…..where even though it’s winter the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the animals are still very active. For the last month and a half I have been volunteering with Wildlife Act, an organization that monitors key animals on various reserves in the KwaZulu-Natal province. These animals are either endangered, threatened, or are highly vulnerable to poaching. Amongst these animals you have lion, rhino, elephant, leopard, and wild dog. The five main reserves in which they work are Tembe Elephant park, Mkuze, Hluhluwe, Imfolozi, and Zemunga. On these reserves we work alongside Ezemvelo, a government organization established to manage the wildlife of South Africa. However Ezemvelo does not receive enough funding to do everything necessary for the conservation process.
This is where Wild life act comes in, with the help of various wildlife funds and volunteers they perform the vital act of monitoring the animals. This may not seem important, but without the information collected by wildlife act and it’s monitors the reserves could not be managed properly. So everyday it is our job to go out and look for these animals, in order to ensure that the reserves function cohesively.
Volunteering with a program like this is so much different then going on any old safari. Apart from directly contributing to the conservation process, it is the best way to see animals in this part of the world. Working along side the reserve staff affords us certain privileges that average visitors can’t acquire. Things like staying out after dark, having access to roads that only staff can go on, being able to leave your vehicle, and most importantly being able to track animals using a telemetry device.The telemetry is simply a receiver that is connected to an antenna, which picks up radio waves that are produced by collars that the animals wear. Using the telemetry is the main method of monitoring the animals. This alone gives you a much better chance of having encounters with the animals. I can’t count how many times we have found the animals walking on the road after we have tracked them down, and almost immediately after they leave a game viewer comes by with tourists. Also unlike a normal safari there are only five volunteers on each project at a given time, so it isn’t overly crowded. We also do our monitoring from the back of an open pickup truck, so it’s feels like you are so much closer with the animals. You always have the feeling that if an animal wanted to get into the bed with you it can. Most often this isn’t something to worry about, but it does make you more conscience of the animals that are around you. With this in mind we head out to look for the animals. Most days we would have two sessions, one starting at five am and the other around three in the afternoon. All the while writing down every sighting of important animals that we saw. This is how most of our days go.
The first reserve I was placed on was Mkuze, where our time was divided into monitoring the lions and wild dogs on the reserve. As well as assisting with a project called Panthera,which is a global camera trap survey of big cats. Lions had only recently been introduced into Mkuze, so their monitoring was quite important. We had to keep track of them everyday no matter what, to make sure they were acclimating to their new environment. This made for some amazing encounters. One of the nights we were monitoring them, there was a full moon so they were very visible. The sky was very clear over our heads, but off on the horizon there was a massive lightning storm. So while we were observing the lions, lighting was flashing almost continuously. Another day we were supposed to find the coalition, two males, because there collars were getting too small. We had tracked them to a management road that leads to the reserves shooting range. I was using the telemetry as we drove down the road to figure out where to stop, and the signal was very strong straight I front of us. Then all of a sudden I noticed the lion sitting behind a bush, I wanted to yell and tell her to stop. But you are never supposed to make a lot of noise around a lion, and she was moving to fast for me to tell her in time. So we nearly ran him over, causing him to jump up. After that we all stayed very still hoping that he wouldn’t charge us. After about a minute he laid back down, then we slowly backed the car up and watched him. Within minutes he started calling out to the other male lion with a deep and primal call that shakes you to your very core. These were probably our two best encounters with lions. Much of our other time was spent driving around the reserve to camera trap sights, where we had to download pictures off of cameras. Which sounds very dull, but every so often it had it’s thrills. One day while we were in the middle of downloading, a male elephant came out of the bushes about thirty meters from us. So we all quickly jumped back into the car and stayed very quiet. Not two minutes after that a older much larger male came out of the bush a meter from the car. After about twenty minutes we were able to finally leave. That was one of the more intense days of collect data. Overall Mkuze was a very good experience, and I absolutely love my monitors and fellow volunteers.
Imfolozi was my next stop. This reserve was very different from Mkuze, it has far less thick bush and has many more mountains. So far the camp on this reserve has been my favorite. It sits on top of a hill overlooking a valley, with a river flowing to one side. Although we didn’t see any, our monitor told us that this is where they have seen the most black rhinos. On this reserve we mainly focused on the wild dogs, because there were so many more. Almost four times as many as on Mkuze. Monitoring the dogs full time required a lot more work then the lions. The dogs are much more active then the lions, so they move around more and much faster then the lions. It was very frustrating at times, because we would get signal that they are moving. Many times is would be very close, but then almost immediately the signal would disappear. One pack that we were tracking was especially annoying, for three days that stayed in a thicket that we couldn’t get to. We were always able to get signal for them but we never saw them. Finally after days of waiting they got very close to the road, a bit down the road from where we were. So we drove down the road to try and catch them at a corner. Once at that corner we ran into a journey of fifteen giraffes. So we stopped and took some picture of the giraffe. While we were doing that the pack came out onto the road, and started taunting the giraffe. An interaction such as this is very uncommon, so for us it was a treat to see this. However not all the dogs were hard to find. One pack of dogs was in the reserves boma, which is basically a cage that animals can be kept in if they are being transferred to another reserve. Although, unlike at zoos, it is more just a fence around the natural habitat of the reserve. Unfortunately the boma is located on another packs territory. So the pack on the outside would hang around the boma, trying to fight with the dogs on the inside. This made it easy for us to find the pack, but it created a few problems that we ended up having to deal with. The positive side of this though is that because the dogs were in there, we had to check on them everyday. Then every few days a field ranger would kill an impala for us, and we would drive it into the boma and feed it to the dogs. To some this might seem a bit much, but I find it interesting to see how animals behave in those kinds of situations. Even though our main focus was the dogs, we were able to see so much wildlife. In the first twenty four hours alone we saw the magnificent 8, which includes lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino, leopard, hyena, cheetah, and wild dog. A feat like that is quite prodigious, and was the first time it had ever happened that quickly for our monitor. We were later informed that this is due to the fact that during the winter it gets very dry, and in Imfolozi the only real consistent source of water is the river. In turn this means all the animals stay fairly close so that they can drink. Imfolozi was so unique and beautiful, it was by far my most favorite reserve thus far.
Now I am in Tembe, which is located directly on the boarder of Mozambique. It was originally created by the communities in the surrounding area, as a way to keep from being terrorized by the elephants that migrated from Mozambique. So in order to protect the people they acquired the land, and fenced it on three sides. Leaving the boarder open, allowing the elephants to slowly move into the park. Then after six years they closed the other side, effectively creating the Tembe elephant park. Of all the other parks this one is truly the most unique, it is home to a forrest that is completely on top of sand. Making it one of the most unique habitats in the world. Here we are supposed to be diving our time equally between monitoring the lions, and the elephants. However this week has been a bit hectic, and not at all like normal. Both the vehicles that we are supposed to be using are in the shop at the moment. On top of that we had to do a lion call up. This is when we have to dart the lions in order to do something with them, whether that’s changing their collars or helping them cuz they are sick. In this case they had been sold to another reserve, and needed to be transported. So what we ended up having to do was clear an area so that we could see the lions. Then we had to put bait in the area, and play a recording of a dying buffalo. Once the lions came to eat the bait, they were darted by a vet. After they had fallen asleep, we lifted them onto the back of pick ups and moved them the the trailer that the buyers had brought. This is probably the only time I will have been able to touch a lion in my life. Not much else has happened here yet.
I have enjoyed every minute of being out here in the bush. Although not every moment is exciting, just being out in nature makes me happy. I’m also very happy that I can contribute to the desperately needed conservation of our planet.
That’s all for now
-Scott mill