Gap year case study - Ceri works with wildlife & teaches children in South Africa

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Working with wildlife and teaching in South Africa, with African Conservation Experience

Hi! I’ve just returned from my 10 weeks in the northern province of South Africa. Although it would take forever to tell you everything I learnt and did, I am really glad to share some of the main bits with you! Everything went so well and I feel so lucky to have chosen the projects that I worked on as they gave me a real variety of experiences involving wild animals, injured wildlife, horses, people and excursions!

Building up wildlife knowledge with a local ranger

My first 4 weeks were spent isolated in a 24 000 hectare game reserve-the natural bush and ecosystems here were amazing and full of a huge variety of trees, birds and animals. Our team of 5-7 worked with a ranger called Marius. He taught us and set us studies to do on animals and plants etc. to build up our knowledge. I can’t believe how much I learnt-I can now ID a number of Southern African species and detail their markings and colour, behaviour, habits, spore (prints) and sounds etc. which enabled us to later collect the data needed for the management of the reserve as well as being used for comparison with other areas of Africa.

Sleep-outs were an important and exciting part of our work. After preparation sleep-outs on raised platforms and walks to waterholes, we did a 24 hour watch by a water hole to record every animal we saw come to drink from the water. I enjoyed this a lot although the nights were freezing! We stuck near the fire in our sleeping bags for safety and warmth through the night and were accompanied by Marius who was armed! We learnt to cook a braii (like a BBQ) and use potjie pots for traditional food as well as learning which trees were good to use as fire and which were poisonous. We also watched the stars and found the Southern Cross as well as trying to sleep when not on shift! Between 10pm-1am, Katy and I took our turn to look out. We sat in the open-top land rover a few metres away with a spotlight and took it in turns to look for animals and check our fire. Being wake at midnight was awesome and we made some great sightings. At one point we could hear Hyena’s on one side of us, Lions the other side and Jackals behind!

Our ‘ranger lifestyle’ didn’t include a regular routine-you can’t plan in the bush! We did however have a safari team and a house team which insured everything got done as well as a student rep, which rotated every week. I had a go at everything. House team duties included cooking and cleaning, vehicle maintenance, daily log, weekly and monthly reports, water checks etc. and the making/putting out of fire at night whereas the safari team consisted of orienteering using very dodgy maps! Game counts, using the radio and aerial for tracking collared animals and sitting in the front seat to find predator prints.

Working with hyenas and elephants

Our main focus was Hyena and Elephant research. We visited a Hyena den sometimes twice a day-sunrise and sunset- and watched as the cubs grew and formed their spots. We also spent many hours searching for a rebel Hyena that had broken into our vehicle and eaten chunks out of the steering wheel but were still unsuccessful by the time I left!

Elephant monitoring was also very important, as most reserves in Africa are too small now to habituate the number of Elephants that there are despite the awful population decline. Culling is illegal so rangers have tried forms of contraception on Elephants. At the greater Makalali part of our reserve we were monitoring the behaviour of some bulls to look for hormone change as each female was only allowed one calf each to control numbers and maintain the environment. We also had the privilege of tracking ‘John’ the Elephant. He was unique and made big newspapers as a new type of contraception had been tried on him-Elephant vasectomy.

The physical element of my first 4 weeks included fence patrol and maintenance and ‘brush packing’ whereby we spread thorny branches over dry areas. This was to prevent animals treading over the grass when the rainy season arrives and things start to re-grow. As well as this was bush-walks. This offered a great change from flying around in a vehicle for up to 12 hours a day! A tense moment was when we were by ‘Hippo Pools’ - as we walked along the Hippos path into the water we realised that the Hippos were also out of the water which made us all jump! About 10 Hippos ran into the water although I thought they were charging for us at first and the noise they made was un-real. SO loud and scary, especially knowing that they kill the most people in Africa for the reason that people use their paths to collect water and essentially intrude in their territory.

Some time off

Days off at Garonga were spent relaxing around our shared house as it was too dangerous to leave alone and Marius also took us on some excursions. We watched the rugby, visited the Modgadgi Cycad forest to learn about the unique plant and the Rain Queen Tribe and also spent a weekend at a growth centre in the mountains, which was beautiful. We walked in indigenous forests on ‘fairy walks’, learnt to do reflexology on each other and chilled out. We stayed overnight in a log cabin by a lake, which was so pretty and such a special trip for us all. We were also treated to a meal at the Garonga safari lodge one evening.

On to the Ilkley Game Ranch

So, 4 weeks later I was sad to leave Garonga and my friends I’d made but excited to enter a new project... Read the rest of Ceri's South Africa experience...