Meerkats – Where to Find Them in South Africa

The Meerkat

The suricate. Looks like a mongoose – and should as it belongs to the same family -, lives in mobs or gangs, does a lot of standing on its rear legs to survey the lie of the land – and with good reason as they’re a snack size for the average Martial eagle and jackal – weighs all of 0.9 kilograms, and has something of a cult following in the UK due to a series of television adverts for the insurance company Compare the Market.

The meerkat in question, named Aleksandr Orlov, is Russian and sports a heavy Russian accent, comes from aristocratic stock and spends most of the advert’s duration frustrated over the confusion between his website (compare the meerkat dot com) and compare the market dot com (there is an added play on the similarity between market and meerkat).

All of this is, of course, completely inconsistent with the natural home of these creatures, found predominantly in Africa. Continued

Saving Our Rhinos – 9 Ways You Can Help

The Rhinoceros

I don’t know about you, but I feel despondent every time I read about the desperate plight of the aggressively poached rhinos in South Africa. I feel dismayed, frightened and utterly appalled. I also feel enraged because there doesn’t seem to be anything I can actually DO about it, other than give money to one organisation or another.

And I get countless desperate rhino emails, smses and FB pleas to share this, like this or send this. But does it help? And how is it helping? What can I actually do to change the situation? Somehow sharing a gut wrenching picture of butchered rhinos with all of my friends feels like a distasteful parody of hand-wringing, and may well leave my ‘friends’ feeling ineffective.

It has reached the stage when I delete anything about rhinos rather than face the guilt when I fail to respond to the pleas for yet more money (can donor money balance the finance that drives the slaughter, and which organisation would it best serve?). Continued

Meet Dave Moffatt of KhakiWeed Photographic Safaris

We’d like to introduce Dave Moffatt of KhakiWeed Photographic Safaris. Dave has shared some of his amazing wildlife photographs with us and we thought they were too good not to share with all of you! Thank you for sharing your wonderful photographs with us Dave, they are incredible images.

My name is Dave Moffatt, born in Ireland I came here in my early years and love the bush and wildlife . About four years ago I went on a trip to the Kruger Park, as I have done before except this time I took a new toy with me a SLR canon Camera with a 300mm lens. I had done photography in the past with a film camera I purchased whist living in Canada. After the first day of photo opportunities I sat down and transferred my disk to my laptop and with the editing software that came with the camera I was blown away by some of the images an amateur could achieve on such equipment, I was hooked. Continued

Mountain Zebra National Park

Mountain Zebra

The Mountain Zebra National Park is a haven for some of the most awesome wildlife of the country, having protected the Mountain Zebra from near-extinction since its establishment in 1937. Today, there are hundreds of Mountain Zebra residing in safety in this park.

The entire area boasts the rustic beauty so typical of the Eastern Cape – valleys, hills and rocky outcrops with plenty of green Karoo vegetation and scrubby landscapes. It is within this untouched beauty that the Mountain Zebra National Park is nestled, home to a variety of fauna and flora.

This national park is located near Cradock and is free of the threat of malaria, making it a prime option for families with young children and the elderly. It is less than 300 kilometres from Port Elizabeth in Nelson Mandela Bay, making it accessible and ideal as a weekend getaway. Still, there is so much to see and do here that visitors are urged to stay a little longer and get a real taste of the wild side of the Eastern Cape. Continued

Where To Spot A Leopard

Part Of The Big 5

The leopard is one of the official Big 5 (along with the elephant, buffalo, lion and rhino). More than this, it is an exquisite wild cat, an accomplished hunter and mysterious for its elusiveness. It is the smallest of all the wild cats and certainly one of the most beautiful. However, because it is a naturally shy animal, avoiding contact with humans, it is sometimes difficult to find within its natural habitat.

In South Africa, leopards can be found in a number of reserves, parks and wildlife facilities. The Kruger National Park is a good option for travellers wanting to see leopards, as well as a number of other awesome wildlife species. Still, Kruger is an enormous park with plenty of hiding places for leopards. So, visitors may search for hours, even days, to find one of these cats. This means that visitors need plenty of time here. Therefore, a smaller park, with less room or a higher concentration of animals per square kilometres, may yield better results. For even more of a guarantee, consider visiting a rehabilitation facility (such as the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre near the Drakensberg Mountains or the Leopard and Predator Project, which has a number of projects around South Africa). Continued

Know Your National Parks – Spend a Day for FREE in a National Park this Week

Table Mountain Park

All locals can get into national parks around the country free of charge for the week of Monday 10 September until Friday 14 September 2012.

The free access doesn’t apply to overnight visitors (sad luck) but it does give anyone in the country the chance to experience a national park without any of the entry fees attached to the visit. That’s rather a benefit, from where I stand.

The exceptions: The only parks to which this free access does not apply are Boulders in Table Mountain National Park (understandable as the penguins would not cope with the influx of people), Mokala National Park and the Namaqua National Park. Continued

Pumba Private Game Reserve

Pumba Game Reserve

The Pumba Private Game Reserve is situated on Lake Kariega in the heart of the Eastern Cape. This luxury reserve showcases the true beauty of South Africa within the comfort of opulent lodges and world-class amenities. As the home of some of the world’s most beautiful animal species (including the Big 5), Pumba promises visitors a really rewarding wildlife experience.

Pumba Private Game Reserve makes for the perfect destination for a romantic honeymoon, a family getaway, business trip or spa escape. It is close enough to towns like Grahamstown (a 20-minute drive, in fact) and Port Elizabeth (about 90 minutes away) to be conveniently situated, without any of the stresses and strains of city living. Continued

Kariega Game Reserve

Kariega Game Reserve

The Kariega Game Reserve is a stunning escape in the heart of the Eastern Cape, boasting each of the magnificent Big 5 (lion, buffalo, rhino, leopard and elephant). However, nature-lovers are in for a very rewarding experience because, in addition to these impressive species, there is a plethora of other animals to see within their natural habitat. This includes almost 300 bird species and 25 different kinds of game.

International visitors are assured that this entire area is a malaria-free zone, so no extra precautions need to be taken. The reserve is situated on the Kariega River and the Bushman’s River, which introduce yet more biodiversity. It is about 140 kilometres from Port Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela Bay, and only about 20 kilometres from the coastal village of Kenton-on-Sea. The mountains, rivers and valleys create a haven of tranquillity in which a fascinating hive of activity emerges. Kariega invites visitors to immerse themselves in this serenity. Continued

The Addo Elephant Park

Addo Elephant Park

The Addo Elephant National Park in the Eastern Cape boasts an area of some 180 000 hectares, making it the third largest national park in the whole of South Africa. It is situated less than an hour’s drive from Port Elizabeth and includes an intriguing variety of landscapes, fauna and flora. The Bushman’s and Sundays River valleys traverse its landscape, as do the magnificent Zuurberg Mountains. This natural beauty is, no doubt, one of the many draw-cards to the more than 140 000 visitors that the park welcomes every year.

Elephants are a prized possession, having been hunted for their valuable ivory for centuries. In 1931, this area of the Eastern Cape was declared a national park with the express purpose of protecting a dwindling elephant population, which had dropped to fewer than 20 individuals. Due to the ongoing conservation efforts and breeding initiatives of Addo, this park now boasts more the 550 individual elephants! Continued

The Cape Leopard Trust – small cats with big problems

Dr Quinton Martins, the man behind The Cape Leopard Trust, has seen only seven ad hoc sightings of wild leopards in the Cederberg where his research takes place in eight years. Even with collars, he sees but a few each year. The Cape Leopard is a vulnerable, isolated population that occurs at low density in the mountains of the Northern, Eastern and Western Cape. Due to the influence of European settlers over the past 350 years, it has already been made extinct in many areas where it used to roam. As the trust headlines in its adverts to raise awareness: Leopards of the Cape are small cats with BIG problems … Continued

Kruger – the low down on what to remember, where to stay, what to do and spotting the Big 5

Kruger National Park

The Kruger National Park is undoubtedly THE place to be when it comes to seeing game in what should be their natural environment.  Even if during school holidays the number of people entering the park is questionable, traffic fairly congested, and the tendency of individuals to do silly things like feed hyenas and monkeys (now a constant pest in various rest camps) a sign that even in the Kruger, humans are encroaching on the freedom of the animals within. Despite this Kruger Park is a fantastic experience.

One of the world’s largest game parks, Kruger has received a  myriad accolades for nature conservation and, more recently, has begun lowering fences that separate the park from neighbouring reserves, allowing the wildlife within even greater access to land and water, and increasing the chance to spot game. Continued

Southern Kruger – we review 3 restcamps + hot spots for sighting game

Southern Kruger

The southern region of the Kruger National Park lies between the Crocodile River to the south, the Sabie in the north and, in the east, the Lebombo Mountains. Nothing quite prepares you for the park’s impact, the trees and hills an unexpected flavour to the picture I had of the bushveld as, well, flat (despite having gone to the Kruger as a child).

The southern region gets more rain during the year which translates into more game, shaded by the presence of the Cape chestnut, coral tree, lavender fever berry, and white pear. Continued

Sublime Sanbona

Sanbona Safari

As any born-and-bred Capetonian will tell you, one of the few things we envy of the city slickers in Joburg, is their ability to hop into a car and head off to the Kruger Park (at a moment’s notice) for a quick respite from the daily grind of city living. It’s taken me 32 years to find the Cape Town equivalent … enter Sanbona Wildlife Reserve, a true Big 5 game experience, just 3 and a half hours drive from Cape Town (on the very scenic Route 62) – a perfect weekend getaway for wildlife enthusiasts.

We arrived at the main gate on Friday afternoon after an easy drive – we left Cape Town early, avoiding any weekend traffic – and what a difference it makes not having to fly, no stress or long waits at the airport. Just 5 minutes after signing in, we were en-route to the lodge and I was rewarded with my first ever Black-Backed Jackal sighting. Off to a good start! And it only got better. Continued

Really Close – A Cheetah Approach

“Just remember they are wild animals”, a warning from Rudi, our game ranger, as we disembark our game vehicle. We’d been tracking two male Cheetah near the Northern Gate of Sanbona Wildlife Reserve for about an hour and had finally spotted them (no pun intended), laying in the brush about 30 metres from the road.

“Stay close,” a reminder. “They’ll let us know once we’re close enough.”

And I’m thinking, how exactly are they going to do that? And with that we’re off, walking in single file Continued

A new field guide joins the Tswalu Team

The latest addition to the team of field guides at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve is Cameron Pearce, an experienced ranger and manager who joins Tswalu with nearly five years’ experience at three exceptional South African game reserves, namely Kapama Private Game Reserve, Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve and Lion Sands Private Game Reserve … Continued