A nocturnal bushpig

In the middle of the afternoon

Nocturnal bushpigs are rarely seen during the day, but this one was casually snuffling the side of the road before 3pm. Photo: Steven Lang

Visiting game reserves is all about seeing one of two types of remarkable wildlife. It can be a sighting where animals are displaying unusual behaviour such as chasing each other, hunting or cavorting in a muddy waterhole. The other type of unusual is seeing an animal that you’ve never seen before, or at least hardly ever seen before. Today’s Real Safari newsletter is about this last type of unusual – reliving two of the rarer sightings.

In August last year, I saw an animal that I had only seen once before. That sighting several decades ago was barely a fleeting glimpse on a night drive, but I could tick it off on my imagined lifetime list.   

I am referring to bushpigs – nocturnal counterparts of warthogs, and only slightly less ugly. At the Addo Elephant Park you see warthogs all the time. They are all over the place. Sometimes the little ones are cute with their pencil thin tails stuck up in the air like aerials, while the adults can be grotesquely fascinating. The males especially, with hideous warts on their faces and white tusks curling upwards from their jaws, are so ugly that you can’t help looking.

A male warthog proudly sports his warts and dangerous looking tusks. Warthogs are diurnal and often seen in the Addo Elephant Park. There is a sort of family resemblance between the warthog and the bushpig. Photo: Steven Lang

I have heard game rangers say that bushpigs are plentiful in many parks but you don’t get to see them because they are nocturnal and they like thick bush. Wildlife experts also say that bushpigs are more aggressive than warthogs. They look a lot like wild boars that I believe still inhabit some forested areas in Europe, and the pages of Asterix comic books.

Towards the end of last year, I indulged in a quick drive around Addo on my way from Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) to Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown).The drive had been rewarding, but nothing terribly unusual until I was on my way out on the main road a few kilometres from the Matyholweni gate. Suddenly I noticed a bushpig, as large as life, peacefully scuffling the ground on the side of the road. 

Certain that it would be skittish and run away before I could capture photographic proof of this rare sighting I hauled out my camera and started snapping wildly. To my ecstatic surprise, it appeared completely unfazed by my presence as I slowly rolled closer to where it was sniffing. I stopped the car a little more than two metres away from the beast. It didn’t seem to know that all the books said it was nocturnal and not supposed to wander around in the daytime.

This bushpig was unusually relaxed barely two metres from my car. I had enough time to take over sixty photographs and a few videos on my cellphone. There were elephants close enough so that I could hear their rumbling, but could not see them. Photo: Steven Lang

I doubted myself. Was it really a bushpig and not a warthog? So often I have whipped out the binoculars to confirm a rhino or hyena sighting only to focus and discover that it is actually a warthog - disappointment again.

This time, I did not need binoculars. The bushpig, and yes, I was certain it was a bushpig, was perfectly relaxed only a few metres from my Renault. He wasn’t going anywhere is a hurry, in fact he appeared to be posing so that I could take photos from all angles.

I am proud of the bushpig photos on this page.

A first time sighting

Earlier this month, my family had an exceptional sighting that I had never even considered before. We were driving alongside the Lalibela Game Reserve when Craig, the head ranger, pointed out two grey rhebok grazing on the other side of the fence. Honestly, I would not have been able to identify them as they were so far from my thinking. I had read about  grey rhebok many, many years ago but since I had never seen any they passed to the deep recesses of my consciousness. Yet, there they were.

The male rhebok with thin forward curving horns is in the foreground. The female is further back without horns. Photo: Steven Lang

According to online sources, grey rhebok can be found in a range of habitats in South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini. The live on grassy mountain slopes, rocky hills and plateau grasslands. It would seem they have quite long fur to protect them from colder climates yet we came across them on fairly warm plains. There are about 20,000 rhebok in reserves and running wild in this country, which means they are listed as being ‘Near Threatened’ on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List¹ as the population is decreasing.

Only the males have horns which are long and thin standing just a bit taller than their long ‘bunny-like’ ears.

Online research suggests that the grey rhebok gave its name to the Reebok brand of athletic shoes. The grandsons of the owner of the J.W. Foster and Sons shoe company “gave the company a new name: Reebok. The name came from the Afrikaans spelling of rhebok, a type of African antelope or gazelle. The grandsons found the name in a dictionary won in a running race by Joe Foster as a boy; the dictionary was a South African edition, hence the spelling”.

1. International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List – Grey Rhebok: https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/16484/50192715