Hoedspruit has always been a hub of conservation.
HOEDSPRUIT HERALD visited the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC) to find out more about conservation and HESC’s contribution to the cause.
READ: HOEDSPRUIT: HESC releases cheetah into nature reserve
Did you know that cheetahs are in danger of extinction due to their diminishing numbers?
With the human population’s growth, our need for bigger and bigger stretches of land also grew.
This in turn divided the lands where cheetah’s roamed freely, boundlessly spreading their gene-pools to ensure their population grows without any inbreeding happening.
Unfortunately, inbreeding is an issue.
“What we’re trying to do is grow the cheetah population without any inbreeding happening. We have a whole process we let the cheetahs go through. I’ll start by explaining the different enclosures.
“A male and female cheetah go into lovers lane and, if the female accepts the male, they mate. The male is either sent back to his enclosure or rehabilitated back into the wild – we always make sure they will be able to survive in the wild.
“The female is sent to the maternity ward enclosure where she stays for about 6 months – she’s pregnant for 3 months. Afterwards a vet will do a check-up and she’ll either go into the wild or back into the enclosure – we never breed with the same cheetah twice, to keep the gene-pool clean. Also, they are wild animals and not breeding machines,” explained Head Field Ranger, Jassie de Wet.
ranger.
He continued explaining that after maternity, the cubs get sent to a ‘nursery’ enclosure and then go through several enclosures until they reach university.
After university they are sent to lover’s lane and the cycle continues.
While the conservation of cheetahs are one of the big goals of HESC, another passion of their’s is to help any animal in need.
They are known for their dedication to rehabilitate wild animals and are goal orientated to release them back into the wild.
HESC is a Non-Profit Organisation and a NonGovernment Organisation with its main goal being the conservation of wild-life.
Some of the other animals that they have come into contact with are wild dogs, black footed cats, southern ground horn-bills.
One of these animals is the infamous rhino. Rhino poaching is a big problem across the globe, but it really hits home in Africa – because these majestic animals are a part of our Big Five.
“At least three rhinos are poached a day,” De Wet stated this somber fact to HERALD.
“We can not disclose the amount of rhinos in our care because they are endangered and we want to protect them at all costs, but we can tell you about one of our rehabilitation stories.
“This one has two main characters called Esmé, the rhino, and millie, the sheep. Esmé was rescued.
“Luckily her mother was not killed by poachers, but she was a first time mom and struggled to produce milk.
“So we fed Esmé. Millie wasn’t with Esmé from the start, Esmé first had a Shepherd dog with her.
“But as the time went on the dog got too protective of Esmé and would not let anyone near her when it was time to feed her or do a check-up. We sent the dog to an anti-rhino-poachers unit and got Millie. They naturally had to get used to each other but now they are a picture of friendship,” said De Wet.
