Savute Safari Lodge - Secretive Genets

Savute Safari Lodge
Sunday, April 27, 2008

Guests had just begun to gather at the bar Saturday night when lodge manager Kobus Lubbe jumped up from his chair and rushed toward the lawn to investigate a strange noise. He scanned the roof of the bar/lobby common area, then rushed back to announce what he had seen: the kittens of a common large-spotted genet were at the apex of the roof, under the eaves.

Lodge manager Obie Magunga grabbed a torch, and we all hurried out into the night to look up at the starry sky. Nestled in the eaves, their faces squeezed into the opening, two kittens peered down at us, crying for their mother. They sounded a noise between a “peep” and a high-pitched, squeaky mew. By any measure the cries were demanding and loud from such tiny creatures.

Chris and Tilde Stuart’s “Field Guide to Mammals of Southern Africa” says genets have long, slender bodies and tails -- and short legs. The common large-spotted genet has large spots that are usually rusty in color and legs that are paler than those of their small-spotted kin. Its habitat is chiefly restricted to the eastern areas of Southern Africa, where it ranges throughout the night.

At least one ranges quite comfortably across Savute camp. In the past two weeks, a common large-spotted genet popped its head into theoffice as if to check out what was going on, not unlike a house cat or a curious tourist, then moved on to the bar. Guests reported a genet carrying a python in its mouth walking past one bungalow near the channel. The Desert and Delta Safaris managing director saw a mother with kittens in her mouth climbing a tree. And I saw one scurrying along the fence on the way to Room 10 at bedtime.

Perhaps it was the same genet in all of the sightings, the mother of the kittens, of which there were four, maybe five. The guests Saturday night watched in delight as two kittens scampered and cried in a tree near the bar, waiting for their mother and separated from their siblings under the roof. Mother genet appeared, as if by magic, to slip across the lawn in cover of darkness and up into the tree. With her mouth she grabbed a kitten and headed off toward the brunch deck. She came back, climbing along branches through the treetops, to grab another kitten, astonishing the guests by her stealth.

Obie soon discovered what must have made the mother hurry – and worry. An eagle owl surveyed the area from a branch above the brunch deck. Several of us wished we could run to the kitten hanging on at a nearby tree trunk and pet and comfort it. But we hung back, letting the mother do her job.

After dinner we pointed the torch upwards again, hoping to see the kittens in the eaves of roof, but the mother genet had secreted them away – from us, and, we hope on this fine night, the eagle owl.

--Maria Henson
Volunteer, Desert and Delta Safaris