Anna's adventures in wonderland with RawPetMedics
In this live‑stream from Buffalo Kloof reserve near Port Elizabeth, Dr. Conor Brady, Anna, Brent and their guide Skulk take viewers on an on‑site safari while reflecting on the recent African Health Summit. The group shares spontaneous wildlife sightings—elephants, buffalo, white and black rhinos, giraffes, cheetahs, impalas, waterbuck, warthogs, bat‑eared foxes, gnus, wildebeest, and more—describing animal behavior, territorial marking, and predator‑prey dynamics. They discuss the summit’s focus on raw feeding for pets, noting a strong turnout of raw‑feeding veterinarians and students, and highlight the need to tailor education to an increasingly intermediate audience. Skulk provides expert commentary on animal ecology, while the hosts weave in humor (rhino farts, a poo‑identification quiz) and educational tidbits about plant‑pollinator relationships, cyanobacteria, chlorophyll, hippo taxonomy, and African wild dogs. Throughout, they promote their Patreon, encourage ecotourism at Buffalo Kloof, and invite support for conservation and the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society. The tone is conversational, enthusiastic, and occasionally humorous, aiming to entertain while delivering wildlife and veterinary insights.
Chapters
Live!
Just waiting for this to come up live and then I can press go here. 1, 2, 3. It's taking a bit of time, it's thinking about it. There we go. Hi everyone, you wouldn't believe where we are because here we are, Anna's Freezing and wearing duvets.
Yeah.
Because guess what? We are in roasting hot Africa.
Africa.
As you can tell by our attire.
Yes.
Not in Finland actually.
Just the reason we're speaking quietly is because just behind us were rhino last night and we thought, whoa, rhino. And now tonight—
today we have like buffalo.
And buffalo apparently are the creatures you do need to be very careful of. And when I say they're behind us, we're talking 10 meters, 10 meters right behind us. And oops, it's like a game show. First one to get out of their seat is a shit nutritionist.
I think they can see there. There's a small— that's probably an eye.
No, that's a speck on the screen.
Probably the Southern Star. Is that a star we learned from last night? That's not a star.
Southern Cross.
Southern Cross.
Did you know when you're in the Southern Hemisphere, What's the name of the one with the belt? Orion's Belt is upside down, obviously, but you can use it to navigate as to where you're going. I can't remember if it's north or south. I can't remember any facts. I'm not in a good position here for letting you know what's happening.
So anyway, we do apologize for being half an hour early, but in South Africa we're half an hour late. However, dinner is going to be served soon, so being good boys and girls, we're getting ourselves ahead of schedule.
Yes.
Anybody who's catching us at 7 o'clock, well done, you can catch up with everything we said but just half an hour behind. So if we haven't made it through the whole show because we're actually dead—
Streamed live!
Oh my God, this is our goodbye podcast from—
The buffalo are about the size of a very large cow. But they've got enormous horns. So they've all obviously got their horns on. It's all very normal. And for some reason, it's not the predators you need to be worried about in these places because the predators, Skulk said, who is the guide of guides, he says that those animals will run away when they're challenged. They're used to sneaking up behind you. So he said, turn your back on a predator and you might have trouble. But the problem is the prey animals. The prey animals are the problem because they are used to being predated and so they will come for you if they feel nervous. And that's what we have there tonight. But, uh, what do you think about— what do you think? Let's start at the conference, because I mean, we could talk about the animals all night. What do you think about the African Health Summit? That's what we're doing in Johannesburg in 2 days, and in Cape Town, and in Cape Town in a few days.
Yeah. And if you haven't got your ticket, you can still sign up, I believe, for online.
Yes.
Although the actual live has sold out.
Yes.
So it's, um, it's Great to see so many people there. We've had some great reports back from, you know, all the attendees over in Johannesburg. 2 days, fairly hectic and quite compressed with—
yeah, all of us, all 4 of us having actually 4 lectures, full lectures.
It was getting excited.
There's a lot of information and 2 Q&As.
And 2 Q&As, yes. So it was a lot of information for people who were quite, actually in this part of the world, it's quite new. So a lot of people were quite new to the subject.
Yeah. So, but even when you asked the audience who's raw feeding, up goes 2/3 of the hands.
Yeah.
That was never the way 5 years ago.
No, no, that's totally true.
Yeah, it was a strong turnout of raw feeders.
And also I was really happy that we had so many students. Yeah, actually. Yeah. So that's very nice seeing that there's a change coming.
Yeah, definitely. And there was about 17 of them on the first day and they had exams and still 10 of them came the second day.
Yeah.
So that's fair dues to the other vets.
And especially when they tolerated the fact that we had to present to a whole cross-section from the general public to people that were selling the food to manufacturers to people that were professional trainers and nutritionists, all the way through to vets, and vets there as well.
Yeah, it's tricky to know where to pitch it sometimes because now people have advanced into the intermediate kind of stage. And so you don't do the beginners, here's how to make raw dog food, you know.
Because we had some questions about that as well. And so I think that you were doing a good job on kind of also explaining just like how you do it. And in the question and answers, we were kind of giving them some of what we do.
And yeah, the FAQ is good. Yeah, the food was amazing. Yeah, the conference center was amazing.
Yes, we've been really looked after by Porcelain Raw.
Yeah, yes. And, um, Sandra, thank you.
Yeah, yeah, thanks, Sandra.
Yeah, absolutely. But, uh, yeah, it's been brilliant.
So that was 2 days of that, um, and actually you can, if, if somebody is interested, you can also buy those ones. So they're going to be sold. So if you go into Possum Raw or the summit address, you'd probably find them. So if you want to have like really lots of information, both on like on nearly everything, I think we touched most of the things you can talk about.
Absolutely. Sorry, I'm still hearing the grunts behind us. I'm just thinking.
It's coming.
If you see two horns appearing behind us like this, do let us know with a message.
So then after those two days, we flew down to St. Elizabeth.
No, Port Elizabeth.
Port Elizabeth is where we are. And we're on a reserve called Buffalo Cruise.
Kloof.
Buffalo Kloof, which means valley.
And it actually means a valley. So it's—
Oh, I thought it was the clove, like the—
It's literally, it means— So I thought it'd be Buffalo Cliff, but no, because it's the Afrikaans, it's Kloof, which means apparently the valley. So going into the valley.
And we are definitely in a valley. So it's utterly enormous. But there is, when you look far enough, is it 22,000 hectares? 22,000 hectares. That's quite big.
Or was it 220? No, 22,000.
Okay. Yeah.
It's enormous anyway.
It's enormous.
I mean, not anything compared to the 6 million hectares of Kruger, but it's still huge.
Yeah.
Yes. And actually, I mean, we are the only visitors here. So there's like 5 of us and 1 guide.
Oh yeah, we better explain. Yeah, Nicholas decided that Nick's not here.
Yeah, so I'm Nick actually.
He's not been knocked out by a rhino. Oh yeah, Nick's done some regen stuff. He flew to Cape Town, I believe, to drink a little bit more of this stuff.
Yes, I had some regen farms 4 farms in one day is what he visited.
Yes, I believe he's posting.
Yes, he's probably going to talk a lot about that in the next of your episodes.
Yeah, I'm sure we won't be able to shut him up as normal.
So, uh, would you like to know what animals we've seen so far?
Oh good, should we start?
Should we start? I think we should go through. Each of us has to name an animal species that we've seen. Okay, as we go.
So, and then whoever can't name an animal has to go over and touch the baby. I'm back.
Okay, we're starting. Uh, yeah, ladies first.
Okay, elephant.
We got really excited today. Yes, because we've been searching just about all day. Yeah, and finally come across a herd of elephants and nearly didn't record this tonight, purely and simply because we got held up, stuck between two parts of the herd.
Yes, it was quite hairy when that elephant And that young male, because he wasn't young, he must have been old.
He was enormous.
I don't mean like he was a baby.
I've never seen such a big elephant.
I was nervous. I was happy to be at the back of the truck, so I assumed that the ones at the front would get gored first. He'd be busy with them while I ran somewhere.
Unless he was at the front of the truck.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there were so many. There were so many. I mean, it was 20.
20 in that group plus babies.
Yeah.
Yeah, there were babies that were just like 3 months old, really small ones.
I was just about to post pictures of the elephants just to show them how close.
But we're going to put all the pictures onto Patreon. So all of the Patreon followers, if you want to see what we've seen, then you can see a whole gallery coming up on Patreon.
A few videos and whatnot.
Yes.
Yeah. So, of course, we've got to talk about that. Yeah, I know there's hyena out here and we've one more trip tomorrow and I hope we see them. For the moment, my animal would be, I like the little bat-eared fox. I was quite surprised to see them. And they're like the foxes. I'm not sure if they are foxes with enormous ears and all they eat is insects and they're quite big. So that is a lot of insects. They're very fluffy, very small. Very fluffy, very cute little animals. We saw them at the nighttime running across the road and then we saw them at the daytime. There's actually so many animals running across the road that you just think there's people hiding in the bushes just going, okay, release the bat-eared fox. You know, like, ooh, there's that many animals around. And it's just totally normal. This is a conservation area, so it's not like, it's not like any— there's no wild land around in South Africa. Everything is owned to a degree, but this is a conservation park, so there's strict rules about how many animals you can have on board. So they bring in 3 or 4 of the big animals, like the ones we've mentioned and the ones we're going to mention, and then the rest of the animals just come. So all the other animals we're going to mention, a lot of the ones that are smaller than us essentially, just come into the park. So all these animals that we're seeing are just a natural part of the environment if you just leave it alone. So bad haired fox, what's your next one that we saw?
Sorry.
Okay, you can have a go.
That's why you have a go first, ladies and girls.
And then you.
So I will go for. not to take prize with that, but the giraffes. Oh yeah, the giraffes. I mean, we literally arrived and within half an hour hopped on the Jeep and then drove literally 100 yards and up popped the giraffes to say hello.
Giraffes are cool. What type of giraffe?
Southern giraffes.
Nice.
There you go. Some of us remembered.
I only knew one type of giraffe. I knew of the reticulated giraffe and I said, excuse me, um, What's his name?
Skulk.
Excuse me, Skulk. I'm so sorry, Skulk, if you're watching this, which I'm sure you are. But I said, excuse me, Skulk, is that the reticulated giraffe? And he was like, no. I got nothing right this holiday.
I was going to say, we're going to go through how many animals he didn't get right.
We'll get to my mistakes.
Let alone didn't get right, but also didn't get their diets right either.
Anna, what was the next one for you?
Well, they have two types of rhinos and we've just seen the white one.
Yeah.
And but there is also a black one.
What's the difference between those two?
Well, there was colouring and then—
White lips.
Lips, yes, how they eat.
So, spread lips is the white rhino. And the pointy lip. Is the black rhino.
Yeah.
We haven't seen the black rhino.
We haven't, no. But we passed, we think we saw them because when we passed the same place that we saw in the morning, we saw that they had been there. And you thought you saw them or heard them in the morning or one of you.
Sometimes I just say that just to feel important. I don't know what I saw.
It's been a real spotting animals at a distance.
Yeah, we saw the black rhino poo. So she's there with her pup and she saw her poo. So they poo and then they kick it, you know, they kick it out behind them almost like a dog, but they kick it backwards and forwards, they're rubbing their feet in it, and then she walks in a line to get to the next post. And much like the wildebeest will do, and will poo there, and they'll mark out their territory to say, heads up.
They literally march the scent, don't they, down the line. So it's not just pooing at a post.
That was as close to the black rhino we got. But the white rhino, I think that was Afrikaans for, uh, whatever the word is, like, 'wiede' means wide. So it became white rhino, but it's actually wide mouth, big flat face, and so they just go scrunch, scrunch, scrunch, eating the grass all day.
And the black rhino is a pointier face, and that's for selecting, um, middle of the night, and I went out in the middle of the night to see a thunderstorm, and they were here still in the morning. I mean, the whole night.
Yeah. Oh, I'm going to post some video because not only were they there, a bull another white rhino came in that wasn't part of the group and they were obviously protecting her baby. So we got a bit of horn on horn action. Yeah, but anyway, it was really, really—
I'm really envious because I didn't get to see that. I was lying in bed. I heard the commotion. I was like, I'm tired, I can't. And you guys are enjoying those moments.
Are you not going to repeat Xander's joke from this morning?
No, no, no.
It's been a long time since he woke up That's a classic moon picture over there. Look at that, it's a crescent moon here, stars are very clear sky, so you can see the Milky Way at nighttime. We'll show you those pictures later. Um, but yeah, the rhinos, when we sat down to eat last night, so the rhinos come up within about 10 meters. They used to come up to this particular area, uh, and then we went and ate dinner. So we're eating dinner around this enormous fire, 6 chairs, beautiful food that comes from the reserve, and the rhinos are within 10 meters on the other side of the wall. So you get to hear rhinos talk to each other and farting quite a lot. I have to say, it was quite a very impressive farting, which I thought was very funny. And so, yeah, that was the rhinos. Next one for me was warthogs. I was surprised to see a warthog because you watch Lion King and you see this little warthog. I missed the first one.
Pumba.
Tell the joke.
We'll put up on Patreon, maybe. Sorry, Paul.
No, we're not telling the joke.
Yeah.
So warthogs. We saw warthogs. I missed the first warthog. Because sometimes someone says, oh, warthog! And then you rush over the other side of the car and you miss the warthog and you're furious because everyone else saw it. And then later on this afternoon, we saw a warthog.
They run with their tails.
With babies? Yeah, with tiny little pig babies. Yeah. And they run with their tails up in the air. So sometimes you can just see the little tail running around.
Yeah, like a small antenna. Yeah. And I was really surprised because I thought they would be as big as our kind of wild boar.
Yeah.
Because I wasn't expecting that. They look a bit the same.
I don't know what— how big is a wild hog?
Well, very big. I mean, like a big pig.
What?
Yes, they're quite enormous.
They're huge. Much bigger than small hogs.
4 times the size of this.
And have you got wild boar in both your countries, Finland and England?
Yeah.
You do?
Cool.
What forest are the wild boar in England?
Everything from the New Forest all the way down the, um, uh, so Forest of Dean, New Forest, all the way across Thetford Forest. Yeah, they'll—
aggressive.
Yes, they are.
Yeah, and carry TB, but nobody cares.
And they actually destroy everything. Yeah, so they really, you know, they muck up everything with their nose.
Really good for woodland management. Well, I They breed very quickly, as pigs will do as well.
Yeah, you can then— we need to speed up.
We're not going through all of our species.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's just a giveaway of how much we've seen.
Okay. So you, it's you then next.
I would say the gnale.
Gnale, which look like the yellow stripes.
The onion striped.
Beautiful stuff. Yeah.
Do you remember? Yes, the males have a yellow sock, don't they? Yeah. And a slight white—
Oh, the male, that was the same species, but the males have yellow feet.
Yeah, but the females are much sort of more, I don't know, just this orangey colour.
Yeah, they actually look like— now when we just talked about wild boar, so wild boar babies, they're like just that brown colour and then they have these white stripes. So they were a bit onion-like.
Yeah. Yeah. There's one on the floor of my bedroom, I think.
Ah, yes.
Actually, only the coat.
Not just the animal. You're sleeping behind a dead one. They call everything, they call all the ungulates venison over here. So when we hear venison, we think deer. We think fallow deer, reindeer.
I just thought a hare was coming.
Yeah, don't freak out. Don't. I'm trying to get through this. Don't look. Don't be the first person to leave. But yeah, but for venison for them is any of the ungulates, and they have so many different species like a gnu. Now I'm not quite sure if the gnus or gnu— is it a silent g? Gnu. Is a gnu a type of wildebeest, or is that a separate type of ungulate? Have I just given the game away?
I think that they were different.
They were different?
Yeah.
Okay.
I think gnu was slightly smaller.
I want to change my animal to wildebeest. We saw loads of wildebeest.
And these males strutting their stuff. And we saw the surfers.
The surfer guys, the surfer dudes. Yeah, one or two just turned out completely blonde with massive kind of doos. Yeah, they just strut around.
Surfer dudes.
Yeah, they're just hanging around. But some of the males, they mark out their territory and they stay there for months before the rut, which is coming up in a month here. And it's funny because I'm so used to the rut being in October in the Northern Hemisphere. For here, it's the opposite end. Isn't that funny?
Which is May.
And so the males start to protect their area and they say, this is my patch of good grazing near water sources, and they mine that. And it's not that the females come for the male, the females come for the good grazing and the water. And then because he owns that territory, but he has to hang on to it. And so they will be challenged all the way through the month. But it's funny to see the young males having little goals. And he said he keeps on doing that, he's going to learn the hard way. And so the young males between 2 to 4 are just practicing and, you know, messing with each other. But the bigger males are just kind of— you can see today one of them walked off another one. You know?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
They're just so beautiful looking, the stripes on them. And yeah, but they don't have the big shaggy coat of the other type of wildebeest, which you see. Is this right? There's another type of wildebeest, isn't there? That was one type of wildebeest, isn't it?
Which was the one that had that white, you know, that when they were having that kind of counter kind of walking up.
Oh yeah. That wasn't a wildebeest. No, that was something else.
That was something else.
But what was that called? There was quite a lot of African.
We've seen the impalas.
Yeah, yeah, impalas was going to be my next one.
Oh, oh, sorry, I got you there.
No, it's okay.
So, Anna, what was the next animal?
Go on, what was it?
It was the, it was the impala.
Impala.
Yay!
Yay!
We just saw, yeah, we saw about 40 of them, I would say, when we just returned from the last—
lot of impala. Yeah, lot of impala.
Yeah. And they're so graceful and they jump like they're a bit like ballet dancers.
Yeah, they are. No problem running around in the pitch dark.
Yeah.
Bumpy ground.
Yeah.
They just run away, no problem. What's next for you, Brent?
The waterbuck.
The waterbuck. Yes.
Yes. Apparently, if you allow the oil of the skin to get onto the flesh, dogs immediately will not eat the flesh.
money talks.
I was gonna say, when you said impala, I'm gonna say cheetah.
We saw cheetah today with two babies.
Yeah, with two. Two youngsters.
Yeah.
I wasn't disappointed. I wasn't disappointed, but when I heard babies, I did think they were going to be this size. Yeah, they were one year old. Yeah. Yeah. They did say cubs. Yeah, yeah. This is my animal. This is Money talks. I was going to say, when you said Impala, I'm going to say cheetah.
We saw cheetah today with two babies. Yeah, with two youngsters.
Yeah, I wasn't disappointed. I wasn't disappointed. But when I heard babies, I did think they were going to be this size.
Yeah, they were one-year-olds.
Yeah, but you did say cubs.
Yeah, this is my animal. This is my animal, guys. I'm done. But they like taking Impalas But the cheetahs are surprisingly small. Like she said, he says they might be 30, 35 kilos, which that's not a heavy big cat.
I would have said that those were not more than even the mother, I think, because maybe because she's been feeding. So I would have guessed 25 max.
25 kilos? Way surely more than that.
You think so?
The mother was about 30 kilos, he said.
Okay.
30 kilos.
Yeah, that's very like when you compare that to say a leopard, which will be you know, 80, 90 kilos. Lions are 200 kilos. And lions, he said, even more.
Yeah.
And he said lions will just eat everything. They'll eat cheetahs and they are really the tough boys of the— and girls, really, because it's lionesses that are doing it. But the two, she had two little cubs and they were sisters. And there's only so long that eventually mum will kind of shush them off when they're a year and a half old or whatever age, and then they'll wander off because the place is so big. But they don't stay together. They stay together for a while, but then they leave. But the two males that are around are hanging out together, which is interesting.
Yeah.
So I don't know how they sorted out, you know, who is doing the mating and the other one is doing the parenting.
Just think about you and your brothers, I guess.
You kind of know who is kind of the boss. Yeah.
Or the woman always chooses the other brother.
Yeah, yeah. I can't tell, you can't either.
Yeah.
So the cheetahs were amazing, and they love a bit of impala and smaller So they don't go for the big game. They need to be able to catch the animal.
I'm going to go for a special animal now. Termites.
Termites.
We didn't see any termites, but we saw a lot of termite nests, and under them is a termite kitchen.
Yeah.
And that's where the aardvarks will go, but we didn't see any of those yet.
Aardvarks.
Yeah.
Aardvarks. That's cute. That is cute.
Aardvarks. And somebody got them mixed up with echidnas and a few other animals on the way.
No, no, I know.
He was just explaining that when he visited Australia.
I was just going to say, I know what an anteater is. And it's an aardvark. We didn't see any, did we?
No, we didn't.
But we saw the damage they do. They've got these enormous claws. And Skulk was saying that they will dig so fast, these aardvarks, that they can— and they're big enough animals, they're not small— they can attack a termite mound quickly. But they can dig down into the ground and disappear into the ground, he said, in minutes. Yeah. And they're really crucial to the whole conservation effort because all other animals love living in the holes he digs.
Yeah.
And so I thought that was kind of cool. You just think he was just after termites. He digs them out of the ground depending on the termite that he's after, but they leave these enormous holes.
Yeah.
Energy. How does he even—
Yeah.
Yeah. How does he do it?
But I think also what we should maybe just mention that we've learned so much about all of these animals' nutrition Yeah.
And their role to play in the ecology.
Yes. They're superb guides.
Yeah.
And even about nutrition for moths and butterflies.
The flowers tell us everything. I can't believe I've never heard this before. Yeah.
I've never heard that before either. So if you plant blue flowers, you're going to—
because they all have this kind of You know, like a long thing with a thing at the bottom.
Yeah, with nectar in the bottom.
Yeah, basically trumpet. It's not just about the trumpet though. It's actually the fact that they're blue flowers and they have a nectar at the bottom and that blueness attracts the butterflies.
And the trumpet necessitates a long tongue, which is why it has a mouthpiece.
Yes, the butterfly does have it. So if you plant butterflies—
sorry, if you plant— oh my gosh, it's just you. Yeah, sorry.
That's the only tea. English breakfast.
Meat, meat, gin. She's been following on for the last half an hour.
She learned from me about just pretend. It's in a white cup.
They'll never know.
Okay. But then again, yeah.
And then there's yellow flowers and they usually are very flat. And on those ones you've got, what was it?
Bees.
They land on those ones. And you just, you know, kind of look for the food, like everywhere there. And then there was the white ones and they usually smell at night.
Yes.
Like the jasmine and the tobacco plant.
I love jasmine, but I don't like what they attract.
Moths.
Oh, you should have seen last night around the fire pit.
I'm not afraid of any animal. I don't think, honestly, I don't think Anna's afraid of any animals at all, to the point that we had to restrain her from hugging the hippos. Oh, we had hippos.
That was your next kind of answer.
I would just love to hug them.
But we will probably have to stop soon because I think they're walking around the table all the time now.
Oh yeah, we're nearly done. So that was the two flowers. What were the other colors? The red flowers?
Then the red flower were hanging. Usually they have hanging flowers, so they attract the birds that kind of hang on the flower.
Conor's favorite bird, the Cape Starling.
Oh, that was beautiful.
Beautiful blue. Yeah.
How many of those animals or birds were all named after the sound they made?
Yeah.
Yeah. There was like a good evening bird. There was a goodie or whatever the last bird of the evening was, was saying something.
I'm bird famous.
And then it was like, good night, Mr. Something something. And I was like, that's not what it sounds like. Well, he says that's the first bird that chirps at nighttime. So then you know it's night as opposed to the sun going down, just going, oh, I can't see anymore.
I think it was Good God Deliver Us.
Yeah, Good God Deliver Us.
It was the night one. And there was—
What did it sound like?
Good God Deliver Us.
Go on, give it a go. You want to hear Anna's impression of an elf? Anna, is there any chance you do your impression of an elf for the camera?
I was training, I was thinking.
We were going, we were in the front.
Good God! Okay, okay.
If you just hold your trunk out, okay, just do that and then I'll just go from here.
You do it, hit your pants. Oh, that's good, that's a good one.
That's good.
I've got nothing. I've got no impressions about that.
Well, other than the rhino.
To wrap up the last shoot, yeah, rhinos.
Rhino fart.
Seriously long farts, guys. I'm very, very impressed. Very, very funny. If you can get near a rhino and listen long enough, it's absolutely hilarious. That's why he had to get up at night just to re-hear it. Just to really enjoy it.
I actually found—
we're going to go and party on this a little quiz. I'm going to show you 5 different types of poo and you're going to try and identify them, one of which will be impossible because I don't even know the name of the animal itself. But 5 different poos and we will do the quiz over on Patreon at some stage. But just to wrap up a couple of things that we've learned here. Okay, I have learned a lot.
Hunting dogs. Should we do the hunting dogs thing?
Yeah, African wild dogs. Up until coming to Africa and learning about African wild dogs, they use the word African wild dog, but they're not, you know, very similar to dogs. They use the word dog, but they're over a million years apart, you know, so they're very, very dissimilar animals. But sometimes they hold up examples of African wild dogs as domestic dogs. And I was led to believe until this moment in time that African wild dogs actually took far, like a little bit of fruit now and again. I thought they were a little bit more omnivorous than carnivorous. I thought they had made their way down that ladder a bit. And so I was ready to present those facts and we were talking about teeth and I couldn't wait to ask Skulk. Skulk.
Skulk.
Skulk. Skulk. Yeah. And he was like, no, no, no, very carnivorous they are. He said it's like the bit of vegetation they might be taking. We were debating the whole entire That's another thing again, and I think we'll be debating that for the rest of our lives.
Yeah.
And but he said, aside from that, he goes, no, no, very, very carnivorous animals. So I was surprised at that. So I was very wrong about that. Um, but it was very interesting to learn firsthand from like what is probably the best, most knowledgeable conservationist stroke, whatever other title you could put on the guy. He's the guy that goes around and teaches the other guides, and we have him to ourselves. So he's just been flown out to San Antonio Zoo, he goes to different parks. The guy knows everything from constellations to every type of animal, and his knowledge of biology, and right down to what, as far as I would know, and insects.
And oh, that really great thing about everything, you know, we were talking about mitochondria and them being similar to bacteria. He was talking about the chlorophylls and being similar to cyanobacteria.
There was actually 3 different ways of—
what was the bacteria? What was the bacteria that learned?
Cyanobacteria.
I had the answer to that one. Okay, you've ruined that for me.
And they cohabit all plants that use photosynthesis.
So these cyanobacteria are in the ponds, you know, before all life on Earth, and they're in the water and they suddenly learned the compound that harms the sun.
Chlorophyll.
Is it chlorophyll?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That wasn't what I was thinking of. And so they Get this, I'm going to butcher this story. Does anybody else want to take over?
No, I want to enjoy it so much. I love it. I love putting Conor on the spot. Come on, Conor, let's see how much biology you actually knew to do your PhD.
Oh, I think you should—
how did the sign-up back to your first team up with an algae, something under the water with seaweed is probably the first, some sort of plant under the water they teamed up. But why would the cyanobacteria team up with the plant? What was he looking for? What was the benefit? Protection?
Yeah, well, there was protection, there was, um, effectively staying in a place.
Oh yeah, as opposed to being subject to the—
yeah, just, you know, disappearing, maybe going up into the air.
So he could be like Oh, that's good. Being up in the air, closer to the sunshine. Good. That's why they pay you the big bucks. Yeah. And then the seaweed crawled out of the pond or something, then became a tree, and somehow a tree became a wildebeest. I'm not quite sure of the steps, but if you think about it, you'll get it.
Animals can produce energy from light.
Yeah. Another interesting fact. Was the hippopotamus. So we saw just a couple of hippo there, the mother and the baby, and we probably heard them when we stopped and he was talking about the stars. And he said, did you know that a hippopotamus is closer to a marine mammal than it is a land mammal? And I was just kind of nodding politely going, yeah, I think I knew that. And he goes like, well, they feed their young underwater, for example. And I was like, oh yeah. And he goes, actually, when you go through the whole genealogy of them, they're far closer to manatees and dugongs, they are water-living mammals that kind of took a peek and thought it might eat a bit of vegetation on the riverbank. And so they crawled out of the water as opposed to being evolved from, you know, land animals. Is that—
but the thing is, then Conor then went on to think of hippos as Moomins, and they just go, oh yeah, I totally forgot that they've got huge tusks.
Where do they hide them? Because they're very close. And when they open these enormous teeth, maybe one of those like fake teeth. Yeah, they're very cute.
They just want to go—
yeah, but don't trust them. Yeah, but he said that like, I thought most of the hippo deaths came— here's another learning fact for him— I thought most of the hippo deaths were during whatever sort of mating season there is for hippos. The males mark their territory all in rivers because they're aquatic animals initially, and so they hide underneath there for 10 minutes or so and you come along in your boat and they get me. Canoe. You get me, yeah, sitting on your canoe.
Canoe.
Yeah, just paddling your canoe, parking your canoe outside Super Value, getting a few bits, just picking up a few tea bags. Canoe park, different colours. Anyway, so what was I talking about? What was my fact? Well, so you swim, I thought you roll your boat over them and then he gets annoyed because that's his, this is my bit of patch and he kills you. So they kill about 5,000 people a year and so they're the most killy of the animals. He said no, he goes, that's not the way most people die because a lot of the deaths come from people that accidentally come across a hippo and give it a bit of startling. And he said most dangerous is a young hippo or a young male that has been in a bit of a scrap. And so they're injured and they hide out in very small little areas. So a little tiny pond where the rest are, and he's embarrassed and he's annoyed and he goes, they're the most dangerous hippos. So if you get anywhere near them, he'll say, I might have lost a scrap to this 2-ton thing, but I can kick you around. Yeah. And squish, down you go. Yeah.
Or indeed that you actually are between them and the water. So effectively, because their big thing is to effectively just go at full speed, run for the river and splat.
Yeah, so a lot of learning curves, a lot of things that you just kind of took as normal.
But, uh, and just so many things that we've seen, you know, beyond that. Just, yeah, we're going to post so many pictures from animals. Um, but, you know, thanks to, um, Buffalo Kloof, uh, for hosting us. Uh, there's some great stuff. Thank you even more.
Awesome. Yeah, awesome. Raw South Africa. My God. Yes, this has been a trip of a lifetime. Yes, how lucky we are.
Just helping us to R&R before we do it all over again in Cape Town.
Yeah, looking forward to seeing what that looks like. Yeah, cannot wait for that.
It's going to be super.
Beaches.
So, um, I hope that's been a quick review.
I don't feel like it came off well in my interview. I feel like, yeah, as the Zoologist of the gang. Okay, maybe we'll get the weakest of zoology facts.
So we'll get Skull King to dig you out next time.
We have to get him in as a guest.
Oh, absolutely.
Easily the most interesting guy.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
If you want to support wildlife, um, conservation in South Africa, uh, you could do nothing worse than to look up Buffalo Kloof and consider coming to stay with family and friends and enjoying, supporting, um, you know, using effectively ecotourism. Yeah, uh, you know, ice cream. At its best. Yeah, you can use your camera, you don't need to use a gun. That's our advice. Okay, so, you know, come and support them. They want to do more of that sort of tourism because conservation is complicated.
It is a complicated thing to manage everybody, keep everything in check, the populations.
If you can't come here, you can probably go into their website and donate as well.
Yeah, yeah, for a moment there I thought, I know you're gonna say, and if you can't do that, please come and support Dog Risk.
Yeah, my God, we can do that as well.
We do apologize if you watch more than one video from this series, you might find that there is multiple references to supporting Dog Risk and Raw Feeding Veterinary Society.
Indeed, of course. I thought some of your presentations were great. All your presentations are great. One point you were making was really, really interesting, and it'd be great if you come on RPM in the next month or two and talk to us about that diabetic study. Ooh, yes. That diabetic factoid.
Oh, wasn't that cool?
Any one of your factoids, but that is very commercial and will be so helpful for people.
I know, I know.
I had a big UK food company that wanted to do that. They asked me all about it and I said, I'd talk to Anna. Isn't that interesting?
And everybody, when you said that about the diabetic thing and then you put up the graph, I love that. Isn't that interesting? And everybody, when you said that about the diabetic thing and then you put up the graph, it's like, oh my God, everybody with a diabetic dog needs to hear that information and act. So I thought it was all cool. I thought the buildup was cool. It was very interesting. I was like, where is she going with this? And I was kind of hoping and yeah, but look, definitely you'll come on and we'll talk, actually show the graphs, show the benefits.
I mean, this is just, it was just a pilot. It was just, I just wanted to, you know, to see what happens.
Yeah.
And so I just didn't. Yeah. But I can't, I don't think I can publish it because it's like, I mean, it's 4 or 5 dogs.
But you know, as we were saying to those young vets, as we have given you so much information, like you can see here, and we can talk studies all day. All I'm saying to you is do the same thing we all did at some stage. And that is give it a go and you'll see.
Yeah.
And so, uh, I think you don't need studies sometimes, you just need to make a, make a bit of a leap.
Yeah, let's do it.
Yeah, that needs to get— yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I'll show them.
But hey, ready to go? I think they're waiting on us.
They're waiting.
Everybody is waiting.
It's been wonderful to see you all again. Remember, come and see the rest of the photos and videos and bits that we've— we're going to post over on Patreon. Won't be tonight, probably, maybe tomorrow. But do come over and have a look at those. We know that Nix, bless him, has enjoyed himself dearly and has probably posted something by now. And hopefully you'll enjoy that too.
Absolutely.
Super.
Until next week.
Yes.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
