The next day we went to the airport to be picked up by the Addo National Park ranger for our one month of volunteer work. The other volunteer surprised us somewhat when upon meeting us she looked at me and exclaimed ‘oh you are not German, I was told only Germans were working on zis project’ .....Nikki was grinning away in the background.
The first task was to be given the equivalent of $40 each and told to buy food for the next week. A tricky task at the best of times but exacerbated by our new work mate being a vegetarian!
Two hours later we drove through the main gates of Addo Elephant National Park. 164000 hectares of African bush. Our accommodation for the next month was to be a 2 person ‘Wendy house’ with shared kitchen and ablutions.
As instructed we reported for duty at 7am the next morning in time for the daily Rangers Meeting, proceedings started with the 12 rangers standing in a circle and when the Manager arrived prayers were said and the duties of the day were outlined for each small group. We went along with the environmental clean up crew which involved swaying around in the flat bed of a crane truck for a couple of hours during which we saw many elephants, warthogs, ostrich, kudu, leopard tortoises, and red hartebeest.....a most unusual Game Drive. We then got to work collecting rusty barbed wire, old railway lines, metres of rusting cables, corrugated iron etc all of which had been left by the farm operators prior to the land being turned over to the National Park. We lunched near a waterhole and siestered under an acacia tree for one and half hours....what a stress free life these guys have, we then checked bore holes, water pumps and a section of the electrified fence.
The weather was fantastic with cloudless sky and 30c. The next day we went on a long drive to a remote section of the park up in the hills where our job was to check the solar powered electric fence, the water holes and look out for anything remotely resembling poaching activities. This is a major problem with rhino being shot just for their horn; also subsistence poaching which goes to supply the game meat trade, the use of snares is prevalent. That day we also undertook a herd count. Quite sophisticated handheld technology is used to enter the information whilst in the field which is then down loaded on return to the office. Once again we had the obligatory one and half hour lunch/siesta under the shade of the thorn bushes.
That evening we met the rest of the team including researchers, office workers and rangers from other sections. This was over the weekly Braii (BBQ). One researcher is involved in the study of ticks whilst the others are looking into elephants and the water buffalo.
With the last day of the working week (a strange feeling to be back at work) we had great excitement as we went off to feed the lions. Currently there are 4 mature lions (2 male) contained in a stockade or boma. They will be released once some fencing is completed. Our job was to stand in the back of the Ute and hurl great slabs of meat into the enclosure; this also included the head of a Kudu which went whirling off into the undergrowth! The highlight was saving a large tortoise which had bumbled into the fence, tortoises cannot reverse so they just keep pressing ahead and unfortunately die in the process getting caught up in the trip wire at the base of the fence. The electric fence surrounds the entire park and is essential for keeping the animals in and the farm animals out. The last part of the day was.....litter collection.
The first task was to be given the equivalent of $40 each and told to buy food for the next week. A tricky task at the best of times but exacerbated by our new work mate being a vegetarian!
Two hours later we drove through the main gates of Addo Elephant National Park. 164000 hectares of African bush. Our accommodation for the next month was to be a 2 person ‘Wendy house’ with shared kitchen and ablutions.
As instructed we reported for duty at 7am the next morning in time for the daily Rangers Meeting, proceedings started with the 12 rangers standing in a circle and when the Manager arrived prayers were said and the duties of the day were outlined for each small group. We went along with the environmental clean up crew which involved swaying around in the flat bed of a crane truck for a couple of hours during which we saw many elephants, warthogs, ostrich, kudu, leopard tortoises, and red hartebeest.....a most unusual Game Drive. We then got to work collecting rusty barbed wire, old railway lines, metres of rusting cables, corrugated iron etc all of which had been left by the farm operators prior to the land being turned over to the National Park. We lunched near a waterhole and siestered under an acacia tree for one and half hours....what a stress free life these guys have, we then checked bore holes, water pumps and a section of the electrified fence.
The weather was fantastic with cloudless sky and 30c. The next day we went on a long drive to a remote section of the park up in the hills where our job was to check the solar powered electric fence, the water holes and look out for anything remotely resembling poaching activities. This is a major problem with rhino being shot just for their horn; also subsistence poaching which goes to supply the game meat trade, the use of snares is prevalent. That day we also undertook a herd count. Quite sophisticated handheld technology is used to enter the information whilst in the field which is then down loaded on return to the office. Once again we had the obligatory one and half hour lunch/siesta under the shade of the thorn bushes.
That evening we met the rest of the team including researchers, office workers and rangers from other sections. This was over the weekly Braii (BBQ). One researcher is involved in the study of ticks whilst the others are looking into elephants and the water buffalo.
With the last day of the working week (a strange feeling to be back at work) we had great excitement as we went off to feed the lions. Currently there are 4 mature lions (2 male) contained in a stockade or boma. They will be released once some fencing is completed. Our job was to stand in the back of the Ute and hurl great slabs of meat into the enclosure; this also included the head of a Kudu which went whirling off into the undergrowth! The highlight was saving a large tortoise which had bumbled into the fence, tortoises cannot reverse so they just keep pressing ahead and unfortunately die in the process getting caught up in the trip wire at the base of the fence. The electric fence surrounds the entire park and is essential for keeping the animals in and the farm animals out. The last part of the day was.....litter collection.
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