OKONJIMA - HOME OF THE AFRICAT FOUNDATION
December 2010
You can read the latest news from AfriCat and the new reserve here.
AfriCat Reserve News - Nov 2010
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November 2010
'Cheetah Kingdom' has been attracting great viewing numbers in the last couple of episodes with Friday 29th October reaching 3.3 million.
In the next episode (ITV, Friday 5th November 8pm) Frankie is attacked by a leopard and when Dave arrives on the scene he discovers Frankie injured and unconscious. Frankie is taken to a veterinary surgery and Dave is forced to sit and wait as they battle to save Frankie's life. Quattro is moved in to a new enclosure as he continues with his recovery.
These rehabilitated cheetahs have been monitored daily by the Okonjima guides and the guests staying on Okonjima for more than 2 days. Tracking these cheetahs on foot, and being able to report back to the AfriCat team concerning their well-being, has been a highlight for all those that have had the privilege of following these amazing cats every day!
If you have missed an episode catch up on ITV Player
September 2010
'Cheetah Kingdom' is a major new series on ITV which follows the team at the AfriCat Foundation whilst they work to conserve Namibia's big cats. The show runs on ITV1 every Friday at 8pm until the end of Nov 2010.
You can find full details here.
June 2010
TRAFFIC HAZARD
It is nearly two weeks since the original group of five cheetahs were released into the new reserve at Okonjima. Every step of their exploration has been carefully monitored by the AfriCat team and various guests from the Bush Camp. Their first witnessed hunts (described below) have helped them assert their independence and speed their acclimatisation. Although the cats are collared, the guides generally expect to spend a fair amount of time carefully navigating the 16,000 hectares before making a sighting. So last Monday, it was an unexpected surprise when guests arriving and leaving reported a group of cheetahs on the private access road to Okonjima. They spent the entire day exploring the road and surrounding bush which made the day for a number of guests.
On Tuesday morning they were discovered on an oryx kill close to the road which is a sizeable meal for the group. The guests watching were treated to some unexpected species interaction when the feast was interrupted by a family of warthogs. The full bellied cats failed to offer a response beyond a raised eyebrow or two and the piggies trotted rapidly back the way they they had come.
With these promising early hunts credited to the pioneer group, Team AfriCat is busy preparing the second group for release before the end of the month.
JUNE 2010
After more than a year of preparation, the first group cheetah release into Okonjima's new reserve was a major event with enthralled guests and staff watching from the sidelines. For the AfriCat team, the ability of these big cats to flourish validates everything they work for and for the cats themselves, success in the reserve means freedom.
So the gates to the new world swung open and the first spotted inhabitants cautiously nosed out onto the edge of their domain. Spud, Frankie, Coco, Bones and Hammer may sound like members of a soft-rock band and they had enough of an audience to feel like rock stars but they are really feline pioneers. The successes and failures they share in the coming weeks will be an indication of their overall rehabilitation time. The end goal is to have them back where the wild things are in the vast spaces of Namibia.
The group were a little slow out of the blocks but after moving north into the main reserve and climbing a few vantage points to gauge their new terrain they relaxed. It was only a matter of hours before Frankie and Hammer let genetic instinct take over and they took down a duiker. Not a bad start for a couple of orphans who had never been taught how to hunt by an adult.
Over the next few months a total of 18 cheetahs will be released into the reserve. They will be joined by a number of orphaned leopards and the four sibling wild dogs that AfriCat has raised from the age of 3 weeks. This predator base will provide an accurate replication of the competitive habitat found in the wild. The cats are collared and monitored daily and we will be providing interesting updates as and when they happen.
March 2010
Come and support the AfriCat Foundation at the RGS and win a trip to Okonjima! The 14th April will see the RGS packed with Namibian travel experts, lodge owners, desert guides and a couple of celebrity guest speakers with recent experience of both the AfriCat Foundation and Namibia. If that isn't incentive enough, we are raffling a fully inclusive trip to Okonjima (flights included). Click below for details.
RGS event
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November 2009
The guided activities at Okonjima are based entirely around big cats; tracking cheetah on foot, tracking leopard from a vehicle and visiting the AfriCat welfare cats. The one activity at Okonjima that deviates from this rule is the Bushman Trail, this is an educational guided walk which explores the relationship the San Community have with the environment and wildlife. Clearly, one Okonjima resident was convinced this activity could be improved by her presence...
This photo was taken by a rather surprised guest after MJ the leopard stole the show by emerging from one of the huts and then sauntered off down the path. The trail then continued as normal but the chances of the guide being able to fully command the attention of his guests with displays of San hunting techniques and fire-starting methods were greatly diminished.
September 2009
Okonjima's patter of not so tiny feet.
Okonjima is proud to introduce a new leopard cub to the reserve. This is particularly exciting as MJ, its mother, sadly lost both her female cubs from her first litter in 2007. Her new cub still has no name - no one has got close enough to establish if it's male or female!
The new cub was spotted by AJ, Bush Camp's manager, earlier this year. Because of the secretive nature of female leopards during the first weeks (other female leopards and hyaena’s are a major threat) these are rare shots of the new cub. We are looking forward to tracking the progress of the new cub over the coming months - and to hearing its new name!
August 2009
This week has been witness to a remarkable milestone in the 16 year history of the AfriCat Foundation with 1000 big cats now rescued! Speaking as someone who has been on just one relatively simple ‘rescue’ with the AfriCat team, the sheer determination and unshakeable belief that has allowed the foundation staff to achieve this goal is staggering. Every single one of those rescues meant a lengthy drive or light aircraft flight, careful liaison with the owner of the land or the community (at best curious and at worst plain hostile towards the predator) and then the laborious and dangerous task of extricating the cat to sanctuary. In many cases, that is simply the beginning of a period of rehabilitation with the aim of releasing the cat back into the wild.
So who was lucky number 1000? He was a three month old leopard cub rescued along with his mother (cat no. 999) from a farm in the Grootfontein area. Fortunately both mother and cub were in excellent health and were released together into the wild just 24 hours after their rescue.
The 1000 cat statistic represents 650 cheetahs and 350 leopards. It does not include the scores of smaller predators that find themselves in need of AfriCat’s help. Every single one of these predators would have been destroyed were the AfriCat Foundation removed as an alternative option. If you consider the fact that 86% of these cats are released back into the wild to continue the species, the impact AfriCat has on preserving Namibia’s predator population is quite amazing. The influence that AfriCat has on the awareness and tolerance for predators is impossible to quantify but just as significant long term in the survival of these species.
The AfriCat Foundation is able to operate because of private funding and the support of their single biggest donor, Okonjima. So if you have sent your clients to Okonjima, on behalf of Namibia’s big cats, we would like to thank you.
July 2009
Okonjima Gears Up for 2010 - If you have visited Okonjima, or better yet, flown over it and looked down, you will know that Okonjima’s property is an island of welfare and conservation in a sea of commercial farmland. Over the years the boundaries of Okonjima have been pushing outwards to provide the most essential ingredient in predator conservation, natural habitat. Okonjima provides security and time for all sorts of predators to regain their independence and return to the wild. Those that are unable to adapt and require ongoing welfare are given a home for life.
As space is a premium at Okonjima, I am very pleased to report on the development of the new reserve. The 22 000 ha park fence is going up at a rate of knots with 82 km’s due to be completed by December. This is an extremely high specification fence which will be predator proof as well as monitor lizard, tortoise and pangolin friendly!
Initially the new reserve will be divided into a 16 000 ha park for cheetah rehabilitation and a 4 500 ha park for leopard and hyena tracking. The larger reserve will initially accommodate up to 16 cheetahs providing a much greater variety of tracking opportunities. There will be an area of 2000 ha fenced around the lodges which will be home to general game and provide wildlife viewing opportunities from the lodges.
The AfriCat Wild Dogs - Okonjima became the custodian of a pack of rescued African Wild Dog puppies in May 2005. African Wild Dogs (Lycaon Pictus) are a challenge to keep in captivity and need to be kept free from infectious canine diseases like rabies and distemper. As the puppies were rescued shortly after birth, they were hand raised and became extremely habituated to the AfriCat staff.
The final outcome of choice for all the predators at Okonjima is to be returned to the wilderness. To this end, the AfriCat Foundation staff have decided that it is time to move the Wild Dogs from their current environment and place them in a more isolated section of the reserve. This will hopefully encourage them to revert to natural form and begin hunting their own prey. In the bush, the Wild Dog is one of the most effective pack hunters in Africa but this is a learned behaviour which is alien to Okonjima's pack. So the AfriCat team are both nervous and curious about the months to come.
If all goes well over the next 12 months the Wild Dogs will be released into the new 16 000 ha reserve in mid-2010. Until then, your clients will not have access to them but I will keep you informed of their planned return to the semi-wild.
February 2009
Okonjima reports regular afternoon rainfall which has filled all of their seasonal riverbeds and kick-started several waterfalls. As usual, guests in 2wd vehicles will be met at the main gate on arrival and either escorted or transferred to Okonjima. Donna Hanssen mentions that river swimming has joined the list of activities.
