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Conservation in South Africa

Christine Barrett has recently returned from a threatened and endemic species project in South Africa with Travellers Worldwide. Here, she recounts the time she spent meeting some of the most endangered species on the planet.

Christine writes...

"I cannot begin to tell you what a privilege it was to be on this placement. The work involved was sort of invisible, except when it began at 4am and meant looking under stones for skinks and insects, which was far from easy to ignore! Otherwise we were mostly just keeping our eyes open. The privilege was more subtle...

Get face to face with this fella...

You would be surprised how quickly time passes while you are sitting next to several big animal skulls under a bush, watching hippo wallowing. Hundreds of flamingos, both greater pink ones and lesser white ones, standing on one leg in a line like an audience watching the animals. Water buck drift down in single file, looking in the heat haze like Santa’s reindeer on holiday. Storks stalk like old gentlemen with their hands behind their backs, crane spread their wings over the water looking for fish, great flocks of lovely birds swoop from nowhere - and all the time the hippo exchange gossip, the news being passed from one end of the bathing pool to another. It's hard to believe that they are one of the most dangerous animals in the reserve.

Then there are the crocodiles... and the rhino... and the people... and the weekends at Kosi Bay, with water sports, diving and a bit of night life too. Plus the stunning scenery of Mozambique.

and this little lady...

The icing on the cake of this placement was the extra activities included, particularly the Hluhluwe game reserve. I learnt that the name is pronounced as though the Hl was sort of Welsh double l, though the locals made it sound more like Slushshloowy - thought you’d like to know so you can sound cool if you visit it!

As our car entered the reserve an elephant was standing right beside the road just waiting to be admired. We also saw lions and fifteen or so different sorts of animals, including a black rhino that had been spooked by a game warden’s helicopter. This was my first example of being with an experienced ranger - in this case Action Man Steve - who said that we had seen something rare.

I heard it again on the hippo walk when during a quite a scary fight, one of the hippos was turned completely upside down by the other, so that its little fat black stumpy legs were waving in the air like a toy in the bath! The next time I heard this phrase was on the same walk when a leopard came down to drink during the morning. We also saw bald eagles and a pair of smart magpie kingfishers. They have wicked shiny black beaks; I was afraid they would blunt them in the shallow water, but somehow they didn’t and even managed to catch a fish or two.

and me, don't forget me!

The second treat included was the boat trip on Lake St Lucia. This came at the end of our stay, so we were a bit blasé about the families of six or so hippos we met after our stunning sightings of about 200 at once. We felt very smug when the boat passed No Entry signs to waterways we had already visited with the project. Nevertheless, the guide was extremely interesting. Just one snippet of riveting information - did you know that hippos have delicate skin so they excrete a kind of sun tan protection cream? No? Nor did we!

Then there was the night survey. We went out to searching for snakes, which involves one person each side of the car leaning out with a spotlight looking for snakes lying soaking up the heat from the road. Sadly it was cold & threatened rain, so we only trapped two, one a brown house snake and the other an egg eater. When I asked how such a small snake could eat an egg I learnt that the egg is swallowed whole, then the snake sort of dislocates a vertebra in its neck, which smashes the shell. It then swallows the contents and spits out the shell.

Can you see yourself here?

However, the great excitement of the evening came when we rounded a corner of the track in the dark and narrowly missed bumping into a wounded bull hippo. John-the-snake-man was driving, so we did all the right things, retreating cautiously after what seemed like rather a long wait with the engine switched off listening to alarming crashings in the bushes around the truck.

I cannot imagine having a better time on a placement, although I would like to have seen an elephant. There is an elephant reserve not far away so if I had had more time I could have gone there. But that is unimportant. What matters is that Xander made sure that we had opportunities for all the experiences that make this part of KwaZulu-Natal special, things that are rare, precious and never to be forgotten. I know that I will never forget them"