Conservation Updates

Elephants, as megaherbivores, are known to have extensive impacts on vegetation, especially in enclosed areas. This raises the issue that elephants in enclosed areas may become limited by resource availability.

On Wednesday, the Kariega Volunteers teamed up with Rooting-for-Rhino and the Kingsley Holgate Foundation to bring the Children's Rhino Art Project to Farmerfield School. The Children's Rhino Art Project is a drive to raise awareness of rhino poaching amoung the youth, aiming to reach 200 000 children before World Rhino Day on the 22 September 2013.

My Rhino is an anti-poaching awareness and fundraising initiative that sells beautifully crafted ceramic rhino's with a portion of the proceeds going to the Kariega Foundation Save the Rhino fund. To date, My Rhino has raised R35 000 for the Foundation, and they were also recently part of the St Stithians Girls Prep 'My Rhino Project" which raised over R11 000 for the Kariega Foundation.

We are sharing the "Birds in Reserves" project booklet to further assist the volunteers (and all readers) to gain insights into our many species of indigenous birds. 

Giraffe research in the Eastern Cape including Kariega Game Reserve. The Kariega Conservation Volunteers assist the wildlife management team on the reserve with numerous conservation and research projects.

The Kariega Conservation Volunteers assist the wildlife management team on the reserve with numerous conservation projects, including elephant research. We are sharing this article to further assist the volunteers to gain insights into wildlife management. 

Following her skin graft procedure one month ago, Thandi underwent a follow-up procedure yesterday in which doctors and surgeons undertook to assess which of the three skin graft methods applied in June had worked best, as well as to apply further grafting treatment. Dr Marais and Dr Lamont decided that the "split skin" technique had been the most sucessful and during the 50 minute procedure the team cleaned Thandi's wound, checked for any signs of complication or infection, and applied more of the "split skin" grafting method. A fourth method which could not be applied in June was also added to the surgical effort.

One month after Thandi's ground-breaking skin graft procedure, Dr Fowlds, Marais and Lamont gathered this morning to do a check up procedure on Thandi at Kariega Game Reserve in order to assess the outcome of the procedure. We will keep posting on any news and feedback as we hear it from the team.

It often happened in the very early hours of the morning. I would raise my head from the pillow the better to hear. Moments later the rumbling, soul-stirring, throaty roar of an African lion would be repeated, filling the silence of the night. Reassured that all was well with the world, I would snuggle back under the blankets and, safe in my own bed, drift off to sleep again.

"Today we converge yet again on Kariega Game Reserve in support of the rehabilitation of Thandi the survivor of rhino poaching. Following the successes of various phases of her recovery, a recent set-back occurred when her face was damaged by a bull introduced to replace the breeding capacity lost by the poaching incident over a year ago. In a process which has involved ground breaking efforts to give her back a normal rhino life, we have been reminded just how much poaching took away from her and just how much more she still needs our support through her recovery.