Tour Guide, Cape Town, South Africa
| 2 mins read
Kim Wolhuter is one of my bush heroes. His grandfather was Harry Wolhuter, one of the first wardens in the Kruger Park. Harry Wolhuter was someone I looked up to as a kid. I grew up reading his memoirs. On one occasion Harry was attacked by a lion and narrowly survived by stabbing it in the heart with his bush knife. It's real Boy's Own stuff. That's Kim's ancestry.
I've known Kim for 20 years and was privileged to spend a few days with him recently at Pamushana in Botswana. Kim is a documentary maker who has filmed some of the most astonishingly intimate portraits of animals in the wild.
He has his own way of habituating animals to his presence, which allows him to show sides of them you would never expect.
When he was making a film about hyena, he spent months living with them in the bush, running on foot with them when they hunted. He was shoulder to shoulder with them and they accepted him. He was virtually one of the pack. He's done the same thing with wild dogs and now he's filming cheetah.
I took this picture of him last month with a hyena. It's moment that captures the extraordinary rapport Kim has with them. It's a product of years spent with animals and not something that anyone should try to emulate.
The broader message of his work is about the complexity of animal behaviour. If there was one thing I'd like our guests to know, it's that there's nothing to be frightened of in the bush. Healthy respect, sure. But the predominant feelings on safari ought to be insight and wonder. And that's what Kim's work has in spades!