Posted January 16, 2026 in All
Top Reserve News This Quarter
We lead with the saddest news that Duma, our male cheetah, was attacked and killed by a leopard on Christmas day. We shall all miss him. However, Balula is doing well and his injury healed nicely and we were able to release him on 21st November.
We had our first buffalo baby of the year, and mum and calf are doing well. We also removed four leopard off the reserve, two males and two females who went to a reserve in Zululand, reports are they are doing well.
Animals of UmPhafa
We took delivery of 32 Blesbok to try and increase the prey species on the reserve, we had ordered more but we were unable to source them. This time of the year is when we need to service our bees and we got a total of 12 jars of honey from our two active hives – it was a great harvest and the honey tastes delicious. We also saw the oldest leopard tortoise on game count – she has some unusual markings on her shell so easy to spot!
We did a soft release for two Jackal buzzards from FreeMe Wild, releasing them in December, we haven’t seen them since. I am sure they are doing well though! We also did some last-minute game capture – four young giraffes were removed, two males and two females. And finally, and most importantly, we passed our annual fence inspection to have buffalo on the reserve.
Busy Field Rangers
Unfortunately, October and November were not great months as we saw a significant increase in dog poaching – we therefore took the decision to join the local community police forum. They work alongside the police as well as being community members and towards the later part of December we have had a decrease in poaching incidents. The forum works closely with communities and community leaders to spread the word about illegal poaching.
We continue to do our monthly training with the Field Rangers which always includes PT – a 2.4km run, sit ups, push ups and pull ups. It’s also a chance for the Field Rangers to come together as a group and discuss their roles and activities. They also walked over 4600km to continue to protect the reserve.
Caring for the Reserve
We completed our final block burn in October before we really started to get some rain and unfortunately this has meant a lot more road and fence repair. We have repaired 113 mitre drains, created 22 new ones as well as gravelling 2km of road. We have had to repair 160m of fence where the rain water had destroyed sections of fence.
In between rain showers, we continued with our alien plant and Acacia Karoo clearing our native bush encroacher. We used our new Agri drone and sprayed 350HA. It needs a follow up but with the rain on and off we have to pick our moment.
We had lots of smaller jobs to do, maintenance on the intern house, building a store room, installing a lovely wood burner stove in our highest outpost for the Field Rangers so they don’t get too cold in the Winter!
Community and Project Meetings
The Reserve Managers journeyed to Zululand to take part in the wider Kwa-Zulu Natal regional meetings which covered off topics on wild dogs, predators and vultures. It was well worth going and a good chance to network.
It was a busy month for setting up new projects which also included extending the number of bee hives on our property with a local bee keeper as well as employing six local ladies for two months to help us with clearing alien plants.
We also gave a Christmas donation to one of the closest schools on our boundary so they could enjoy their end of year party with the children.
Rickus, our Intern Co-ordinator, made a house call at the local town as they wanted a monitor lizard removed which he managed to do and rehome on the reserve.
Intern Program / Researchers
As we get nearer to the end of the year, the number of interns starts to reduce however we still have lots of work and activities that need doing. The main activity for this quarter was the invaluable help the interns and co-ordinators gave with monitoring Balula, our injured male cheetah. Not only visiting him twice a day and monitoring his progress but keeping a watchful eye on his foot to make sure it was healing nicely. Balula also needed to move to increase the muscle mass on his injured leg and this was done by spending lots of time moving him around the Boma area. They were here when Balula arrived and they had the highlight of seeing him out and about on the Reserve fending for himself. They did a fantastic job.
They also helped with the changing of Ashia’s collar (female cheetah) and got up close and personal with her as well as assisting with the capture of four leopards.
I also wanted to congratulate S Higgins one of our previous interns on having a paper published on the African Red Toad.
Getting Social
We have increased our number of followers on both Facebook and Instagram which has been great, we have been trying to put up more videos as it seems this is what our followers prefer. Our favourite post was about a baby giraffe followed closely by giraffe capture – I think there are a lot of giraffe fans out there!
