On safari With Curtis 5 March 2015

5 March 2015

We left camp nice and early this morning, giving us the opportunity to watch a beautiful sun coming up over the Kruger horizon.

Although the morning soon hotted up and this had an impact on sightings we still had a nice drive.

Our first highlight was down at the dam where we found a hippo lying in the shallows watching as two rhino lay down enjoying the early morning sun.

Our second highlight was at a hyena den. When we arrived we could just spot one hyena but then more and more appeared and we eventually had seen nine of them including a couple who were right next to the road.

Other animals of interest were elephants, buffalo, crocodile, giraffe, waterbuck, kudu, impala, common duiker, baboons and a dung beetle rolling his ball.

Birds seen included woolly necked storks, yellow-billed hornbills, lilac breasted rollers, bataleurs, jacanas and a goliath heron to name just a few.

This evening it was time for the sunset drive where plenty of general game was seen.

PROGRAMME FOR CARE OF INJURED AND ORPHANED RHINO

The South African National Parks (SANParks) has announced a partnership with the Peace Parks Parks Foundation (PPF) as part of the Rhino Protection Programme (RPP) which will see R2.4-million allocated towards assisting with the care of rhino which have been injured and orphaned as a result of rhino poaching. The Kruger National Park has been particularly affected by rhino poaching and in the course of 2014 SANParks rescued 16 rhino orphans, of which 12 went to specialist care and 4 were placed with surrogate mothers in holding bomas managed by SANParks.

The ultimate aim is for the rhino orphans to be integrated back into a normally functioning breeding population. The rhino orphans that are rescued in circumstances where their mothers have been killed by poachers require specialist care as they are generally weak and dehydrated. With the nurturing cycle broken, human intervention is essential to support the rehabilitation of orphaned rhino. Once the rhino orphans have recovered and are grazing, and have been integrated with older rhino, they will be moved to rhino strongholds where they will form part of the breeding population.

Veterinarians and rangers are also regularly confronted with dealing with wounded adult rhino in the Kruger National Park following poaching incidents. Unfortunately many wounded rhino have such severe wounds that they have to be humanely euthanized. If there is a chance, however, that the rhino will recover, then specialist veterinary treatment will be administered, and the rhino released with a tracking collar in order that the rhino can be monitored and follow up treatment administered.

According to Mr Fundisile Mketeni, CEO of SANParks, “We appreciate the support of the Rhino Protection Programme in helping rhinos that have been injured and orphaned as a result of poaching, and supporting our teams of vets and field staff who brave the frontlines of the rhino poaching war every day. These interventions form a critical component of the strategic integrated approach to combatting wildlife crime as announced by the Minister of Environmental Affairs last year.”

The Rhino Protection Programme (RPP) - a collaboration between the Department of Environmental Affairs, South African National Parks, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife (Ezemvelo) and Peace Parks Foundation (PPF) - is funded by the Dutch and Swedish postcode lotteries and other private donors which include The Sophia Foundation as well as the UK-based fundraising initiative, The Charge.

ENDS

Released by SANParks Corporate Communications

For further information contact:

Lise-Marie Greeff-Villet
Communications Coordinator
Peace Parks Foundation
Tel:+27 (0)21 880 5125
Email: lgreeff-villet@ppf.org.za

Paul Daphne
Head of Communications
SANParks
Tel: 012 426 5072
Cell: 082 806 5409
Email: paul.daphne@sanparks.org

On Safari With Curtis 4 March 2015

4 March 2015

The start of a new safari and once we got through the gate we immediately came across some animals. Although the afternoon was a hot one we still found cape buffalo, hippo, impala, giraffe, klipspringer and kudu. We also found plenty of different birds including rollers, drongos, herons and storks.

The highlight of this afternoon was two male elephants, certainly not fully grown but in their teenage years who were busy having a bit of playful pushing and shoving with each other. Firstly on the left side of the road then over the road to the right hand side and then back to the left before finally settling down back on the right. Luckily this was nothing more than a bit of boisterous fun between the two. In a few years time these two will be competing a bit more seriously!!!

On Safari With Karen 3 March 2015

3 March 2015

This morning we started early once again and it was a lot colder than the previous days. However, this time it was dry. We are guessing the animals had to get used to the weather change too, as it took us more than an hour to see our first animal of today: a klipspringer. We were happy with him bouncing around on the rocks. And even more so when his wife wasn't far away. They gave us a nice show why klipspringers are king and queen of the rocks.

Our second highlight was our last sighting of this tour: a herd of elephants. Not because it was the last sighting, that's always a sad moment. But because this herd had two tiny babies that were smaller than the grass was tall. Both were well protected by their mums, but as we were well placed and higher than a normal vehicle, we could see them trying to use their trunks on the grass stalks. Not very successfully I might add, but it was great watching this herd feeding along and eventually crossing the road in front of us.

Other interesting sightings: waterbucks, a hippo bobbing up and down in Shithave Dam and scaring the waterbucks when showing off his teeth, impalas, kudus, guineafowls and a dung beetle rolling a small dung ball.

On Safari With Karen 2 March 2015

2 March 2015

Another day full of game spotting and apart from separate sightings a highlight was all the new animals we saw today! We had a great display of the variety in the Kruger NP: impala, waterbuck, kudu, crested barbet, a multitude of elephant sightings, three cheetahs lazing on an old termite mount, carmine bee-eaters, two herds of buffalos, yellow-billed kite, warthogs, golden orb spiders, klipspringer, bateleur, common grey duiker, lilac-breasted roller, zebras, hippos, marabou storks, crocodile, sadlebilled stork, baboons, leopard tortoises, wildebeest, plenty of white-backed vultures, and twice a leopard.

Our morning highlight was a family of vervet monkeys. We actually set watching this mega-large herd of impalas when an impala called the alarm. We rolled forward to see why and then a vervet monkey called the alarm, apparently for us. Most like the monkey had also startled the impalas hence their frenzy. But after calling the alarm twice, he settled back down and now that we had seen one monkey, we saw more and more. And there was a tiny baby in this group, but it already had an attitude! Playing with some monkeys twice its size, it wasn't scared. It was cunning enough to even push one out of the tree! Impalas forgotten, we sat watching those monkeys play for about 30min.

Our second highlight came in the afternoon when we followed a tip about a cheetah mother with two young cubs. Even though we were lucky and had already seen cheetah yesterday and this morning, watching cheetahs never gets old, so we went down to have a look. Coming close to the sighting we suddenly see this stream of cars coming towards us trying to leap over each other. So we stop and look for the cause in the bush. And there she was, right next to us, emerging from the bushes, followed by two tiny little balls of fur that were much smaller than the high thatching grass. We managed to get them in a bit of an open area to get some great pictures, before she (being wary of all the cars following her) crossed over and disappeared on the other side.

PS We checked the result of last night's lion vs buffalo stand-off. We didn't see any more lions hanging around, but there were still buffalos on top. We also did not see a carcass, so we assumed the lions had not succeeded in killing one of the buffalo, or didn't want to. And the buffalos had not killed a lion either...

On Safari With Karen 1 March 2015

1 March 2015

We only had a short afternoon drive as it was our first day in the park, but it was already very eventful. Our first highlight was seeing a cheetah jump down a tree, scentmark it, walk alongside us and cross the road behind us to disappear in the thick grass on the other side. We were so stunned to see this and be just on time, we completely forgot to take pictures! As we had just missed a leopard sighting moments before this was an excellentexample of being lucky to be at the right place at the right time. It would have been some awesome photos, but we'll settle for the memory.

And our second highlight was at the total end of this afternoon. We have already seen multiple herds of elephants, elephants trying to mate (but the male got hased off by another female in the herd), impalas, zebras, hippos, white rhinos, lioness rolling over but sleeping with two little furballs which are probably cubs, a tail of a leopard walking away through the high grass,a juvenile tawny eagle, a European roller, and a herd of buffalos.

When we came across a sighting of two buffalos on their own. We watched them but didn't think much off it when we got a tip about lions on the other side of the rock. The two buffalos must have taken a short-cut because when we got there they were there too. However, they did help us find the lions as when they arrived on the scene, 8 of them scattered around. Two laid low at a considerable distance, but 6 ohers were within meters of the buffalos! When the buffalo mowed its horns at them, they got up and creeped another meter away. But they stayed close!

Unfortunately we were losing daylight and the gates were about to close. So we had to leave the sighting, just to make sure we had a bed for tonight. And with lions that close we thought that would be the better option. But who knows who has won the stand-off... Maybe we'll find out tomorrow.