Daktari gives orphaned animals a second chance

Ian and Michèle Merrifield officially opened Daktari Bush School and Wildlife Orphanage in 2006, but it was a long road to make it happen. The couple first met while Ian was a game ranger at Tshukudu Game Lodge and Michèle a volunteer. While hand-raising injured zebras, wildebeest, and warthogs, Ian and Michèle fell in love. Michèle had long dreamed about living in Africa and caring for wildlife. After she and Ian were married, she got her chance to do exactly that.

They left Tshukudu and opened a restaurant in Hoedspruit to start raising capital for their wildlife orphanage. During this time, Ian and Michèle helped raise a local boy called Thabo. Thabo had almost no knowledge or understanding of the environment or wildlife. Ian and Michèle began using animals in their care to teach him. Thabo’s knowledge of conservation was typical of children in Limpopo, Michèle says. This realisation helped ignite the idea of adding a bush school to the wildlife orphanage.

“When we were younger, there was a television programme called Daktari. It was about a family in Africa who looked after and raised orphaned wild animals. As kids, we loved it and remembered getting deeply emotionally attached to the animals.” Michèle and Ian have adopted the name, and Daktari Bush School and Wildlife Orphanage was born. Michèle says that orphaned lions are frequently abondoned and only a few are able to return to the wild.

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“Lions are threatened in our area as they represent fear and death but also a source of income through poaching. We have a trust relationship with Moholoholo who sadly has too many lions in their care,” she said. “In agreement with Moholoholo and the Department of Nature Conservation, it was decided to relocate two lions, Duma and Telo, recently to Daktari for educational purposes.” She says it has been a long process to build them a suitable enclosure and to transport them to Daktari.

“They have now settled in nicely and gave us their first roar the other night to the pleasure and enchantment of the children and volunteers. We took the children attending the bush school to actually go and see them for the first time the other day. They did not blink once at the sight of them. Out of eight children, six of them had never seen a lion in their lives although they live next to the Kruger Park.” She says they hope to improve the future and respect for lions in general through their educational programme. Dakari has 50 animals in their care including owls, eagles, meerkats, serval, caracal, storks, cheetahs, rabbits, mongoose, and genet among others.