Urgent - Prevent poaching crisis due to COVID-19

Just two days before Christmas Nature has given us the most precious gift. Our orphaned Wildebeest “ FlowerPatch” now an adult, has become a new mother. Her tiny baby was born in the early morning close to my office window. Sometime later I took the new mother some wildlife pellets. As I stood near, the baby walked up to me and nuzzled my hand while calling softly. I do not encourage close encounters with our wildlife, but this was unexpected and my heart melted in a moment! 

The new baby and her mother have a long and somewhat poignant history: About 2 years ago, I fed Flower Patch's mother (the baby’s grandmother) for the last 3 months of her gestation as she was very old and rather thin. I did the feeding at 10pm at night when I called her to keep her separate from the rest of the herd. Then, Flower Patch was born. Sarah named her.  

Sadly, during a poaching event, (that was 2 years ago) the mother was snared and although we freed her, she succumbed to stress and did not survive. Thus Flower Patch who was still tiny, but just able to survive without milk, was reared by the Zebra. Stripy especially, took care of her.

Now a new chapter begins with the new tiny wildebeest. Many other wild babies are also being kept safe from poaching - thanks to your support we have not had any further incidences and during the festive season, our guards have worked diligently to keep our wildlife safe. We ourselves do patrols but it is with your help that we have managed to have such a successful outcome. 

Wishing all a wonderful 2023 and thanking you again for your support! 

Snares are a horrific and very cruel way to poach wildlife.

A noose is set with cable or wire by being attached to a tree and led up through the branches to hang over a path where wild animals walk. At times a snare could also be set low on the ground. The animal is noosed when walking under the tree and it panics and tries to run and pull loose. |The pain adds to the horror as the wire tightens and strangles it around its neck or as it pulls tighter over a limb or part of the animal's body. It is left there until the poacher returns and kills it with a hatchet. If it is not found, it dies from thirst or from being strangled. At times the animal’s family stays near and babies are especially traumatized. This is more horrible than can be imagined and it is a nightmare that is an ongoing concern and always on our minds to keep us aware.

To prevent poaching, we employ night guards that patrol and day guards that do snare checks during the day. We also check our outdoor security cameras that are placed in the bush at different locations. Our fence line is inspected for any intrusion and kept well maintained.

Your support is very important and greatly appreciated. Thankfully we have experienced no poaching recently, although reports of intrusions and poaching from surrounding properties are still being brought to our attention.

We can never relax our alertness and care for our precious animals. Every night and every day we keep watch.

Currently, we have on-hand fencing that is ready to be erected to replace our existing fence line that urgently needs to be redone. We would also like to link onto a satellite system to provide better day and night surveillance. A drone would also help tremendously and we would like to acquire one.

Please continue to help protect our wildlife and the biodiversity of our Reserve, which so many animals, birds, and life forms call home. 

Thank you for caring!

The great news is that our anti-poaching efforts have been sustained and we have not recently had any poaching incidences.

 Recently, however, one of our neighbouring Reserves was targeted and their electric fence was cut and goods were stolen. This brought to mind the ongoing challenge that we face to ensure the safety of our wild! We have now decided to install satellite surveillance over our Reserve. However, we would only be able to do this with your support.

The risk of poaching continues to be a constant concern and every night we are anxious about the safety of our wild. Especially on our mind are our darling zebra, Stripy, Tammy, and Milkyway our new zebra stallion. They keep watch over the young female wildebeest, Flower Patch, that they “adopted” when her mother was snared.

There are also other wildebeest, Franky the young bull and the territorial bull Ragnar who together with the zebra, come up to our homestead each evening. After visiting us they love to visit our guests at Leopard Walk Lodge.

However, all our wild animal species are precious and your support helps protect them! But we must do even more to completely ensure their safety!

• Please assist us to cover the cost of obtaining satellite surveillance so that we would be able to further ensure the safety of our precious wild animals.  

Thank you for caring and being champions of our Reserve and all its animals and biodiversity.

Dear friends,

The protection of our wild is possible only due to the support we receive:  Thank you! Your ongoing support is critically important, please support our 2022 efforts!  Every sector of our biodiversity has to be consistantly protected.

The following is some of the areas of support needed:

• Camera Traps to alert us of poachers in the high-risk areas
• Wages for our game guards and night watchmen
• Uniforms  (2 sets each of overalls, Jacket, boots, hats,  night torches 
• Radio
• Watches to track the game guards patrol
• Upgrade of security fencing
• A drone to enable observation of the reserve from above.

The past two years have been tremendously challenging. Poaching began to increase due to Covid and we urgently appealed for your support to prevent the horrific impact that poaching causes.

Especially stressful has been that many of our wild are so well known to us: Our Zebra, Stripy, Tammy and our new darling Milky Way come to meet us each evening at our home. Following them are 3 wildebeest: Ragnar the territorial bull, his calf Flower Patch. Flower Patch was orphaned when her mother was snared so she is watched by the zebra in particular Stripy who seems to see her as one of her own young!  Frank a young bull grazes separately as he is not yet ready to seriously challenge Ragnar!  

Many other wild are part of the wonderful biodiversity that we protect in our Sanctuary:  More than 30 species of mammal, over 350 species of birds, more than 126 species of amphibians, 170 species of trees. Hundreds of butterfly species and so much more. Everything is susceptible to being poached. Our biggest fear however is that an animal will be caught in a snare and die a horrifically painful death!

To keep our wildlife safe we have trusted wildlife guards who do daily patrols, we set up cam cameras in the bush, that alert us to any suspicious activity, and also do daily vehicle patrols. Checking for footprints, deciphering the cam information, and encouraging the watchmen to achieve 100% surveillance as well as keep a lookout for any suspicious leads outside of the property boundaries is all in a day's work!

We protect more than 30 various species of Red Data and Protected mammals. The red data mammal species are listed as being under threat of extinction should they not be protected:

In many ways, amphibians and frogs, in particular, are important indicators of the health of our environment and thus human health is intertwined with the health of frogs!   We are responsible for more than 126 various species of frogs that we protect in and around our Sanctuary.

There are also over 170 important tree species   (with the risk of being debarked or damaged should they be targeted for illegal traditional medicinal collection)  

It is only with the tremendous support you have all given us that we have been encouraged to continue protecting our very special haven for the wild. Please continue to help employ our wildlife guards and to protect our vulnerable wild! 

Thank you once again.

Wishing you all a safe, healthy, and compassionate 2022. 

Links:

• More about our work to protect our wild

Dear Friends,

How grateful we are to have increased our monitoring with 2 more outdoor cam cameras, to prevent poaching of our precious wildlife during this difficult time. Thank you for helping us obtain these essential outdoor auto-capture cameras!

Due to your support, we have been able to acquire two new cam cameras. One is a Scout Guard Bolly Black Flash and the other one is a UO Vision Black Flash, a  more advanced cam that also sends signals to our cell phone of any action videoed during the day or night. Both of these cams operate by capturing night movements without having a flash that may warn off anyone walking past. We see many different species on the cams and it's always exciting to see leopard during their night prowls. 

The cam cameras helped us identify a hyena that entered our property from a surrounding area, that unfortunately had a snare around her neck. We were deeply distressed to see how she was suffering. We immediately notified our Regional Conservation body. Ezemvulu KZN Wildlife. They brought in a predator cage trap and baited it to hopefully capture her by luring her into the cage. Unfortunately, this was unsuccessful. Subsequently, the cage was removed but the bait was left in place. Our new cams clearly showed the movement of hyenas that were trying to approach the bait through a hole that they had dug under the fence. A voice cry apparatus was then set up to hopefully attract the female that had a snare on her neck. To date unfortunately we continue trying to lure her, and updates will be submitted.

Preventing suffering caused by snares is extremely important for the humane management of the wild. Of course, it is important to prevent the animal from being snared before it happens. Therefore we also have night watchmen that patrol and keep poachers away. Any intrusion is reported immediately and thankfully we have had no incidences since the hyena.  These loyal animal lovers' well-being, wages, and jobs also help them to provide for a number of extended family members as well. This is greatly appreciated.

We would like to invite interested volunteers that may wish to assist with snare sweeps and the deciphering of the cam reports. In the meantime, we are managing this on a daily basis with my personal observations and checking program.

Without your support, we would not have the encouragement to continue doing our very best!

Heartfelt thanks once again!