Posted April 16, 2026 in All
Top Reserve News This Quarter
This quarter we have had 7 buffalo calves; it’s been great to see them walking alongside the main herd traversing the Reserve.
We also changed female cheetah, Ashia’s collar as the battery had depleted on the old collar. A chance for the interns to get up close and personal with the cheetah they have been monitoring!
We also released another male wild cat –it took all of 10 seconds before he disappeared into the long grass!
Animals of UmPhafa
The male and female cheetah have been doing well, they met up briefly, but they soon went their own way – not sure there was any love in the air!
On game count we were lucky enough to see Billy our lone hyena with his jackal friends, as well as 2 male leopards meeting and greeting each other.
Following a visit by the Endangered Wildlife Trust, we have identified a new vulture restaurant spot and have been putting carcasses down to see if we can bring in more vultures and be a protected site for them; the leopard and bushpigs are our only visitors at the moment. Plans are in place to reduce the leopard population this year.
We passed our 3-year fence inspection with Ezemvelo Wildlife, which means we can continue to operate as a Nature Reserve.
We also identified a new species of fly called the long-tongued horsefly which is from the Old World, the clade thought to have originated over 40 million years ago!
Busy Field Rangers
It’s been a very positive 1st quarter with only 4 poaching incidents recorded and 1 animal poached that we know of. With the assistance of the Police Community Forum, we are hoping the downward trend continues. With the Field Rangers doing over 4000km patrolling the Reserve this is also deterring would-be poachers, as well as the use of our thermal drone and night vision monoculars!
Sihle won Ranger of the Year for 2025 and was pleased to receive his new multi-tool knife for a job well done!
One of the favourite activities for our interns is the day spent with the Field Rangers, getting a chance to find snares, take part in ambush technique training and a fence patrol so they can see exactly what our team of Field Rangers get up to on a daily basis.
Caring for the Reserve
January, we had big rainstorms and a lot of time was spent on fixing eroded fence lines and roads, as well as building our longest gabion ever at 80m! With 2.3km of road fixed and 0.5km of fence line fixed, it’s been a busy quarter.
On non-rainy days, we managed to get our agri drone flying the Reserve spraying the Karoo acacia as we try to clear our bush encroachment.
We also put in a new cement workshop floor to make it less dusty when working on vehicles, as well as also purchasing 2 new grass cutters to cut the roads and edges during the summer months when the grass gets really high.
The main focus this quarter was putting in place protocols to try and reduce / stop the spread of Foot & Mouth on the Reserve. Fixes were done to our wheel washes as well as sprayers put at each gate so that the undercarriage and tyres of every vehicle coming into the property gets sprayed with chemical. Each sprayer also needed to have a box to protect it from the harsh sunlight. Lucky for us we received a donation of 10 sprayers from Build it and PAWZ Africa.
Community and Project Meetings
We again employed ladies from the local community to tackle the spread of alien plants particularly Lantana. They spent 2 months with us helping to eradicate this nasty alien!
We also went to the local school to cut their grass, particularly around the toilets, as several snakes had been seen lurking in the area – dangerous visitors to any school!
It’s been a busy quarter for meetings and visits from different conservation entities and a great chance to understand the issues affecting conservationists around Kwa-Zulu Natal.
Intern Program / Researchers
A new year and a new group of interns joined us, getting to do all sorts of activities including seeing the release of the wild cat as well as helping to change Ashia’s collar. They also spent several hours getting the baits dropped off at the new vulture restaurant and fixing owl boxes.
The sad news this quarter is that Mouse, one of our black cats at the Intern house, disappeared and we haven’t seen him since, Zama, his sister, is still with us but does call for him now and again. Unfortunately living in a Nature Reserve can be highly dangerous for small animals and we know Mouse used to explore all over, so he may have been caught by something. Despite several days looking and calling, he never showed.
The ‘GCF’, Giraffe Conservation Foundation, who we worked with a few years ago when they came to take samples from our giraffe, have released their findings about the status of the giraffe in South Africa and the importance of private land for conservation.
Getting Social
Our numbers of followers on Instagram has increased significantly, helped by the fact we are posting more videos, for our failed leopard hunt video we got over 3000 views and likes. Other positives were the wild cat release and rescue of a secretary bird.
