Well, here I am at Moholoholo Rehab Center in South Africa. The center is located about 30 km away from the town of Hoedspruit, 50km away from Kruger park, in the north east province of Limpopo, the closest border being Mozambique. Moholoholo comprises the Rehab Center, several lodges, and its main purpose is the rehabilitation of injured, poisoned, snared animals with the aim of releasing them back into the wild in what would hopefully be a safer environment than the one they have come from. The other very important purpose of Moholoholo is to do what they call here “Conservation through Education” hence the large number of groups which come through here each day and take part in the conservation tours offered by the rangers on duty.
My first couple of days here were truly disconcerting and I was going from a feeling of exhilaration at being able to touch, talk to and walk with “Dela” (yes, I'm not inventing that!) the resident baby black rhino, give a goodnight scritch scritch behind the ears to the hyena “Luma” whose enclosure is right in front of my room, put my hand through the cage and pet “Bullet” and “Juba”, our ambassador Cheetahs (more on that later), or even “high five” our lions......to one of total discouragement, because coming from WFFT where I had some much work and such diversity, in comparison here, there is much less to do.
I've come to understand that the very nature of the center is so different from WFFT. The country is different, the animals are different as are the concerns, issues and actions undertaken to care for African wildlife. Whereas many of the problems which the animals face in Southeast Asia are linked to the tourist industry, here in Africa, it is very much a local problem and tourism has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Wildlife covers a huge territory and obviously knows no boundaries. As such, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas and other predators are often found trespassing into private game reserves and killing local livestock to feed themselves. A common reaction to this is to kill the animals in question by ensnaring them or poisoning them. By their educational tours, the rangers at Moholoholo try to encourage people who find these injured animals to get in contact with the staff at the Rehab Center who will then come and get the offending animal, treat it and nurse it back to health and attempt to release it in another private game reserve willing to take it. This is a great part of Moholoholo's activity. As such, the animals do not end up spending the rest of their lives here unless they cannot be released in any way. The ones which cannot be released serve as “ambassadors” for their species by taking part in educational tours in the center and out, raising awareness. Poaching is also a huge problem. One example is the poaching of rhinos. Last year alone, 330 rhinos were poached in South Africa for their horn (and not for the meat) among which 174 in Kruger Park alone. Poaching is obviously illegal. There are anti-poaching squads within the Park but with the overall surface of the Park, catching the poachers 'in flagrante' is almost impossible.
Another aim here at Moholoholo is breeding. Whereas I have come to understand that in certain countries or with certain animals, breeding in captivity is questionable, here the aim of the breeding is to reintroduce into the wild animals which are on the brink of extinction. For example, the Serval Breeding Project has been very successful with over 160 servals bred and released into areas where they had become extinct. Reports have been received by the Center that quite a few female servals had mated with wild servals which is a sure sign of success.
The management and staff here are dedicated conservationists and their primary concern is the welfare of the animals, preservation of wildlife and the respect of the ecosystem. Now that I am here, I am able to “compare” the two situations (Southeast Asia and Africa) and I can say that they can't be compared, that each rescue center deals with the situation of its country in the most appropriate way possible and that, what is right for one would be absolutely inappropriate for the other. We shouldn't judge.
After reading this short introduction, you can perhaps see that things can change radically from one day to the next here at the Center and you never know what the next day will bring. Last week, 85 bats were brought in from a nearby Park because their enclosure collapsed killing a few on the way. Since then, we have been syringe feeding them (they are babies) every two hours up until midnight, which has been disrupting considerably the normal routine of the center (i.e. caring for the “Maisy” the Sable, “Dela” the Rhino, all the birds in the aviary, all the vultures and owls, the lions, cheetahs, leopard, hyenas and so forth). The volunteers have been tired, irritable and a bit short tempered at times as a result and we are looking forward to the bats learning to be self sufficient in terms of feeding. All animals get equal treatment here at Moholoholo!
On a more mundane level, we are lodged in very comfortable rooms, in my case, two to a room, with hot showers, water we can drink and fabulous breakfasts and dinners served in the nearby lodge where visitors stay when they come to visit. In the evening, a drive through the bush will take us to Ya Mati lodge for dinner, and we might encounter on our way a couple of white rhinos (huge) and even snakes (which I am not fond of as everybody who knows me will attest to and that is a huge understatement!). For security purposes, we are quite fenced in here and this, to prevent other wild animals living in the reserve to enter our natural compound. This can feel a bit claustrophobic at times as we have no days off and very few opportunities to get out of the Center.
I will try to keep you up to date with more info but things move at a slower pace here so postings might not be as frequent as for my Thai adventure.
Please note that I now have a Facebook page. This is not to share personal info for which I favor email, but rather to raise and spread awareness about animal welfare issues as much as I can. So please come and take a look every now and then for updates on that and of course, as soon as I get back from my trip, I'll put my photos on there as well. If you would like to become FB friends with the purposes of helping me in that endeavor, you are most welcome to!
Cheers,
Della
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