Take a walk on the wild side

The centre rehabilitates indigenous wildlife and deals with cases from around South Africa, striving to promote a responsible attitude towards wildlife and the environment.

At the moment the centre has two white storks which encountered difficulties while on their migration.

“These storks migrate from Europe when the weather starts to get colder, and during their migration they encounter problems like power lines and attacks from dogs and cats,” said Nicci Wright, senior animal manager at the centre.

She explained that storks were also experiencing habitat loss due to development.

“White storks are general eaters, which means that they eat just about anything, including rats, fish and chicks. But now, a lot of storks in urban areas are finding food at rubbish dumps which can be dangerous for them,” Wright said.

Another new resident at FreeMe is a Cape clawless otter. Wright explained that the otter was hand-reared as a pet, and due to an incorrect diet of beef, it now has numerous deficiencies.

A baby banded mongoose at the centre was also raised as a pet and fed an incorrect diet of beef mince which, Wright said had hardly any nutritional value for the animal. A mongoose’s natural diet is usually birds, lizards and snakes.

“It surprises me that someone would feed a mongoose beef mince because these animals don’t eat cows in the wild,” she said.

Wright also had an update on the male caracal kitten that FreeMe rescued from being kept as a pet. (‘New rescues and exciting releases for FreeMe’, Fourways Review, week ending 24 January 2014). While his sibling did not survive the metabolic bone disorder that both kittens developed from the lack of calcium in their diet, the surviving caracal is now doing well and getting stronger.

“The caracal is now living in a larger enclosure which gives him lots of space to run around and get strong,” Wright said.

He will soon be transferred to a pre-release enclosure in a Limpopo game park where he will be joined by another released caracal.