeing the contrast. Stop, there's one right there. Yeah, that's a senior. Now you've seen a fucking senior. Jack, right there. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow. A little female, I can't see.

28:51Yeah, also your female should be a fucking, fucking fun. Hey. That was a sneeze. Yeah. Yeah. Just those dabbies right there. No, it's a big nail. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good nail. A lot of the big ones. Yeah, that one right there. At least you know they exist now, Ravi. Incredible. Right, now I'm going to, do you want to go to the pan? Yeah. It's not too far from here. Perfect. So long. Good, good, good one. I don't think I've ever seen a blue-diker either. Blossom or sandpaper? You don't really look for, you don't, I don't remember. You know, it would be if I saw one in Kruger, right? A blue-diker? Yeah, no. Like when you're as a kid, right? You see these animals.

29:51Unlucky that these blue-dikers in here. As you can see, we've just finished cutting the roads open. The elephants are not harmed on us. They close these roads up virtually weekly. How many elephants do you think you've got? About 1,000. Okay. Yeah. Starting at what number could have been? The first time they really counted elephants, so the elephants have changed their habits. In the war they shot the shit out of the elephants. Well, in 2010, 2011, 2012, did you experience poaching of elephants? Yeah, properly. Yeah, properly. It spread all the way through. We used to have bachelor's of elephants bulls-yah, very strange phenomenon,

30:51but of like 50 bulls together in the Delta in September. It's never been a 100-pound area, but we used to shoot beautiful elephants here. Seven feet average. It weigh about 70 pounds, long thin tusks. It was bullshipping yokes about the poaching camp. Yeah, because I'm not in the city. Yeah, I'm in the city. It wasn't there somewhere. They moved it, which is entirely possible. Probably 10 years ago. You know, we lost very little of any elephants in this area, because the poachers knew we had a strong APU here, but they would wound them outside and they'd come in and die here. And so the reason we knew that they hadn't been poached is that our areas were still intact.

31:53And so we used to find them with ivory. But what used to happen, Robbie, was that elephants used to move into the Delta for safety. So during the war, they used to shoot them in the Delta from choppers. And then after that, when there was the odd chap with an AK running around, they used to stay in the Delta a lot. Especially in the late season. But now since the last 10 or 12 years, everything's calmed down. And you've seen more elephants migrate into the Delta. I think so. A lot more elephants here. And at the end of the year, our carhards were quite wild. They didn't like seeing you. And they were pretty much nocturnal. And then we brought in those 14 bulls. And they were calm. And even though they were moved, they came from the communal area next to Goronvaz, an actual park.

32:56And we brought them in. And they've calmed the herds down. And when we have like, sickening vehicles out here, someone will see elephants every day now. Not a dot just in the swamps, in the actual, in the pans, in the lunchtime, in the way in, which is really nicer. So about 10 years ago, I went to Wild Laughter Park. And I said, we've been poached too heavily in the big bulls in the area. You need to stop giving us elephant quota. Your, my neighbors were angry with me. So guys, how can we be conservationists and be shooting 35 pound elephants here just to shoot an elephant? Where's Marmel Safari? You flew over Marmel Safari. They're area 10. Okay. Yeah, look at this pan. Yeah. Beautiful pan, isn't it? Let's do some walking on the ground, maybe. Let's see what the camera want to do.

33:57Oh, look at that. Alright, turn off. I'll get some shots of this. You want to try and get the wildlife lens out? Or just save it for the floodplain? What's this moving like? It's a young bull in three cars. Obviously I read our sailboat, compared to... So, are you hunting bulls? When you hunt your bulls, are they your lone bulls? Or have you made a... Because a lot of people say, I can really hunt bulls out of her. We have got so many freaking sailbollia. You know, if you're hunting sailboll and you go out into these, in the areas, you'll probably see 500 sailboll in a day. And what is the sailboat like? What are you taking from a sailboat perspective here? We want all that secondary growth at the bottom of the horn, and it will see as good none. Or very little. That's the bull on the left. Yeah, another one to the left of them too, but...

35:01And our sailbollia sort of ranging between 38 and 44. And you know how old they are. Robbie, they say that a big sailboat will be about 12. And anything from 8 to 12, and that sort of area. The secondary growth, otherwise it looks like it. He looks too young. No, he's very thin in the bottom. What's that in the back there? We're in the back there. A bird. A bird just cruecle. Look how many of us stood up now. So, and you know the thing, Robbie, is you take a bull out of a herd. It's less than like one week and he's been replaced. So in some ways, you probably... It's probably not a bad practice. I'm going to need an expert. I'd be honest with you, I think we've got shit genetics here.

36:03Because our sailboll went down to two lower numbers. So we get a lot of that. We've really had a lot of that. We only knew a 44-sable when our creature has only one herd when you are. And then our presume some little numbers trickled back in from here and there. But we get a lot of crooked horns. So that's papyrus right there? Yeah. That's... Wherever you get papyrus... Standing water? You normally have permanent water. Yeah, so... Would you think that'd be crocs in there? Yeah. When the pans dry up, and this is not... This is not one they could use. But the pans that are just water with very little papyrus, when they start dropping to a very low level when they sort of six to eight inches. Then we facilitate that all the local women go to a pan. We take them there. We send the APU to APU guys and they take all their baskets. And they bring some young men with them with spears. We've had a few accidents say the guys go through into a croc.

37:03And even a small croc, a croc turns around and baths them. You know, I'm... I see that pool is going to grow in mass. Actually, I mean, he is young, but he's... He's got a different type of teeth. He's got a different type of teeth. It would be a good ball. My grandfather shot one stable in his life. He said, never should know. Yeah. We get too beautiful. I've got a stable in the wall. From him. Yeah. And I've got... Here's the thing. I've got a spring box. Yeah. But I've got obviously most of the big trophies. I've got a stable. Yeah. I've got a bush buck. Yeah. A proper bush buck, like 1518. And then I think it's an RAB. Yeah. As the RAB got the rings at the bottom. Yeah, I've found about this one. Lots of RAB at two. Yeah. And then I've got a big bush buck, a stable. I've got a big, I've got a big war talk to. Magnificent man. Yeah. Just as landscape is.

38:04That's a very small herd of sails. But typically we're probably shooting more single balls than we are shooting herd balls. But we don't have a policy with it. And even the Buffaloes, somebody says, ah, you should dagger boys. We're so tropical here. And you know the bulls that got called dagger boys. Most of them looked there awesome old grumpy old bulls because they have done breeding. But majority of them are after herd because it's not breeding season. And the bulls hang together. Yeah, we're so tropical that the cars will carve all year round. So the bulls follow the herd's all year round because they cover the cars that are on season. So. Robbie, let's head back and let's go down towards the float clean. Well, the wave is so nice, you know. Let's do it. Well, what do you guys need to do on the float plane, Robbie?

39:05Little bachelor herd there. Is it? On that zebra way. Yeah, a lot of pebs I can't see. It doesn't seem possible but in two months. It's gross. Is there any blue bulls in the herd? I'll try and get up the side across the feeder trees. I think it'll be good. You'll go here. Shit. There's a bee. Give me those pannas, babes. You can smell those wooded back from here. This is a lot of lines. The lines love this. Yesterday that one, those ones that were in the thick were just a little bit. Little bit here. This is your test of ice. No. Now, beetles islands that side. This is where the one was in the thicket. Remember, we thought we weren't going to find them and then they flushed out. Female in the tube. Yes, that's right. So you can do a couple of impala around here. We do. We do. Not great impala.

40:06Yeah. These are vervets. For some reason we don't get vervets up in the sand forest. In the same forest. It's a little bit of an edge. We just have to wait some clouds. Babes, all of these guys on the back. Where they want me to stop. There's some water back there. Stop right here. There's some water back there. Stop right here. There. That's not dry. It's not dry. So the game is not stuck on it, eh? Those seconds set of lions that we saw yesterday, signs that we saw yesterday, Freddy from the helicopter. It's just here.

41:08Does Marameo National Reserve border the coast? How many waterbuck do you think you have now? I lost almost 8,000 in 11. Fuck you, I think that there will be way more. They come and go, hey, so the late season is having a lot more moving. Yeah. They spread out there. A buffalo hunt is not me. I can see the damn buffalo herd and then there's 500 waterbuck in between you. And the buffalo watch them, they spook on them. That road that we just drove on. You did that back 30 years ago? Yeah, we've done all the right. So the main road that... When you drove that road 30 years ago. What did you see? That was just from a wildlife perspective. Oh, see this. From camp down to here. You might see two or three animals if you're lucky.

42:09On the flood plain, yeah? Yes, there's nothing here. I'll read back if you drove through. And here we got Lichtenstein, waterbuck, Impala, Eland, Zebra. We used to get one waterbuck on quota. And most years we couldn't find a bull to shoot. And now you're like, don't shoot a 30. Can't collect the waterbuck quickly for a community thing and don't be back in 15 minutes or no. What was the community quota like back then? No, zero. We were the first block to bring in community quota. We campaigned wildlife department with the concept. And that's where it started. And what's the concept? It's that the community has a quota, non-exportable animals. And you can deliver the whole thing to the community.

43:09The skin horns, the whole of the quota. So in a way, it's kind of too. Initially, there were always these ceremonies that they wanted these animals for. And they have other ceremonies here too. The beginning of their harvest and so that's kind of well. We can't give you a whole animal because it owns the animal. So that's kind of where it started from our side. And could we get about 100 animals on community quota now? No, we think we get five buffalo and about 14 water back and 60 reed back. Something like that. You have a lot of reed back here too. That's our highest population of any animal. You don't see them as much because they're in the ones and twos. But as soon as this flood plain gets a little shorter and you'll see we've just got waves of them. Yeah. We saw it last night when they were doing penguin trucking.

44:09Like we probably saw 12 in that one pan. Yeah. That is a lot of dead, another reed back. And when it dries up it, the green grass remains on the edge of a sort of tongues of water. So all the game sort of lives on those. And you just see thousands of them. So if you were told you can't hunt this place anymore, or for some crazy reason, somebody got their political way and hunting was banned, would you survive here? Well, probably not probably. I mean, I don't understand the photographic industry, so it would be starting from Grand Zero. But you know, it's wonderful and area, as it says, we're a moté. You don't catch that easily. To drive in here is like a day and a half's drive when some of the worst roads imaginable. So we're not particularly well suited to any other type of tourism.

45:12And we have constant poaching threats here. 90% is on our borders. And the guys just come in, you know, quarter of a mile, set the cup of snares and go out and come back the next day. So it's largely limited to our borders. But if we pulled out of here, it would be free for all. It would. Yeah, most of the community wouldn't be happy too. All of the community would lose. 50 tonnes of fresh metre year, they would lose, you know, the community farm that would lose the beekeeping, the honey, it would be a disaster. And most people who've had a bit of experience and exposure to this year, all agree. We might have three years. And then in that time we'd lose 80% of the wildlife. That'd be sad, eh?

46:12But it would be almost nothing right. Nobody knows about it except us. And if it did disappear, the only people who would know about it would be us in the community. There wouldn't be an outcry anywhere in the world. I mean, you look at this floodplain here. This could be some of the most perfect, rust-forming ground. Heavy clay, floods naturally every year. So, you know, while we've got wildlife, we've got to give it a value. And that's the only way that that'll, a value to the government, to the wildlife department. But probably most important, a value to the community's living here. Which is what we've achieved. Which is essential for this to, for this to last there. Yeah. I mean, you heard at the ceremony yesterday, the opening of hunting ceremony. At the end of ceremony, you said, please try and create more jobs. For my people. We don't want people to have to poach. And that's the truth behind it.

47:15You can't take something away from someone when you're living on the breadline and not give them another alternative. So, those are things we're going to wrestle with. And without wildlife, having such a great value here, both monetary and meat protein, that's a win-win situation. For wildlife and for the local community. You know, I think you saw where we had our little milling unit. The happy crowd of ladies there, hey, kids look healthy, you know. So, it's working. It's working, yeah. Perfect. Thanks, Mox. I'm pretty sure I rode the earphones. Secret Rona, baby. This box camp. Okay. Stop it. And this is where he... This is where Old Morgan had his camp. He is at the end of the flood plains, which must be here,

48:15where the mongari flows in, is where he shot that crown eagle, sweeping over the cheetah cubs. You don't have a lot of tits here, huh? We do, we have nothing like used to here. I mean, nothing like the tits is have to have shade. But there's a road parallel to that road that we were on this morning. There's a lot of white sand and the tits is the lady eggs and the white sand. The tits are coming up here some mornings, eh? Is that full still flying is drone? Well, don't be so sure. It's funny how things have changed, though. You know, how much photography we used to do at a helicopter in the early days. See? But a drone just does it so much better. It's at the stable platform. In the wet season, will this be underwater?

49:15Yeah, in the normal year by now, you can drive here. Okay. So the rainy season normally starts around about Christmas. Now you get little showers, this place is beautiful. This is the grass is just long, it's like a green carpet. Yeah. And every self-respecting animal's on the flood plains. So it's just, you know, the green carpet and every self-respecting animal's on the flood plains. So it's just stunning, but the big monsoon rains normally start to do these holidays. You're asking about it. There's none of those. They're all bulls. No, they are all young bulls. You wouldn't shoot any of those. They've got bases, they've got no hooks. The hook at the back needs to double the length. So we get the rains from Christmas onwards. Normally when we get those like weeks or a week of this solid rain.

50:18And then this right now would be sort of halfway up your wheels. And next to you would be over your wheels. And that's kind of that, that's hard to me, to operate. But they don't. And is it because of the rainfall or is there zombies out of its banks? No, it's a rainfall. Okay. The zombies, it doesn't. The years are being, the 32 years are being, the zombies probably flooded here five times at the most. And that's when Mara Maya is bursting into the freaking sugar-fueled area. As a, as a weight-laying to colleges, some of the clever people who've been here and come to study it and look at it. Their big concern is that where the Zambisi floods brings a lot of salt into here. And they said the delta was a lot healthier with that salt than it is without it.

51:18And when it fills up with rainfall from these little rivers, you know, those rivers flood, but they don't bring the salt down like a major river like the Zambisi. Or trepid, absolutely. So it's no in the air. Yeah, but you know, you need the salt to keep the floodplain up. And I don't think that the Mara Maya was experienced subsidence. So it may be, so I don't know much about it. But like for instance, the Louisiana Delta, right? Louisiana Delta subsiding a football field today, the losing swamp, football field today. Yeah, because they've levied the whole river, right? There's no more spreading of the salt at the bottom. So that's where they're trying to... Yeah, so that's part of it. And you've obviously got all the locks upstream, but the vast majority is the levying. The river just shoots right out into the Gulf of Mexico and so doing this. It's dropping its salt and keeping the wetland maintaining its grain.

52:23Yeah, the only thing that I can see over the 30 years I've been here is we have a few more trees on the Delta that we had when I got here. And to the trees? What? Yeah, I think the water in it, when it watered along there, it killed the trees. But the other thing is in the early days, this whole floodplain used to burn every year. Oh, wow. And the locals pretty much, because we had locals living on the edge of the floodplain. They'd burn it. I mean, that opened up the fishing holes for them. And now I do a very strategic burn. The rest my number one freaking fire in Maniac. And I've got a little flame throw, I think, a little hand-held one. And when we have like a humping wind, like a fettie, not a wind, I get them at little chopper and we start and it normally comes out the south. In fact, our big ones always come out the south. We'll start at the end of the floodplain at about three in the afternoon.

53:26And I land every 500 yards. And she hops out, runs 20 yards, light-grots runs, jumps back in. And basically what happens is the fire burns to the next one. And they burn a long sausage. So they burn a big fire break all the way down, all the way to the Saloney River. And they normally get it right the first time. The case, they've got to come back the next day and close in the odd hole. And then we burn against the Saloney River, because 14 burns their whole freaking concession to try and pull gaming. We burn all along the Saloney River, sort of a mile back off the Saloney River. So it stops any fires coming from there. And we do that also after Lancet the Jew kills it. And that pretty much stops fires coming in from inland or from 14. So the floodplain, and then in the last five years, the floodplain is freaking is bare.

54:28It won't burn by November. It begrosses too short. So I think the fuzz on the early days, no game. A lot of grass left. Fire gets and kill the small trees. But also, we had some proper floods in the early days. If you think about the time frame required for a tree to get established, to get beyond fire zone, to get beyond flood zone. Yeah. Yeah. That requires probably five to eight years of no floods, no fires. So it is an interesting one. One of the red daughterbirds is a wattle crane. And we used to have a hell of a lot more than we have here now.

55:32Which is a bit of a concern. And we feel the delta is drying. It's not as wet as it used to be when I started. But that could also just be a cycle. Yeah. We are in cycles, within cycles, between cycles of various lengths of time, right? From yearly to decadal to 100 years. No, I can't really talk about that. So I hope you enjoyed this little field experience with us today. We are now back in Magari camp. We are downloading some footage. We have some lunch, which absolutely smells amazing. And we are going to get ready for the rest of the day. So please check back in on the next field experience. So you can continue to vicariously be with us as we explore this super unique part of the world. See ya!