December 2007
The Omboroko campsites at Okonjima now have a swimming pool (shared between the sites) which is secluded and has fantastic views across Okonjima's land. This will be a welcome addition for the coming summer months! Access to the private campsites at Okonjima is strictly controlled to one group per site at a time. Campers do not have full access to the Okonjima activity programme. For more details please click here.
September 2007
Clinic Visits
Guests regularly ask if they can have more time to read the huge amounts of information that AfriCat has on show at the clinic. Up until now there hasn't been enough time to take this in at leisure. However, from now on every Okonjima camp has all the images and info posters on display for guests to be able to view the information in their own time. Guests will now be given full explanations on the work of AfriCat and Okonjima before heading for the welfare cats. Each camp will encourage the guests to view these posters whenever they have some time with guides or managers on hand to explain the charts to them privately. This is a great chance to understand the important work of the Foundation in more depth.
Okonjima is in the process of making a new DVD. This will be available to watch in mini viewing rooms from 2008 in Main Camp, Bush Camp and Bush Suite. The TV room in the Villa will have copies available to watch.
Although the Clinic won't be the focus for regular activities, if a cat is brought in, guests will be given the very special chance to watch the AfriCat Foundation at work.
Self-guided walking For those guests who are feeling a bit more active, there are a number of self-guided walking options. The Villa now has 35km of walking trails ranging in length, the Bush Camp has a new Kudu trail and all the lodges can try the new 6km dik dik trail that follows the river. To accompany many of these walks tree signs with explanatory notes have been erected.
Springtime
After a long dry winter in Namibia, here is some botanical evidence that summer is on the way. In the last five days the thorn veld has started to blossom around the country. The Candle Pod Acacia / Acacia Hebeclada (left) is a vital source of energy for browsers and is often the first acacia to show fresh green leaves. The Black Thorn / Acacia Mellifera (below) has a lovely little hook which is good for destroying clothing. Some tribes claim that the thorn attracts lightening and once it strikes, the hook and thorn trap the weather spirit, ensuring rainfall.
Weather check: Generally across Namibia the daytime temperatures are warming up nicely with coolish evenings, the coast is cold and damp at the moment.
July 2007
CLOSURE DATES FOR RENOVATIONS
Main Camp will be undergoing significant renovations during 2009.
The Camp's new features include
- an increase in the number of rooms (final figures to be confirmed) to meet the demands for bookings.
- enlargement of the Lapa area, kitchen and parking area/garden.
MAIN CAMP:
2007/2008 – CLOSED 21st Dec ‘07 – 31 Jan ’08 as per usual
2008 – MC will remain OPEN in DECEMBER 2008 & JANUARY 2009
2009 – CLOSED 1st Feb 2009 – 31st May 2009 for renovations and new building
2009/2010 – MC CLOSED as per usual – 22nd Dec ’09 – 31 Jan ‘10
Bookings can still be made for Bush Camp, Bush Suite or the Villa.
BUSH CAMP:
During 2008 2 more rooms with wheelchair friendly access will be built at Bush Camp.
May 2007
Around 46 cheetahs were examined during the 4-day annual veterinary inspection at AfriCat during this Easter Weekend. One of the requirements of having large carnivores in captivity in Namibia is an annual veterinary inspection. At AfriCat this exercise has become a major event. This year again five veterinarians, of whom four travelled from South Africa to the AfriCat base at Okonjima, about 50 km south of Otjiwarongo, volunteered their services.
Research:
"We are taking the opportunity to ensure the best possible health of each cheetah," said Dr Mark Jago, AfriCat’s Veterinarian, in charge of the medical side. The opportunity to see so many wild animals under sedation in such a short space of time makes the exercise very valuable for research. "It is a win-win situation as the vets donate their time to the welfare of the cheetah in exchange for gathering valuable data," says Carla Conradie, Director of Africat Welfare.
Carla is as highly strung as a cheetah stalking prey as she co-ordinates the intricacies of the exercise to ensure everything runs smoothly. "I don’t enjoy it," she says pointing to her colleague Dave Houghton as he walks to a holding camp with a dart gun to start off the hour-long process each cheetah has to undergo. "They panic quickly," she says as the cheetahs in the camp start pacing frantically. Jago agrees that darting is the most risky component of the process. "We aim to get them to sleep as soon as possible without hurting or overheating them." As the cheetahs start showing off why they are the fastest land animals on earth, Houghton’s job gets more complicated. But he and Jago have perfected the art of darting and managed to hit them "spot on" every time.
Since the start of the annual health checks, AfriCat has learned valuable lessons in minimising possible problems. The cats are held in a holding camp from the night before to limit their mobility and prevent them from running around too much before and after receiving the anaesthetic. After about five minutes the drug takes effect.
Expert attention
First stop is Dr Gary Bauer, a veterinary ophthalmologist from the Animal Eye Clinic in Cape Town. His examination focuses on the presence of thorns and cataracts. "We have found a very high incidence of corneal injury among cheetahs." Bauer attributes a 73 per cent incidence of corneal scarring, and 37 per cent of cataracts among cheetahs examined by him since 1998 to the fact that the cats are forced to live in bush encroached areas. He explains that as cheetahs used to hunt in open plains, their eyes are much more exposed on their heads than lion and leopard for instance who stalk their targets.
He often finds cheetahs with thorns in their eyes, which cause corneal injury. The injury sets up inflammation, which could form a cataract and eventual blindness. Bauer is very excited about the research aspect of his work. He has found over the years that eye injuries of AfriCat cheetahs are declining as the number of orphans, who do not hunt, increases.
Dr Gerhard Steenkamp, a veterinary dentist of the Veterinary Faculty at Onderstepoort in South Africa is also one of the vets hard at work. "Cheetahs have a lot of dental problems, of which fractured teeth are the most common," says Steenkamp. Assisted by Dr Gianfranco Danzi from Rome, Italy, they ended up spending a lot of time on patient’s requiring tooth extractions, or even root canals. "We try and preserve as many teeth as possible and therefore perform root canals," says Steenkamp, who is in the third year of doing research on lesions on the palates by looking at two different populations.
Danzi, who arrived all the way from Rome with an X-ray machine he donated to Africat, is equally excited about working on wild cats. It comes as a welcome change to treating dogs and cats every day. But he admits, "cheetahs are very similar to cats, they are just bigger!"
Little stress
Dr Remo Lobetti, a veterinary specialist from Johannesburg, is back for a 3rd year to take gastric biopsies. Using a gastroscope, he looks for clinical signs of gastritis, reported to be common among captive cheetahs. Gastritis is the inflammation of the stomach, believed to be stress-related, and causes chronic vomiting and severe weight loss. Lobetti says stress in captive cheetahs is most probably caused by factors such as small camps, different populations forced together and contact with people.
Lobetti heard of the Africat cheetahs when he was working on cheetahs at the De Wildt reserve in South Africa. He has started comparing different populations of cheetah. Although his study would still take another year to compete, he has so far found there was not a high incidence of gastritis at Africat. "I guess we can say the Africat cheetahs are stress free."
Contraception
Professor Henk Bertschinger from the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Onderstepoort, University of Pretoria: The Professor is responsible for one of the vital procedures of the annual check-up - contraception. Cheetahs in captivity are not allowed to breed, which means those held in enclosures with both males and females need to get the treatment. Bertschinger was the first veterinarian to use a new drug called Deslorelin, developed in Australia for dogs, on wild carnivores. So far he has used it on wild dogs, lions, leopards, cheetahs, as well as baboons and monkeys in zoos.
The drug is implanted in the neck of the cat using a syringe, and lasts for about 18 months. "We apply it on an annual basis to be sure," says Bertschinger. "It works very well." He is full of praise for the drug saying it works different to hormonal and anti-baby pills, as it merely delays breeding, and has no side effects. The drug is also reversible, which means females can conceive again after 18 months. Bertschinger felt the use of the drug was no longer
experimental, as he had implanted it in more than 400 wild animals with a 100 per cent success rate for most animals.
Centre of attention
While Bertschinger carries out more checks, including measuring his testicles, and taking blood samples, all other cheetahs receive their routine jabs for normal cat diseases from Dr Jago. He also examines them for any wounds that may need to be stitched up. With each vet assisted by several volunteers, each cheetah on the table receive the simultaneous attention of five people. Their heart rate, temperature and respiratory rate were regularly checked throughout.
The heaviest male recorded so far at Africat was 62 kg. All the cats are also submerged, except their heads, into a bath of dip for ticks and fleas. Their last jab, an antidote, and then left in peace in a wooden box where they starts waking up after about ten minutes. Dr Jago keeps them under observation for another couple of hours to make sure all is fine, before they are released.
Welfare and conservation
“It is very important that the cheetahs are not stressed, and that they have woken up well. Each year we improve. Dr Jago comments, "I like being involved with AfriCat because I think it is a worthwhile project." He agrees with the organisation’s aim of finding solutions to the conflict between predators and farmers, and feels the education and research arms of the project are very important. "I’d like to see it grow in the future in all spheres, including the animal welfare side of it." He emphasises that only injured and orphaned animals should be kept in captivity. As chairperson of the well-established Large Carnivore Management Association, he hopes to minimise the number of wild carnivores placed in captivity.
The welfare side is Conradie’s soft spot by her own admission, but after almost eight years with the organisation, her focus is on ensuring a balance between farmers’ issues, conservation, research and welfare. Not everybody would agree with her that it was possible, but she believes strongly that all four are interdependent. "Welfare, which does not mean taking animals out of the wild and putting them in small cages, raises funds and provides opportunities for research (such as the annual health examination), conservation and education," she explains. The welfare programme also brings her in contact with farmers, which help to further the goal of promoting tolerance of large carnivores among farming communities.
It could only be hoped that through the dedication and hard work of animal charities like AfriCat and other organisations, the long-term survival of large carnivores would be guaranteed.
(an extract written by Maggi Barnard)
March 2007
Okonjima has updated its website to include information on the work of the AfriCat foundation that is easy to access and understand. If you have a spare 5 minutes click here to read more on the aims and successes of the foundation.
February 2007
From February 1st onwards, the 3 tents at Bush Camp will no longer be available to guests as Bush Camp overflow. The tents will be exclusively reserved for visiting guides, this will keep the guest numbers at Bush Camp down and ensure that guides are comfortably accommodated close to their clients.
If you have confirmed bookings in the tents already, please make sure your clients understand that the tents and standard chalets are different styles of accommodation.