Weeks 5 & 6 - Zululand Rhino Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

The Zululand Rhino Reserve was created 10 years ago when 17 different landowners all agreed to drop the fences between their land and their neighbours' land in order to create one large reserve.  It was created initially as part of a project to conserve the black rhino.  However the reserve is also home to many, many more species.  
You can read more about the reserve here:   http://www.zululandrhinoreserve.co.za

We are staying in a lovely house in the middle of the reserve - rented from one of the landowners.  It's a big house, set in a beautiful garden and has incredible views of the reserve and the surrounding mountains.  In the house at the moment are Zoe and Michelle (wildlife monitors), Vincent (a trainee monitor) John and Marie (the volunteers I was with on the last project) and me!   

The house doesn't have any hot water, so it's cold showers only, which certainly wakes you up in the morning!  We also have a 'tree shower' in the garden which is lovely in the middle of the day when the sun is hot.  The house runs on solar energy, so we have to be very careful that we don't run out of electricity - particularly if we have had a cloudy day.  (Yes, sadly there are cloudy days in South Africa...)

'Wildlife Act' has only been working on the reserve since July, so it is a very new project. Because it is so new, the monitors and volunteers collect and record information on a huge variety of animals and birds to try to build up a picture of what species are living here.

This means that there is a lot of work to do - including setting up and checking camera traps, counting buffalo (harder than it sounds!), searching for and monitoring lion, cheetah, leopard, elephants, hyena and black and white rhino and taking and labelling lots and lots of photos of individual animals in order to create 'identikits' for them so that they can be recognized when they are seen again.

Many of the rhino on the reserve have been 'notched'.  This means that they have had small notches made in their ears in order that they can be identified.  A rhino can have up to four notches in each ear and no rhino on the reserve should have the same combination of notches.  Each notch relates to a number, so when they are added up, the total becomes part of the rhino's unique identifying number.  Some rhino also have names!  

I'm not sure how easy it sounds to identify a rhino by the notches in their ear, but it's not easy at all for a number of reasons.  First, they are pretty hard to find (especially black rhino as they are very shy).  Second, they're not that keen on getting close to cars with humans in (and can charge them) Third, they don't tend to keep their ears still.  And fourth, they often have extra little natural rips or tears in their ears which look a bit like notches too.  So it's a huge sense of achievement when you do manage to identify one! 

I can't post any photos that show rhinos' horns - due to the risk of poaching - so you will only get a back view in this blog and won't be able to see their ears to test your rhino identification skills!  Still, a rhino's bottom is still pretty impressive i think.  :-)

We see so many different animals and birds on our sessions here, that every session is an incredible experience. However, my highlights so far have been getting very close to a really curious black rhino, spotting snakes (a puff adder and a vine snake - see photo), seeing 21 vultures all feeding at the same time, watching dung beetles roll their balls of dung (sometimes with a passenger on board!) and watching lions snooze in the sunshine.  The range of species and the beautiful scenery definitely makes this my favourite reserve so far.


Language - Zulu

Rhino - Obhejane

Snake - Inyoka

I'm lost! - Ngilahlekile 


Interesting Fact:
Some species of dung beetle use the stars to navigate.  

:-)

x

p.s. Julie - you probably won't want to look at the last photo.