A group of high school pupils had an exciting wildlife experience on Saturday when they got to see some of Africa's most impressive predators and feed a few very hungry elephants, thanks to Kwantu Private Game Reserve and WildREACH (Wildlife Outreach).
A group of high school pupils had an exciting wildlife experience on Saturday when they got to see some of Africa's most impressive predators and feed a few very hungry elephants, thanks to Kwantu Private Game Reserve and WildREACH (Wildlife Outreach).
WildREACH is a Rhodes University programme founded by Timothy Kuiper that aims to give local youth a greater stake in their local environment through direct experience. The idea for WildREACH came to Kuiper during a retreat for the South East African Climate Consortium (SEACC) in Kenton. He wanted to find a way to directly involve Rhodes students in wildlife conservation, and as the SEACC members discussed the idea, they realised that running the project as a community outreach initiative would be the most rewarding option.
During an opening presentation on Saturday at Kwantu, WildREACH school relations officer Sarah Taylor spoke about the problem of access that the initiative hopes to counteract: "A lot of people come from overseas, from other countries, and yet there's a lot of South Africans who've never had the opportunity to go and be in wild places."
This week the WildREACH volunteers hosted the Khanya Maths and Science Club, a group of 50 pupils from various Grahamstown schools in grades 7-12, who meet on Saturday mornings at the Albany Museum.
Khanya is run by the Chemistry Department, and the labs taking part trade off on different weeks. Joyce Sewry, who teaches Chemistry at Rhodes and coordinates Khanya, had great praise for the Rhodes students who run WildREACH. "They're incredibly motivated," she said. "They're very good."
Saturday's trip began with a visit to Kwantu's predator pens, where the pupils saw cheetahs, caracals, lions, and even a family of tigers. Among the Khanya group were Sisipho Ndibaza and Siphokuhle Tata, both in Grade 7 at Ntaba Maria. The two girls proudly rattled off the list of animals that they had seen before. And Saturday allowed each to add to her list – Sisipho was seeing tigers for the first time; and Siphokuhle, lions.
The visit concluded at the elephant sanctuary, where the pupils had the opportunity to feed four trained elephants brought here from Limpopo several years ago. At first they were hesitant about approaching the massive animals, but as one by one they took their turn and emerged unscathed (except for a bit of elephant slobber), even the most skittish eventually joined in the fun.
WildREACH ran this year, its inaugural year, on a grant of R 65 000 from the Critical Ecosystems Protection Fund, channeled by the Wildlands Conservation Trust. On Saturday, however, Kwantu donated the whole visit, which otherwise would have cost R80 a person.
For Timothy, the trip capped a successful first year. He was cheerful, if visibly tired at the end of the day. "Honestly," he said with a smile, "I'm not used to having this many kids" – 10-20 is more typical – "but the content of the day was amazing. This was much more interactive then we usually get".
