Bush Babies - Living and loving in the African Bush

Staring up at the sky, sun flickering through the leaves of the tree, grass between her toes a little girl lies and dreams of meeting her prince charming and having him sweep her off her feet. They will go on adventures and conquer the world together, one booking at a time.

Romantic relationships in the workplace are for the most part a taboo in many industries, some companies go so far as including clauses against relationships in their employment contracts. In the safari, hospitality and tourism industry, however, is seems to be somewhat of a benefit and in cases a requirement.

The tourism industry, working in lodges and hospitality or being a guide or tracker is not an easy lifestyle. Working odd hours and in cycles of 6 weeks on 2 weeks off or whatever may suite the lodge needs best, working in rural areas constantly surrounded by the same people or in some cases no people and far from the reach of “civilization”, it takes a very specific type of person to be able to survive in these circumstances, and even more so to begin a relationship with someone you work with, potentially marrying and even starting a family!

Julie Brand was one of these girls. After deciding to make a change and follow a dream she packed up to leave the UK and moved to Africa where she would eventually meet her future husband, at the local pub and not long after marry him! Living in a handmade cabin for a while they would eventually decide to start trying for kids. They now have two boys and are taking it day by day as they push on at their Quatermains 1920 Safari Camp, a tented camp in Amakhala Game reserve.

Making a decision like this is not easy when you live and work in the bush, yet for those of us who do, it’s actually really simple. Bush life is an easy life if you are programmed that way, so adapting to life with kids comes naturally.

Some couples choose not to have kids. This may be because it allows them more freedom of movement in order to travel or move from one lodge to the next, others because they are simply content with the way things are or maybe because it’s just a personal preference. However, for the moms who do choose to go on that great adventure with their little and loved ones it’s a long road ahead.

Living and loving in the bush is a great adventure and for a child the adventure is never ending. You

are taught life skills by watching animals interact with each other and have experiences many other children never would.

Tippi and Abu - Copyright Tippi Degre

Tippi Degré was one of these children whose adventure became world famous and her story has been published in a novel, Tippi My book of Africa. As a small girl she travelled Africa with her photographer/filmmaker parents who worked in the bush and allowed her the freedom to interact with the animals and local people of all cultures. This broadened her mind and gave her a great understanding of and empathy towards the minds of animals. In her story she tells of how she could talk to the animals with her mind and about her brother Abu, the elephant.

Growing up in the bush allows children a freedom to grow and expand their minds far beyond what a “normal” school system would allow. It allows them to connect with their inner selves and learn from nature what the human impact is.

Falling in love and starting a family in the bush is by no means easy and you are faced with many challenges, both physically and emotionally. Being able to ensure the health of your child while you are hundreds of kilometers from a hospital, or deciding if you are to send your kids to school, which will ultimately be a boarding school limiting your contact with them or to keep them with you in the bush and possibly follow some sort of home-schooling. At the end of the day each mother has to decide for herself what will be the best for her family and how she will climb the mountain ahead of her. 

I personally believe that I will one day raise my kids in the bush with me. Teaching them from Nature and ensuring they carry the principles they learn here with them wherever they may go in life. Growing up in the bush I believe they will be filled with compassion and empathy, even having seen the destruction and savagery that is a part of everyday life in Africa.

Please follow me on Twitter and Instagram via the links below to see the world from my perspective, with a foot in the door.

https://twitter.com/BiancaBothab211

https://www.instagram.com/aconservationistsjourney/

Read my scholarship articles for The WOMA at the links below:

The WOMA Scholarship: Conservationista by Bianca Botha



To visit or donate to my crowdfunding page please follow the link below! Thank you for your support!

US, UK and South Africa: 

Back-a-Buddy Conservation study fund

Conservationista - Article 1 for The WOMA scholarship

Bianca Botha with the girls from a small village during an outreach 

Conservationîsta

She wakes up an hour before sunrise, straps on her boots and a warm jacket to shield her from the icy winter wind of these early mornings. She loads the cruiser and trailer with bails of blue buffalo grass and sleeves of lusern. She’s off to feed the buffalo, sable, kudu, giraffe and all the other species on the ranch. After feeding as the sun begins to rise she drives patrol around the farm to check the water points and for signs of poachers. Not a week ago two more rhino were slaughtered on her ranch and in the fight she had wounded one of the culprits with a perfect shot to the right leg. He was captured but his accomplices managed to escape and will no doubt return for the last few rhino remaining. She will not let them get her rhinos, which are akin to her own children on this ranch where she faces the elements and dangers of rural living daily, alone.

When a ranch, game farm, conservationist or ranger is mentioned in conversation, the first image in the mind is a strong burly man in Khaki wrestling a lion or driving his land cruiser or walking around with his big gun on a hike or hunting safari. This view has made it very difficult for women to break through in the industry, even though they have always been there. There has recently been a rise in the amount of women taking on careers on ranches and game reserves. Not as the general admin or hospitality positions as is often thought, but as Ranch and Reserve managers. They work down in the dirt with the rest of their crew. Darting and catching game, wrestling them to the ground to ensure safe capture and that they do not injure themselves. They ensure game populations do not exceed the carrying capacity of available land by taking hunters out on hunting safaris. They are mechanics, builders, game wardens, anti poaching team members, skilled in archery and shooting with rifles, they are professional hunters and outfitters, they are the women in conservation, they are Conservationistas.

Elmarie and Ansomie Minnaar of Hunters-Rock Safaris and outfitters, 

a mother and daughter dream team

Conservation is a career path that fills every niche. There are admin workers, farmers, hunters, vets, ecologists, biologists and the list goes on. Women fit into this career like a cold hand into a glove. They have compassion, caring, stamina, strong wills and work just as hard as any man. Most importantly women can multitask, making caring for clients and all other hospitality duties a breeze to fit into the odd hours of taking clients out for a hunt and entertaining them between shifts.

Many of these women may not even consider themselves to be conservationists but their jobs play a vital role in the conservation of African wildlife and the environment as a whole.

An African rock python removed from one of the Lodge venues

A struggle to get the python out of the pipe
in which in sought to escape capture

Working in the bush of Africa is no joke and you are always faced with challenges. When clients arrive there may be a snake in the room and you will need to remove it, using the opportunity to educate your guests about venomous snakes etc, or you may have poachers; which are always heavily armed, usually with AK47s used to kill rhino and elephant, at which your workplace becomes a warzone and you and your team the meagre defending force facing life or death. The women on the ranches in Africa fill these positions gladly and love every minute of what they do.

An important part of conservation is working with the community around you. Many ranches employ the rural people on their farms in a way to discourage poaching and educate them on the importance of protecting the wildlife in the area. 

A hunted wildebeest is recovered after tracking in the dark

Other ranches will do outreach, providing the rural homesteads and villages with meat from hunts or basics such as milliemeal and toiletries bought with profits from hunts. This encourages the villagers to report persons they suspect of poaching or any news of planned farm attacks.

 The female ranch managers have great success in these projects because they are viewed as caretakers by the villagers. This does however pose some problems as well. When wanting to distribute meat or supplies to the villagers one must often first talk to the chief, who due to their cultural beliefs, do not talk to women. You also need to be careful when entering their villages, as looking a man in the eye, wearing pants, or not having your head covered may be a great disrespect depending on their culture.

Being a woman in this industry is not easy. You are often looked down upon, denied a promotion or raise or even laughed off at a job interview as you are not taken seriously, regardless of your qualifications or experience. There are a few of us however, who are just as stubborn as any man and stick it through, fight the fight and earn the respect we deserve. We excel and show the world that a game ranch is just as much a woman’s place as a mans. 

Bianca supports the head of an impala ewe
which has been darted for translocation,
Butch (Jack Russel) keeping an eye on her vitals. 

South Africa now has its first all female Anti-poaching squad, the Black Mambas, whose exclusive duty is to patrol and protect the rhinos and elephants on specific reserves in the Limpopo province. From the establishment of this team the presence of snares and attempted poaching has decreased significantly more than any of the previous projects. These women are unarmed spending their time in the reserves alongside all the wild animals and taking their skills and experience to the schools and communities around them, fighting the war on poaching through monitoring, community building and education.

Women play a vital role in the preservation of the African environment. You need only look at the growth in awareness campaigns for STEM with the hash tag #womeninscience and the history of great female scientists, conservation biologists and film makers to see how important women are in conservation and how great the need is or their work to be recognised.

A young Vervet monkey rescued from being a pet
is cared for to regain strength before being taken
to the Vervet rehabilitation centre.

There are the greats; Joyce Poole, Terri Irwin, Rachel Carson and of course Jane Goodall who we all know so well and praise their work and books and films, however, we must not forget the work of the ladies on the ground in Africa. Their names are not known and their faces are not on newspapers or in scientific journals, but they put food in the mouths of hundreds of people in the villages around their farms, they employ and train thousands more to uplift the community and protect the environment, and they put themselves in the frontlines to save the animals they care for 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

Bianca and Jan, the rescued vervet monkey.

Women in conservation, the hunters and outfitters, the lodge managers, the farm labourers and so on may not be the first thing one thinks about when conservation is a topic of discussion, but they are the women from all cultures, ages and backgrounds, the mortar that holds the entire industry together and key element to successful conservation.

[ This is the full article of the article Published on 19 April 2018 by The WOMA. I would like to thank The WOMA and the wonderful women working there for the amazing opportunity they have given me as the scholarship recipient for 2017. Please visit and support this wonderful community of women here: The WOMA . See also the link to my article as published in the links below. ]

Please follow me on twitter and Instagram via the links below to see the world from my perspective, with a foot in the door.

https://twitter.com/BiancaBothab211

https://www.instagram.com/aconservationistsjourney/

Read my scholarship articles for The WOMA at the links below:

The WOMA Scholarship : Conservationista by Bianca Botha



To visit or donate to my crowdfunding page please follow the link below! Thank you for your support!

US, UK and South Africa: 

Back-a-Buddy Conservation study fund

Snare Aware

Following on my previous post "Snare Scare" , I wanted to do a follow up on what more can and is being done with regards to the snaring problem beautiful South Africa and her wildlife are facing.

In my previous post I spoke about the S.N.A.R.E project run by the KaiNav Conservation Foundation and how they use the wires recovered from their expeditions to create Snare Art . Thereby creating income for rural communities as well as producing a profit which funds further expeditions and other conservation projects.

Conservation foundations are in abundance, each doing their part in attempts to preserve, conserve and protect our natural Fauna and Flora. However many foundations, associations etc there may be, they never seem to be enough. That is where the citizen conservationist comes in. Everyday average individuals doing their part in helping rangers, conservationists, parks, conservancies and all the rest to achieve their goals in the conservation of their area. Lize Bester is one of those people, and through the simple use of  a little bit of Facebook savvy and a caring community she has recruited many more.

Two years ago today, 6 October 2015, Lize created the group Enough is enough describing it as a group of individuals who have had enough of seeing the wonderful wildlife of our country being senselessly slaughtered and butchered in the most painful and horrendous of manners, snaring. It is a group focused on a call to action against snaring, for each citizen to do their part to assist the rangers in the fight against poachers and the cruel systems they use.

The group currently has 794 members from around the globe and is administrated by 3 dedicated individuals who ensure that current updates are posted as soon as they come in and that no post is missed as animals lives are in danger and time is of essence!

Members of the group will post their own photos as they see animals entangled or caught in a snare and report the location and time of the sighting, this information is then passed on to the rangers and they fall into action to locate the animal and attempt to remove the snare.

Snares are indiscriminate and any animal could get caught in them. Some animals ,such as the wild dog post alongside, are collared animals and part of a research project. These projects aim to gain insight in the movements, behaviours, population sizes and many other factors in the lives of the selected members. This assists conservationists in making decisions and planning for the future of these animals and their species. When project animals are killed by snares the projects are retarded and set back a great deal with the incredible loss of data.

It is imperative to the research teams involved to try by all means to keep the members alive, this group is doing just that by responding and updating snared animal sightings constantly.









The group also takes their work another step further by posting other relevant information that may curb negative stigma around the work rangers do, conservation efforts against poaching and the general state of our National parks. A short while ago a dead elephant was seen in the Kruger National park and it was noted that the tusks had been removed. The fast response of the team to report on the group that the elephant had in fact died of natural causes and that the tusks were removed by a section ranger may have spared the park and nation from horrible tourist reviews and rumours about poaching in the park.

The rangers greatly appreciate the work done by everyday citizens and visitors to the park. They are unable to be everywhere at once and there is always so much work to be done, with the extra million eyes in the park at any given time it makes the tedious task of locating captured animals in the vast area of the park so much easier and rangers response time so much faster.

In the past 5 years there have been over 1000 rhinos poached in South Africa annually, and over 30 elephants in the Kruger
National Park alone between January and June 2017.

The incredible amount of poaching in this country has even lead to theories about the ivory and rhino horn trade funding terrorism, a very scary thought.





However, there seems to be hope in the future as a result of UK officials making a great decision, as in a report by The Guardian, to stop their trade in ivory. The UK is the biggest exporter of legal ivory and believe that by shutting down their trade they may impact the illegal laundering of illegal ivory and assist in the fight against elephant poaching.

Enough is enough has had such a major impact that the group has even been featured in an article in the local newspaper Laevelder by environmental journalist Mariana Balt.

This helps further in the awareness roll of the group and any other group or person doing something similar. By making the public and visitors to national parks aware of the need for action, more and more people are likely to get involved, which will make it increasingly difficult for poachers to get what they want and be a huge discouragement to them to put up any more snares.

The group also shares happiness with its members and any person involved in the sighting, safe capture and snare removal of an affected animal. Recently a female lion was seen with a gaping wound and snare around her neck. The visitors to the park, Enough is Enough admins and park rangers sprang into action. With the constant sighting reports from the visitors and tourists the rangers were able to find the lioness, affectionately called Lucy, dart her and successfully remove the snare. After her procedure another member of the group sent in his image of her looking to have a new lease on life and to be fit and well on her way to recovery. She then become known as Lucky Lucy.

This is one of the wonderful posts shared by the group and members would comment and post recent sightings and how glad they were that she is going to be alright.

She is one of the lucky ones. Not all animals will be as lucky as she is.

For anyone wanting to join the group or take part in assisting in this battle please take note of the following information posted by Lize to have a better understanding of how it all works:

Information needed: 

-Precise date and time of sighting  -What type of animal was seen with snare? -Where on the animal is the snare situated: neck, left hind leg etc?-The road number you spotted the animal on, the distance from the closest or distance from the next turn-off (the road number of the turn-off)-Please take photos of the animal with snare. A photo must be available to be sent by message, take one with your cellphone as well.- A GPS reading of the latest location of the snared animal would be perfect!- It would be ideal if someone can keep the animal in sight and someone else can drive off to make the phone call or send a message with details.
The Park Officials are not always readily available and there are a few actions to be taken sometimes before the call goes to 'despatch'.

The process:

As per arrangement with the Park Officials, the message or phone call must be made to me. [number available on the group] (We also have a whatsapp group for those who want to become involved in the day to day of this group. It's a bit more personal). 

I give the case and details personally through to the coordinator of all the services in the Park. She makes sure that it's been registered at the Joint Operational Centre in the Park. The message goes through to the Rangers, the SANDF, the SAPS and the Veterinary Services in the area where the animal with the snare was reported. We make sure everyone in the vicinity knows and keep an eye open for the ensnared animal. What we need to get everything going are all the relevant details and the photo. If someone can keep an eye on the animal with the snare, and someone else can call for help, the better and easier to find the animal. If the animal is moving, please take note of the place last seen and the direction the animal moved off.

The Enough is Enough-group keeps the statistics of all the animals reported and provide it to the Park officials. We also keep an eye on later sightings to confirm that the same animal is not reported as a new case, the duplication of reports frustrates the rangers a lot. This is the arrangement made between this group and the Park officials. We made sure it worked in a smaller group before we went public, it worked perfectly. We already made a difference in a few animal's lives.

Education is key. The more we can spread the word and educate people about this situation the more people will be able to stand up and do something about it, even if it is just a post on Facebook. A single post can save a life.

Please follow me on twitter and Instagram via the links below to see the world from my perspective, with a foot in the door.

https://twitter.com/BiancaBothab211

https://www.instagram.com/aconservationistsjourney/

Read my scholarship articles for The WOMA at the links below:

The WOMA Scholarship : Conservationista by Bianca Botha

To visit or donate to my crowdfunding page please follow the link below! Thank you for your support!

US, UK and South Africa: 

Back-a-Buddy Conservation study fund

Snare Scare

Poverty in South Africa has reached an all time high, with over 50% of the population living in poverty and well below the breadline. The large majority of these people live in rural areas, are unemployed and are not offered much, if any, assistance from the government. These people need to eat, so they will find ways and means to do so.

One of the most common ways is to snare. A snare is a wire or nylon, or similar, type line or cord which is tied with a slip knot in a noose type fashion. These snares are placed in high traffic areas, over game paths or in high activity fields etc, where an animal would have their head or limbs caught in the line. As the animal moves or struggles the noose tightens, with the other end securely fastened to a tree or some permanent feature the animal will be caught and most certainly die if not discovered in time. The snares are not always fastened well enough to the tree or branch resulting in the possibility of larger animals being caught in the snare noose, but managing to break free, leaving the wire around their head, neck or limbs. This often results in the animal suffering from gaping wounds that are unable to heal due to the constant friction from the still attached snare. These animals will suffer for long periods of time until they succumb from infection or even blood from the open wounds.

The KaiNav Conservation Foundation removes a snare from a zebra after the zebra was seen walking with the wire and gaping wound on its neck.

Snaring has become one of the most popular ways to generate an income or simply put food on the table. With the weakening economy it has also become the only way to do so for many South Africans. Snares are used to capture animals for meat and for resale of meat or Bushmeat products.


Rural communities in South Africa are full with traditional beliefs and therefore the need for traditional healers and their "muti" is high. "Muti" is any form of traditional medicine or tonic used for a specific purpose. There are muti's for the common cold, erectile dysfunction, liars, a cheating spouse, financial problems and the list goes on. These muti's are made with naturally occurring plants and animals or animal parts, thereby creating the demand and snaring becomes the means.

A snare is a non-selective means of capturing an animal, the poacher who places the snare has no means of deciding which animal or type of animal will get caught. Most often, if the animal caught is one of which they do not want or can not use the meat or other parts the carcass will simply be discarded. However, there are those who take advantage of any animal caught and supply what they can to the traditional healers.

 Snares can be found throughout South Africa, with the majority being in or around domestic farms or Private game ranches. Private landowners have a great problem with snaring. They are usually game breeders or have some sort of rare game on the ranch. The snares often capture or injure their expensive breeding stock so as a preventative measure many ranch owners hire private security to patrol and remove any snares found. They are not always successful but it does form a deterrent from their land. Other landowners or domestic farmers are turning to dogs to patrol at night to catch and prevent anyone putting up snares.

Very little official research has been done on snare hot spots, type of snares being used etc making it difficult to proactively work against snaring.

 The KaiNav Conservation foundation has been running the S.N.A.R.E program for some time. With a group of volunteers they visit areas and reserves with known snaring problems. They spend the day or weekend walking through thick brush to find and remove snares as well as record data about these snares. From this research they hope to find ways to proactively fight the snaring problem this country and its natural environment faces.

The foundation is hoping to spread the work they do further throughout the country and to do this they require funding. The ever elusive factor in conservation. Funding has and always will be a problem for conservationists as people simply do not understand the importance of the work being done. There will always be something more important, like sport and conservationists will need to continue finding creative ways to raise the funds needed.



 The KaiNav foundation, however, have found their own way to raise much needed funds. By using the very snares which cause so much devastation and harm to the environment and turning them into beautiful works of art that will fund the great work they do, as well as creating income for the poverty stricken people of this beautiful country.

The wires removed during the S.N.A.R.E expeditions are given to local rural artists who transform the snares into beautiful African animals and other works. These are then tagged with a Snare Art tag and sold to raise much needed funds. Snare Art has proven to be a huge success and some works have even gone to their new homes in Dubai and the USA!

For more information on the KaiNav conservation foundation, The S.N.A.R.E initiative and other projects please visit the website https://www.kainavconservation.org/ or follow them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kainavconservation/

You can also donate to the foundation via the following link https://www.kainavconservation.org/donate

The work they are doing is vitally important in collecting enough data to be able to find and implement proactive and effective snare management protocol for South African Farmers and breeders. Any and all support is greatly appreciated and needed!

 The S.N.A.R.E initiative, by the KaiNav Conservation foundation.

All video footage and images courtesy of The KaiNav Conservation Foundation

Please follow me on twitter and Instagram via the links below to see the world from my perspective, with a foot in the door.

https://twitter.com/BiancaBothab211

https://www.instagram.com/aconservationistsjourney/

Read my scholarship articles for The WOMA at the links below:

The WOMA Scholarship : Conservationista by Bianca Botha

To visit or donate to my crowdfunding page please follow the link below! Thank you for your support!

US, UK and South Africa: 

Back-a-Buddy Conservation study fund

Project Clean Up part one

The three R's, one of the most important principles in today's commercialised and convenience driven life, Reduce, reuse and recycle!

In recent years the "Go Green" movement has taken the world by storm, celebrities everywhere are promoting green living, sustainable energy and everything that comes with it. All this via the glitz and glamour of the silver screen, social media and very publicised platforms. Its not often you'd catch one of the top speakers for this movement knee deep in in the very problem they are talking about, much less if there are no cameras involved.

They spew "facts" and data and scientific findings, all which are great and need to be shared, but have they ever been on the ground, seen with their own eyes and helped with their own hands to do anything about it. Yes the argument can be made that they have changed their lifestyles and influenced others to follow suite, that they have donated or raised large amounts of much needed funding towards these "save the world" causes, but it that enough?

At least they are talking about it, right?

Let's get into the nitty gritty of it, what things are really like in the depths of 3rd world Africa where the "Go Green" funding and silver tongues from foreign lands don't reach, of have very much effect.

First we need to understand where and why the problem comes from, the causes are many. Africa is a continent ripe with scars and history of colonisation by countries all over the world. Netherlands, England, Spain, France and many others all sent their ships over the years to claim and colonise land in Africa. This resulted in the rich and sometimes confused cultures which have developed over time. Cultures which to this day still believe in the traditions of old, which are as alive today as they were in the 1600's, and also flourish with new beliefs and traditions as influenced by the relative country of colonisation of a specific area. The people have merged, creating the need for a completely new method of communication to convey messages about global warming, recycling etc. In these cultures you find groups who do not believe in today's education, and refuse to educate their children in "Western" schools, believing in having many uneducated children, so if one or more were to die there would always be some left to care for them in their old age, rather than having one well educated child who would be able to care for them for a much longer period of time. Yet all these same people will have the latest smartphones, Dstv, laptops at their disposal. The difficulty in Africa, is the African mindset, the biggest communication barrier faced by educators and conservationists on a daily basis, making it extremely difficult to get the message across about why conservation, anti-poaching and RECYCLING are so vitally important.

The next most prominent cause is the poor developed social understanding or acceptance of the need to reduce, reuse and recycle. This world has become consumed in a lifestyle of ease and accessibility, cheap foods, cheap products all available as easily as possible and kept cheap with cheap packaging. Non recyclable, toxic and non biodegradable packaging. In a world filled with "want want want" and "need need need" no time is given for the consumer to contemplate the repercussions of this 1 second decision they have been so colourfully led to with song and dance on the silver screen.

Beautiful women caressing an ice-cream with their tongues and giving full visual explanation of what to do with said ice-cream yet it's never shown what is done with the wrapper. The human condition is bent and shaped by big companies who just want to sell sell sell and manipulate the people with their instinctive needs of sexual gratification, and need for food to create a super product that seemingly satisfies all needs and shows absolute disregard to the reality of the world we actually live in in which ice-creams do not come attached to a nearly naked woman but are in fact wrapped in a tiny piece of seemingly insignificant plastic which is flung out the car window as the consumer searches for his creamy lady on a stick. No lady to be found. The wrapper, however, is found. Countless animals not only dying due to the ingestion of plastic and non recyclables but suffering. Not only the animals but the earth as well. Rivers choking on waste dumped down their banks, oceans smothered in plastic, suffocating each and every living organism under the surface.

So it's clear to see how through media and commercialisation, partnered with the "Hollywood" idealisation and 3rd world uneducated reality creates quite a significant problem in the attempt to fight pollution and waste dumping in Africa. 

As conservationists we do what we can to curb this problem. To educate, to clean, to reduce, reuse and recycle what we can in and with our local communities. We try to show them that there is money to be made from recycling, often the best way to get them to start, but the effort in collecting becomes too much for some and they soon give up. Its a never ending cycle, educate the people, get then excited and incentivised to start, try keep them going, once they've given up, group the next lot and do it all again.

Two years ago, we started project clean up at Nimeng. This was a project where myself and the rangers divided the land up into a number of zones and over the next three months would move through these sections and remove any and all waste from the ranch.

Please follow me on twitter and Instagram via the links below to see the world from my perspective, with a foot in the door.

https://twitter.com/BiancaBothab211

https://www.instagram.com/bothab211/?hl=en

Read my scholarship articles for The WOMA at the links below:

The WOMA Scholarship : Conservationista by Bianca Botha

To visit or donate to my crowdfunding page please follow the link below! Thank you for your support!

US, UK and South Africa: 

Back-a-Buddy Conservation study fund

Hyena Diaries Part two

A month had passed since the release of Roxy, a young female brown hyena caught on a neighbouring farm. By all evidence of tracks and scat found she was doing well and had adapted to her new home. Which was a good sign telling us not only our fences were in good enough condition to keep her inside but that the living conditions were ideal and good enough for her to make a fast transition to her new surroundings. A good sign for any future release attempts. And it wasn't long before we had the chance for just that.

My friend called again and said another hyena had been captured on the same farm as previously, again the owner did not want to shoot or destroy the animal and we were asked if we could take on another one. Again I instantly agreed and began to plan where we would release the new hyena. We would not be able to release it in the same area as the previous one as there are now 2 known resident hyenas in the Trekpad camp, and with an area of only around 400Ha it would be too small to attempt to successfully introduce another member.

I opted for the second and around 2300Ha area of land we have on the other side of the R523, also a beautiful area with plenty of shrub and desert like areas in which the hyena would almost certainly find a great place to den in no time. 

I jumped on an available ATV and rushed through to the service gate across the road, waiting to hail the drop off vehicle and release time in. I saw them coming over the hill and opened the gate, ensuring no time is wasted to get the animal into the field and released. Once we were all in I drove ahead and lead the convoy into the old plantations which were surrounded by great brush and sandy hills for the hyena to explore. This area is also full of small and relatively easily hunted animals, as well as carrion and bone from the old vulture restaurant we used to run in that area.

Once we reached the drop off location I again signalled for the truck to turn with the back toward the shrubbery, as the hyena would instinctively run towards cover as soon as the gate is opened and we would then be able to all remain safely behind its path on or in the truck.

I managed to get a good look at the hyena before the release, clearly able to see the injuries it sustained from attempts to escape the cage. The skin on the upper part of the muzzle had been scraped of and it was bleeding in the mouth from attempts at biting through the iron bars of the cage. This animal was also clearly more distressed than the previous one as we were unable to cover the cage with tarp during transit which would have kept it a little more calm. The cage was also significantly larger than the back of the truck that was available for the move. This created the problem that the animals legs could fall through the bars at the end of the cage and it could break its legs. Brooms and other items were used to create temporary bars to keep the animal in the back section of the cage until we could release it.

Before the release we needed to place metal sheets inside the cage in order for the animal to have something to step one when exiting the cage for the same reason mentioned above. He was not happy with our attempts to keep him back while my friend put the sheets in, the cage door slightly lifted. He paced in small circles at the rear end of the cage, growling at us, getting more and more irate as the seconds passed.

Finally everything was in place and we could open the cage door. We all moved to the front of the truck and ensured we were well out of reach should the animal turn around and decide not to run to cover.

The door was raised. He bolted out the door and ran straight for cover as we had hoped.

Another successful release.

He wandered around the edge of the shrub area, taking in the new scents. We watched him for about 5 minutes and decided he was content in the new surroundings and would wonder freely until he finds a new place to den. We decided to call him Jan.

For more information on this hyena and research about him please follow this blog and keep up with the hyena diaries.

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The WOMA Scholarship : Conservationista by Bianca Botha

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