Paul Kirk When guests at the Penwarn Country Lodge sit down for mid-afternoon tea, they’re joined by the wildlife. A caracal one of Africa’s smallest wild cats can be seen near the hotel door eating his dog pellets, while inside a full-grown otter is fast asleep in a dark spot of the bar. It seems only the children are wild at Penwarn in the Underberg; the animals are quite domesticated. Nimrod the otter took up lodging at Penwarn years ago. While the owner and his friends were out with their springer spaniel, Nimrod then only a few months old decided to attack the dog. Sadly, Nimrod was still only a babe and no match for the spaniel. The otter’s pelvis was broken and the plucky little animal was not only in great pain, but also immobile. Bruce and Peta Parker had no real option but to nurse Nimrod back to health at their home. It did not take too long before Nimrod was fit to be returned to the wild. But while he may have been fit, he was hardly willing. On an almost daily basis Bruce took Nimrod to a dam outside the lodge, and steadfastly Nimrod refused to listen to the call of the wild. “I don’t think he fancied the self-catering option,” laughs Bruce. Nimrod has grown to like pork sausages, fried trout and roast meat. While he can catch fish (and ate a frog last weekend) he prefers his food brought to him. And if the food is not forthcoming or to his liking he has been known to help himself from the fridge, which he can open. Like all otters Nimrod likes to swim but in winter he far prefers hopping into Peta’s bath. Says Bruce: “He can be a bit of a problem in the lake, especially if people are in the canoes. Nimrod likes to swim out to them, then jump in. The thing is that apart from being sopping wet he often overturns them, spilling everyone into the water.” Nimrod enjoys being fed by guests but his throne is not secure. Recently he has had to make space for another house guest a caracal. Kit and his sister were found in a drain pipe near the lodge. His mother had been killed and he was too young to feed himself. Caracal are regarded as vermin by farmers and poisoned, trapped and shot. But Kit is more refined than most caracal. Like Nimrod, he has also resisted the call of the wild. His sister is being rehabilitated for release into the wild, but Kit is happier with people. Kit loves snoozing with the Parkers’ dogs under the stairway. He eats the same food as Nimrod as long as it consists largely of meat. At only four months’ old, Kit is about the size of a spaniel. He won’t grow much bigger, but will get quite a bit heavier, to around 20kg. He looks very much like a very large domestic cat, apart from the tufts of hair at the tips of his ears. His hair is silky smooth and, while he behaves like a dog, he does not like getting dirty which is understandable as, like a domestic cat, he cleans himself with his own tongue. Like Nimrod, Kit is fast becoming a tourist attraction in the area. But, unlike Nimrod, Kit does not yet have his own Internet website only his own dog bowl for his pellets. And while he is much better behaved than some of the guests’ children, Kit does have some quirks. He loves tripping up children when they run around the lodge’s grounds.
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