A single lousy swallow of Coke was all I had left in the can. It would cut the dust in my throat from the South African Transvaal's dryness, where a little moisture had become life and death.

As I picked up the can and started to lift it to my lips, Rocco Gioia, the South African game ranch owner I was with, stopped me. I turned the can over and poured the last of my Coke out and watched as coagulated clumps of black flies, glued together with the syrup that had been my Coke, fell to the sand.

"They find anything wet," he said. "It's so dry they swarm to it and drown themselves."

I put the can in the back of the Toyota Land Cruiser and took an orange. At least it would be wet. My mouth was still dry from the adrenaline that had been pumping through me after having been in the back of a pickup surrounded by 40 terrified, angry, milling, and dangerous Cape buffalo that were unwilling to be herded between plastic funnel walls toward waiting trucks. The buffalo had been herded by helicopter into a boma, what a cowboy would call a corral, except that it was huge--hundreds of yards long and a hundred yards across.

Too Many Animals

The buffalo capture was part of a buffalo population control program of the GuyzanKulu Homeland Nature Conservation Agency. South Africa's devastating drought (which appears to have been broken this year) and rampant hoof and mouth disease among both domestic cattle and wild buffalo were taking their toll on the herds. Native cattle infected with the disease spread it to the buffalo.

In an effort to stop the spread of the disease, the South African government established a "red line" separating the country and forbade any infected cattle or buffalo from being transported across the line. The line created some problems because of the unequal distribution of cattle and buffalo. In many areas excessive cattle numbers stripped food supplies already depleted by the drought. In the rural Tribal Homeland areas, cattle populations soared out of control because the natives value cattle ownership as a sign of wealth.

To relieve the pressure on the homeland, bush country wildlife managers resorted to capturing buffalo in the bush country and selling the animals to game ranch managers whose ranches are on the same side of the red line. It was on one of these captures, on the Latava Ranch of the GuyzanKulu homeland in the Northeastern Transvaal, accompanying Rocco Gioia who was there to buy buffalo for his game ranch near Hoedspruit, a tiny community tucked in the Transvaal's Low Veldt country. The new animals would augment his existing buffalo herd.

The capture and sale of the buffalo to game operators such as Rocco has created a win-win-win situation for the cash-starved African homelands game management programs. During the drought, available food supplies for the buffalo were scarce and the buffalo herd's survival prospects became dimmer each day. The problem was exacerbated by disappearing water holes and native cattle competing with wildlife for what little water and graze was available.

Capturing and removing the buffalo relieves some of the pressure. By selling the animals to game ranches, the local government gets desperately needed money to help finance the homeland's wildlife management agency and ultimately fund programs benefiting all of the homeland's wildlife--including anti-poaching operations and feeding and habitat improvement programs that have helped other species survive the drought.

The capture also allows ranchers to infuse new genes in their breeding herds of Cape buffalo. Healthy buffalo populations attract foreign sportsmen and tourists who leave their currency behind. Also, the wider dispersion of the breeding herds assures the buffalo's survival in tough times.

Gioia took the capture project a step further. He had learned that in Zimbabwe buffalo calves had been successfully nursed by native cattle in experimental projects, and that veterinary studies have shown that young buffalo calves are free of hoof and mouth disease. If calves captured on the homelands could be put in a disease-free environment and raised by domestic cattle until they could be released into the wild, Gioia believed the calves could be moved across the red line after being certified disease free.

The project would be a financial gamble. Gioia was willing to take the risk. If successful, calves could be transplanted across the red line to parts of South Africa where the Cape buffalo had been lost. He bought 20 calves captured at Latava and had them shipped to his ranch where they were put in pens with disease-free domestic cattle. After a few awkward moments, the cows accepted the youngsters and the calves began nursing.

Not all of the calves survived. The trauma of the capture, the movement and separation from their mothers, and a natural mortality from diseases common among wild animals, took a toll.

Still, when word spread among game ranches that Gioia had been successful and most of the calves survived, wildlife managers and game ranchers contacted him to buy the disease-free calves. A few months later the calves were sold. Only the future will tell if the calves survive to start new herds.

Not A Roundup

American cowboys would be lost on a Cape buffalo capture. In fact, they'd probably end up dead.

The Cape buffalo didn't get their reputation for being tough, dangerous, and killing hunters by allowing people to get in their way. Weighing up to 1,500 pounds, their curving horns are lethal weapons that can disembowel an attacking lion or toss a careless hunter into a nearby tree. Stories of hunters killed by charging buffalo are the lore of the African bush. Every adventure writer has tackled the Cape buffalo in a story.

Few capture the essence of death you can see in their eyes--black, deadly, and full of survival. Their pugnacious dispositions are reinforced by incredible strength.

Buffalo are not "rounded up"; they are captured, and it is not an exercise for cowards or fools. Every year in Africa someone learns why the animals are called Black Death.

The Real Hatari And Duke

Thys Marilz, a veteran of decades of game captures, directed the operation we were on. Thys has been mauled by a lion, kicked by a giraffe, and could be a real-life model for John Wayne's character Shawn Mercer in HATARI!.

The chute, or boma, the animals are pushed toward hardly seems capable of holding one of the world's most dangerous big-game animals--it's made of plastic. The plastic is stretched between cables, one on the ground and another about eight feet in the air. The cables are stretched from the loading ramp, where the truck is parked, around trees and brush to form the frame of the boma. The plastic is fastened to the cables and you have an instant corral. It looks about as strong as a boy scout tent.

The plastic works because the buffalo, aside from being big, strong, mean, and blessed with an intense distrust and dislike of humans, are also stupid. As long as they don't see the shadow of someone standing too close to the plastic, they won't try to go through it. The principle works--most of the time.

Helicopter Herdsmanship

The buffalo are first located and then herded towards the boma and finally into it by helicopter. An official of the Nature Conservation group flies with the pilot in the left seat. Helicopters are used because of their mobility, but that doesn't make them safe. South Africa averages six game capture helicopter crashes a year. The reality of the danger was brought home to Rocco last September when a helicopter crashed on his ranch killing the pilot and critically injuring Rocco's professional hunter. The men were on a rhino-darting project when the helicopter snagged a tree and went down.

The danger doesn't deter the wildlife officials. That is part of the job--like the dust and heat and flies. After the boma is set for the capture, the pilot and his observer take off in search of buffalo and when a group is located they begin the low-flying herding techniques to move the animals into the boma. Sometimes the buffalo must be herded several miles before they reach the trap.

Once the animals are inside they are given a chance to rest and then the helicopter is again used to herd them towards the first section of the funnel. Unlike moving the buffalo across the bush country, herding them inside the boma demands constant flirting with death because the pilot must bring the helicopter dangerously low with the rotors inches above the treetops, or the buffalo--confused by the walls of the boma, the swirling dust, noise, and thing attacking them from the sky--will run in circles. The pilot matches the quick turns of the buffalo on the ground with his own quick moves of the helicopter, sometimes putting the cabin of the chopper between the scrubby treetops to block the herd's retreat from the funnel.

Then someone hiding within the boma (always a volunteer) pulls a curtain across the tunnel, sealing the buffalo in a smaller section. Trucks are brought in to move the animals to the next section. This time the buffalo fight back with a vengeance. Game scouts, rangers, conservation officers, and volunteers ride in the open backs of the pickups and wave sheets of plastic, throw sticks, shout, and spray the buffalo with water, all the while praying one of the bulls doesn't decide to climb in the back of a pickup.

The animals do attack the pickups, however. One bull, tired of being pushed around, launched himself into the fender of our truck, smashing it in, then into the grill of the next truck; in a quick twist of his massive horns, he ripped the grill off the truck and then trotted off with the grill hanging from his horns.

No matter how hard the buffalo fight, charge, snort, and run they are pushed down the boma. In the last sections they are separated into groups and then herded into compartments on the waiting truck. Calves, still free of the disease that plagues their elders, are separated, caught, and carried to other compartments of the truck.

By the day's end the herd of buffalo are ready to be moved. The boma is left up and the damage from the day's capture repaired. There are more buffalo to capture the next day. But first the men must go home and nurse wounds from thorn trees, restore shaken nerves, and wash off the African dirt that settled on them and became mud when it mixed with their sweat, finally drying into plaster. They will return the next day and face the Black Death again--all of it in a fight against drought and disease to give the magnificent Cape buffalo a stronger future.