Working With Wildlife: Always Something Different

Every day here at Na/an Kuse is different, whether it be the activities we do, the things we see, or the unique moments we experience, you never know what the day will bring. Since I have arrived 3 weeks ago there have been a couple of unique happenings here at the farm. So here they go!

Warthog Autopsy

It’s never nice when an animal dies, but when they do die the vet here performs an autopsy to discover the cause of death. In my first week, 2 warthogs had died and thus we got invited to join the autopsy. MY GOD!! I didn’t think something could smell that bad! As the vet slowly cut open the warthog and its intestines we start investigating the cause of death (While trying not to throw up!). Eventually after discovering blood in the intestines and a uniquely dark color, the cause of death was due to eating poisonous grass. Although this might not seem to exciting, watching an autopsy in the clinic was definitely interesting. For your sake, I won’t post any photo’s of the autopsy as its…well…quite bloody! After the autopsy the warthogs were thrown into the freezer and fed to the wild dogs the next morning!

Caracal Release

On a Wednesday night, Stu, Head of Research, got a call from a farmer that he had caught to Caracals that went after his livestock. Luckily/Unluckily my group was scheduled to conduct with research with him the next morning, which meant we would join him to go get the Caracals at the farm. This meant that we had to get up at 4am on the Thursday morning and head out to the farm which was a 5 hour drive away! Once there, we discovered the caracals and moved them to the cage we had brought with us. Another 6 hours later and we were back at the farm completely exhausted! The Caracals were a mother and son who were fully fit to be released the same day on the farm. Along with Marlice (The founder) we drove to an obscure area of the sanctuary to release the caracals. Although it was a long ordeal, it was definitely another unique experience to release these creatures back into the wild.

The Caracals Ready to be Released

Leopard Chase

Another evening we had received news that there was a wild leopard roaming around the University of Windhoek! Thus, like we do most of the time we jumped in the pick ups to try and catch this dangerous cat. For those that don’t know, leopards are extremely dangerous (more than lions) so this was quite urgent. After securing a perimeter we slowly closed down on the leopard until we spotted her. After 2 failed dart shots, we finally got her and moved her to the pick up. Once we were back at the farm we put her into a temporary enclosure before the planned release into the wild a few days later. This was meant to avoid the leopard going straight back to the university and cause more chaos. We would also put a tracking collar on her so that we could use her for our research projects. The next morning as we went to feed her we found a hole in the enclosure and no leopard….!!!!! Leopards are very smart and this one was very determined to get out, so she bit through the metal fence and left Na/an Kuse. This had never happened before, but also meant that Stu had to make the awkward call back to the University saying the leopard was most likely back on its way!

Zebra Castration

At the Sanctuary we have dozens of wild zebra walking around, we also have Frankie, a Zebra that was hand raised here at the farm and lived with some donkey on the other side of the sanctuary. Zebra’s cannot be tamed, and with the human contact Frankie has in the beginning of his life, he was not afraid of humans which meant problems. Whenever on horse game counts or if we drove past with the pick ups, Frankie would charge at us. At 5 years old, the decision was made to castrate him in order to calm him down. So in the morning a horse vet and a wildlife vet from Windhoek made their way over to Na/an kuse to perform the operation. Us volunteers were invited to watch the operation and give them a hand when needed. After darting him and giving him anesthesia the vets proceeded with the operation. All I can say is that it hurt to watch!!! As he sliced open the genital region we grabbed the first testicles clamped it all the way down and then with another sharp clamp he cut them off :O You could hear the crunch noise he cut them off! Within 10 minutes Frankie was castrated! Here are some of the Pictures!