Rhino Conservation: be part of it
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the plight of Africa’s rhino species. Faced by a 95% loss in their population over the last century or so, the number of living white and black rhinos – all of them – stands at well under 30 000. The demand for their horn remains as fierce as ever. Time to give up and surrender to the poachers? “Never”, say their conservationists, and if you are prepared to look a little deeper, there are some silver linings to these dark clouds.
There are fewer than 6500 Black Rhinos left in Africa: they need our urgent & effective conservation.
Poaching, the scourge of rhino conservation, has been reduced in several key areas, and according to the latest report, the population of Africa’s white rhino has actually increased year on year. And while poaching remains a serious problem in South Africa’s larger, more accessible reserves, it is within the smaller private wildlife reserves that great things are happening.
Take the Kwandwe Private Game Reserve for example. Recently expanding their conservation area to cover 30 000 hectares (74 000 acres), the reserve has been instrumental in turning the tide for their rhinos. The newly acquired wilderness area is prime habitat for black rhino and cheetah, and Kwandwe’s rangers now radio in the sightings of lion tracks on sand roads that haven’t seen big cats for two hundred years.
Kwandwe’s conservation efforts extend across the board: lion populations in South Africa are growing.
Set in South Africa’s malaria-free Eastern Cape, Kwandwe is a Big Five reserve (lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino) and offers a number of ways to get involved with their conservation projects. Designed for groups and families as well as couples and conservationists, the programmes can be divided into two kinds: those available all year round, and those offered during the peak safari season – May through September.
Ear notches help identify individual rhinos: you’ll be part of the notching process on sedated animals.
Rhino-monitoring experiences are available all year round as part of your safari activities and welcome participants of all ages. Here you’ll be involved in tracking the reserve’s rhinos and recording information about them. But if you travel between May and the end of September, you’ll have access to programmes that take you into the world of hands-on rhino conservation. Now you’ll be managing, monitoring and measuring sedated rhinos during veterinary procedures.
Taking a moment to embrace a unique experience.
Other programmes include interactions with the reserve’s anti-poaching unit (the K9 section is always a favourite) and insights into habitat restoration and carbon sequestration. You’ll set up camera traps, learn how drone technology is helping in conservation, and chat with wildlife veterinarians, ecologists and story-tellers around a bush-breakfast or an evening fire.
Keeping the rhinos sedated also requires monitoring & assessment – that’s where you come in.
And all this combines with guided game drives where you’ll be on the lookout for the reserve’s other stars – big cats, elephants and giraffe. With only a handful of lodges in the reserve, Kwandwe has one of the highest land-to-guest ratios in the country and is known for its exclusivity and privacy – good news for both couple and honeymooners as well as groups and multi-generational families. Easily accessed via a short flight from Cape Town, Kwandwe is also a popular destination for self-drivers on an itinerary that takes in South Africa’s famous Garden Route.
African rhinos are indeed in a perilous state but at Kwandwe Reserve, you can greet them with a glass half-full. Conservation is slowly, inexorably working.
