The Big Five (and other animals)

Following New Years we headed out east of Cape Town to the Garden Route Malaria Free^TM Game Lodge to see the Big Five in a Malaria Free^TM environment. The Big Five are:
Leopard - no photos. "Oh you never see them" said our ever helpful guide, completely contradicting all the marketing.


Buffaloes - no photos either. We drove through the bushland/long grass where they usually are but apparently they're very difficult to see. I would have thought they aren't hard to miss but I wouldn't know since I've never seen a buffalo. Anyway - since we didn't get a full set I'll round out with some photos of other cute animals we saw, which didn't make The Big Five
(I don't know what it is with titlecase in SA, but it's important).

I love this photo of the kudus against the skyline - like an puzzle it takes a second to work out how many shapes are ears and how many are trees... As you can tell a Malaria Free^TM environment isn't actually a very natural environment - it's a farm converted into a reserve where the antelope, bontebok, springbok and kudu roam and the elephants push over the telephone poles because it's fun. You might be able to tell from the size of the eles and the giraffes that the farm doesn't have much capacity for large animals and so is restricted to a pair of young adults of the smallest breed/type. The lack of trees means the giraffes spend most of their time head down munching through the bushes to get enough food.
Getting enough food wasn't such a problem for the humans - as you can see above we were able to eat our way through half the contents of the reserve. We were also treated to a traditional dance from the local school children - the payments from these concerts and donations from tourists have helped this school buy a new bus along with other resources. I wonder what sort of resources the other schools get left with who haven't got the opportunity to raise funds. There are plenty of people in South Africa trying to help break the poverty cycle but while every little bit helps isolated actions can only achieve so much.


While I'm on my soapbox: the Garden Route Game Lodge and other reserves in South Africa help by rescuing lions (and other animals) from canned hunting and other types of cruelty. Canned hunting is a vile practise where animals are raised in captivity to be targets for "hunters", normally in confined areas, and often their dependence on humans is abused to make them easier prey. The lions here are unable to fend for themselves - they will kill an animal but have no comprehension that they need to kill for food. So more game reserves like this are needed to resettle animals at risk and ensure they are cared for and have a happy life (and they are happy here - the fact that they've bred attests to that). As much as busfuls of tourist may seem repellent they can bring much good for the ecology as well as both for the community.