Conservation Updates

Following the release of the two male servals in October last year, Kariega Game Reserve acquired two lovely female servals, Hope and Artemis, in April of this year who were recently collared and released onto the game park. We are very excited to track their movements and development and hope that their release will bring the two males, Kelpie and Killian, out into the open.

Kariega Game Reserve was very lucky to recently have a wonderful wildlife sighting of the rarely seen Cape clawlass otter which was spotted and photographed on the Bushman's River, here in the Eastern Cape. It proved to be a very special sighting for the game park with a total of five otters captured on camera both in and out of the river. Usually these water-dwelling mammals are extremely elusive and when spotted, they are most often alone.

The flash of light temporarily blinded the killer showing him poised with weapon raised, ready to strike. As darkness flooded back, so his jet black menacing form disappeared, and had it not been for the captured digital image we might never have known of his presence.

The rosy dawn had barely touched the hilltops when first we heard the unmistakable call of a black backed jackal, Eeeyaaa ya ya ya, surely one of the most evocative sounds of the African veld. That night, sitting around the camp-fire, we heard it again. Throughout South African country areas (except in forests and swamps) one is likely to hear their weird, wild cry.

It was on 14 December 1775 that a 25 year-old Swedish physician and naturalist Anders Sparrman, camped beside a small vlei* about 20 km north-west of Kariega Game Reserve. On that day at the University of Uppsala a doctorate was conferred in...

We were sceptical when first we heard the news: a schoolboy playing near the top of the ridge claimed that he had seen a leopard in the forest fringe, less than two kilometres from an urban area. The other great cat and ‘problem’ animal, the Cape...

Many years ago, shortly before Christmas, a friend and I were travelling through the arid Karoo. The car developed engine trouble and we stopped at the next small town to have it repaired. Spare parts were ordered from Cape Town and we eventually...

A little insight on the habits of the 'assasin bug'

It seemed for a day or two as if we, well rhinos actually, could breathe easily again. At Kariega Thandi was on the mend after her horrific injuries, and there seemed to be a lull in poaching activity. Then at the end of September came the news that in game reserves in South Africa 19 rhinos had been slaughtered in a week, bringing the total for the year to 430. Today as I write – 18 October 2012 – that total has risen to over 463, another 33 rhinos in little more than a fortnight.

The Vervet monkey in SA, and thoughts on the ever-advancing issue of human-wildlife integration.