Volunteering in South Africa: Protecting Endangered Wildlife

First of all a big compliment to Terry Gouws and the service she provides, I have definitely never experienced such excellent service before. Thank you Terry!!! (I hope you get to see this). Thembe: The monitors were great and did their best to explain a lot to us, However, the bush was too thick to see much. We ended up triangulating lions for two weeks and only got one visual. The most exciting was the optional drives with Leo, the person responsible for the elephant monitoring in Tembe, he only showed us elephants and explained a lot about nature and Tembe. Manyoni: Open bush lots of game, just great and intresting,We got to see the wild dogs being released from the boma, afterwards we had the job of finding them in the morning and in the afternoon to see if they were ok. It was intresting to see them explore the area.However after another 7 days i was getting a little bored. Jabulani,the monitor did his best to show us other game and preditors on the wayto and from the dogs.

I really had a very special time in South Africa. It exceeded even the highest expectations. I came there and felt so welcomed and home really quickly. Our group was so amazing and we all had so much fun together. Seeing all these wild animals for the first time was just breathtaking. I was not able to sleep during my first week, because I was so excited all the time. We had so many special moments with the animals and we were even able to join darting a lion, which was an incredible experience. My personal favourite was definitely seeing hyenas in the morning just walking towards our car. In general I felt very safe all the time and I always had the chance to contact Natucate via WhatsApp and got a response very quickly.

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Hi there! My name is Judith, 19 years old and from Germany. After graduating from High School in 2015, I had the strong feeling to go abroad, to leave my comfort zone and make new experiences. It was clear to me, that I wanted to do voluntary work in the field of nature conservation. After I picked South Africa as my preferred destination, I started to search for the right project and agency who would support me. Amongst all agencies I found there was only NATUCATE that entirely fulfilled my expectations: Volunteering which is not only focused on my own amusement but also committed to meaningful projects. From the first contact on I felt well supported and Daniel helped me with all my questions. In August I took the plane to Richards Bay in South Africa. After arrival, me and some other new volunteers were picked up by an employee of the host organization. At a stopover on our way to the project site I met the other team members and my mentor. The next stop was at Hluhluwe-iMfolozi National Park, which was actually my first adventure experience on this journey: We were sitting in the loading area of a pickup truck that made his bumpy way all through the wild savanna. And then something happened which I would have never expected on my first day: A dream became true and I saw wild elephants! On the first day in the camp I was introduced to the main tasks and duties, which included animal-tracking by radar and the collection and processing of collected data. Early in the morning and in the afternoon, we went out into the reserve by truck and tried to localize animals like for example lions and wild dogs. We had to look after our camera traps which we set up to observe animals in their natural habitat, without any human impact. Besides that, we also noted down further information like number, location and behavior. Usually the day started at 4 o’clock in the morning. I know it sounds hard, but the star-spattered sky and the breathtaking sunrise are worth it! Right after lunch in our camp, we went back to the reserve. Despite our daily routine, no day was like the other, because every time you see different animals, with a different behaviour. Sometimes we could observe them for hours, other times just for a few seconds. Our mentor who had a broad knowledge about South Africa’s wild taught us a lot about typical animals and their traits, plants and ecosystems. I have never been bored, neither in the camp and nor in the field. In the camp we cooked together, played games, sports and we observed elephants from a special viewpoint. The team-spirit was amazing as we were all curious about deepen our knowledge about South Africa’s wildlife and shared a same sense of humor. The camp itself was very special to me. The facilities were quite simple but convenient. The surrounding area – just incredibly beautiful! The fact that there was no water supply in the camp and that we had to cover many kilometers to buy drinking water and food, made me appreciate these precious resources more. All in all, I had two amazing weeks, during which I learned a lot about South Africa’s beautiful nature and an ecosystem which was totally unknown to me before. Living in the nature, amongst wild animals and working in a meaningful project made my time abroad better than I would have ever expected it to be.

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