Imire Safari Ranch wishes all our Agents, Donors, Friends and Clients a very Happy Christmas and a New Year of peace.

Imire, on the positive side of things, has had a very interesting and exciting year, with Mundevu the ele giving birth to Kutanga 30thApril a first for us, he is an absolute time waster. Poggle the wartie gave birth to Winken, Blinken and Nod; she has reintroduced her pogglets back into Tatenda's and Shanu's gang which has always been a very special friendship.

In October we were given the great privilege of becoming custodians to a pair of breeding white rhino from the Matopas, N'tombi and Matopas. To stand within feet from a white and black rhino, is a sacred moment and something we continue to remain in awe of and feel truly blessed by.

We would like to thank most sincerely National Parks, Dr.Chris Foggin and his team who work tirelessly for the wildlife industry throughout the year, as well as the conservation community of the Matopas for their support in the capture of the white rhino.

Reilly Travers, two friends James Reid and Jamie Manuel had the adventure of a life time kayaking the mighty Zambezi 3000kms and four months later, they reached the mouth. A great achievement, their mission was not only to have an adventure but to raise awareness of the plight of the rhino of Zimbabwe.

Lastly the Premier of "There's a rhino in my house" filmed by Animal Planet on Imire, was released this year.

We would like to thank friends and the Harare Community for coming together and fundraising on behalf of the rhino of Imire. A truly memorable evening. Thank you from us all on Imire for such recognition.

We would like to thank you all for your support, generosity, concerns and business throughout the year. It’s been a wonderful humbling 2009, sharing our Zimbabwean heritage with such a great community of people, not only from Zimbabwe but from all over the world. Thank you so much.

Love to you all from us all on Imire

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www.imiresafariranch.com

Once again Imire has had an exciting few months and there have been quite a few changes to note

The White Rhino have completely settled now and we can approach them walking and in the car up to ten metres. These are a great asset to Imire and we hope that at the end of next year they may try to procreate!

The Animals are all doing well. Kutanga is growing up fast and is still as naughty as ever. Mandevu continues to be a great Mum and is still easily the best to ride as one does not have to do the splits quite so much. MUkuvusi and Toto are well and Muk has gotten over his period of chasing the rhino. Nzo is as fat as ever and still keeping all the buffalo under control.

The Black Rhino were dehorned this month in a very smooth operation run by Dr Chris Foggin and his helpers. National Parks were there to collect the removed horn to take back to vault storage. The rhino were sedated using M99 and a dart gun, they took five or so minutes to go down and then once down they had their eyes covered, oxygen administered where necessary and their pulses taken and monitored throughout the whole process. Dr Foggin then used a small motorised chain saw to remove the horn above the nerve. The photos documenting the event can be found on the Imire Safari Ranch facebook page. Tatenda was not dehorned at this stage as is still so young and has very little horn to remove. This will be removed using hand saw at a later date. A fantastic experience for all the volunteers who were here at the time

Pog was seen on the 19^th November with three little piglets although she keeps them so well hidden that very few people have seen them. To see them was a great surprise as we had all come to the conclusion that she had lost her babies. We have had a few incidents with her and Monty, the dog, as they both seem to bear a grudge against each other.

The Farm is doing well. The late crop of tobacco has been put in and will start growing as the rains have just started. The olives have been grafted and are looking good and the first crop of tobacco looks excellent.

The Zambezi Boys gave a fantastic set of ‘off-the-cuff’ speeches at a thank you cocktail party and will now begin a tour of the schools to describe their epic trip. For all those who wish to donate to their cause, the rhino of Zimbabwe, please look at the Tashinga Initiative webpage for further details.

The Volunteer Project has been going well and although we are all getting wet with the rain in our open top land rover we are all enjoying ourselves. Numwa House has undergone a fantastic renovation with new paint, chair covers and curtains ... please do have a look at the picture collage on facebook.

Some anecdotes to end the year with ...

As dawn came and the elephants were undergoing their ‘daily ele training’ Kutanga was, as usual, misbehaving, this time chasing a mother chicken and her 3 day old hatchlings. Things all got a bit hot when he stood on one of the hatchlings and killed it! He realised his mistake as soon as he had done it but had no time to react as the irate mother flew at him with wings out and squawking wildly, Kutanga immediately fled in terror back to his mother’s side and spent the next five minutes dodging the mother chicken!!

Pog’s Motherhood ... On the 17th October Poggle gave birth to 3 illegitimate pogglets; Winken (M), Blinken (M) and Nod (F). Poggle has kept her babes Imire's best kept secret, changing her burrow every time we discovered where she has hidden her treasures. For 2 months she has been playing cat and mouse with us, keeping her trio to herself and out of sight. Pog, would come and find delicious titbits around the rhino pens but without the babes. Where were they? How many piglets has she got? Where do they live? It was Poggles own secret. Out of the blue, Poggle arrived with Winken, Blinken and Nod, asking Shanu and Tatenda and their keepers to be her baby sitters, we now have a family of 5; Tatenda, Shanu, Pogg and her tribe.

It is totally delightful and the most wonderful experience to share with her, the proud Rhino and proud Pog. Please do have a look at the photos on the Imire Safari Ranch facebook site.

The white rhino have settled down nicely on the Ranch and move about 10km each 24hrs, up and down the farm. They are easily approachable and we have started offering rhino walks which seem to be very popular. These are led by Orbit who does a fantastic job. We can get relatively close in the car but as they are still totally wild (and hopefully remain that way) we cannot get right to them.

The other rhino are still doing very well and Gomo has regained a lot of his lost body condition from the winter. Tatenda and Shanu are still doing well and due to the very kind donations of oranges by Virgin Veggies in Marondera all the animals are getting fat.

Pog got fatter and fatter and finally on the 19^th October she had her babies in an aardvark hole round the back of Numwa House. She has not brought her babies here to the house which is a relief really as she and Monty (our ridgeback cross boerbel) do not get on. Several times now she has charged us and volunteers and managed to tusk one volunteer Danielle in the leg (photos on facebook!) We do not know how many babies but we all have bets going.

The elephant are doing well although Mak seems to be having some troubles in restraining himself from chasing the rhino which is a pain and something that we have to stop. We may find that it is related to musth although we are yet to find out. Nzo still thinks she is a buffalo and puts on weight by the day!

The Game Park is doing well although we lost 6 young Sable this year which was sad. We also had one male ostrich that drowned so we will be on the hunt for another as the rains kick in. A new giraffe was born last week and all the blesbok have been dropping babies already. The impala are still waiting for the real rains to start, we have had a few random showers but nothing more yet. We have been busy with vols at the moment and have built a new bridge – Malta Bridge - that opens up a while new section of the game park for game drives which is great.

The boys are back from the epic Zambezi kayaking trip and although Reilly has already gone down with malaria they are starting to prepare for school visits and slideshows to all interested parties. The stories are incredible and although they all three need feeding up a bit they are looking in great shape, and can still drink more beer than anyone without getting drunk.

The Lodge has got a new chef called Maria who seems to be excellent so we hope you’ll all be booking a night or two at the lodge at some point. We have also put all new photos on our facebook site so please have a look.

The Volunteer Project is rolling along well and the house has had lots of repairs done. There are plans for re-thatching in the new year and a whole new lick of paint will go on before January ... and the big news ... we hope for a new car before the end of November, the land rover will be relegated as the projects ‘Tractor’ and/or will be taken out on Sundays only. Anton and Cecelia left us at the end of last month so we still have Lizzie and Cookie and will be employing a new mechanic/gradner/handy man soon.

The Travers themselves are well and we have had the honour of having almost the whole family here (where were you Bruce?) Kate, Tara, Sam and Reilly, it is also sad news to say that the decision was taken to put Tsotsi the hyena to sleep as he was creating more and more problems.

Farming continues with the tobacco growing well, olives not so well, maize and grass also.