At the beginning of December last year HESC received a phone call from a farmer who was experiencing problems with a Red caracal on his livestock farm. Fortunately he decided against killing this beautiful animal, as is so often the case in these situations. Christo (curator) and Werdy (guide) drove all the way to Roetan to fetch the reprobate cat.
Upon arrival at HESC the caracal was immediately quarantined so that we could give him a check-up and allow his wounded nose time to heal. He soon regained his health, and last week we decided that the time had come for him to return to the wild. We decided to release him on Kapama because caracals are rarely seen on the reserve, but more importantly there are no farms anywhere near the reserve. We trust that he will find a new mate and that we will see more caracals on the reserve in the future.