It has been nearly six months since Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC) released Tillie, a captive-bred cheetah, onto the Pidwa Wilderness Reserve on 29 January 2019. Katie Rooke and the excellent team of the Askari Wilderness Conservation Programme have been overseeing her integration into the wild. The first six weeks Tillie was restricted to a predator-free boma to help her become habituated to her new surroundings. During this time she…
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Gertjie and Matimba’s extraordinary journeys both started with absolute heartache and sadness, but five-years later continue with hope, pride, love and best of all, freedom. Their stories caught the world’s attention and then stole their hearts too. In 2014, South Africa’s Southern White Rhino population lost 1 215 precious rhinos to the heartless crime of rhino poaching. Rhino poaching statistics had grown steadily since the early 2000s, but 2014 was…
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… dearly loved but not tame or pets At HESC every cheetah has a name and is dearly loved, but is regarded as a wild animal and treated as such. For this reason petting is not permitted. Our cheetahs are not tame and they are bred and raised with the ultimate objective of releasing them into the wild. We avoid human-imprinting, whereby the cheetahs will identify more with humans than…
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Poachers beware; the newest member of our K-9 anti-poaching unit will start with her training this week. Ella, now eight weeks old, is a Dutch Shepherd dog that was donated to us by prominent Pretoria breeder Dr. Johan Klopper. Although still an adorable puppy, she is being trained to join Nicor in patrolling and protecting our borders, together with our K-9 handlers and the Black Mamba guards. Ella has an…
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  After we recently posted on our cheetah Sophiah who has been unwell, we received so many enquiries from supporters that we’d like to update you on her progress and fill those in who may have missed our initial posts. At the beginning of last week she suddenly became very lethargic and disinterested in her food. We contacted Provet Wildlife Services to come and have a look. Dr. Jenine Rabie and…
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