The African Wild Dog.
The African Wild Dog is one of South Africa's most highly endangered mammal species. It is a carnivorous hunter and requires a large territory which means it is constantly coming into contact with, and conflict with, humans.
In the wild the largest killer of these animals is the Lion, however, due to their territorial needs forcing such extensive contact with humans their numbers have rapidly declined due to poaching and traps set by farmers.
The frightening thing for me is at the time I photographed the African Wild Dog I had no idea that it was an endangered species. We called in to visit the Wolf Sanctuary in Plettenberg Bay after we had visited the Elephant Sanctuary across the road and we were wandering around snapping a few pictures of the wolves when I saw the dogs in one of the fenced off yards. They were all sleeping in the afternoon sun and appeared to be quite relaxed and happy.
My understanding is that the woman who owns the sanctuary rescues these animals. We took some pictures of them - though not many because I couldn't get a good shot through the fence and then went on our way completely unaware that this animal was so at risk.
More information can be found at:
The Mountain Zebra.
The Zebra belongs to the horse family, which makes sense given it's horse-like appearance, the thing that sets it apart is the distinctive black and white stripes which are as individual as a human fingerprint. Each Zebra has it's own unique pattern. There are 3 different types of Zebra, the Plains Zebra, the Grevy's Zebra, and the Mountain Zebra.
The mountain Zebra was almost hunted to extinction. In the 1950's there were estimated to be between 50,000 and 75,000 of these animals remaining, in 1998 they estimated that there were approximately 8,000 left, which places the Mountain Zebra on the endangered species list.
We photographed both the Mountain and the Plains Zebra at Sanbona Wildlife reserve. I remember our guides description of how you use the stripes to tell them apart, the stripes are closer together, and are almost continuous around the tail end of the zebra. To be blunt...Plain's Zebra have whiter bums! They have quite a large herd of Mountain Zebra at Sanbona but even the guide thought it was interesting that we saw one Mountain Zebra with a whole herd of Plain's Zebra!
More information can be found at:
The White Lion.
White Lions are not albino Lion's but rather a genetically unique form of the Tawny Lion.
They are only found in one area in the world, the Timbavati region, which is a region of South Africa. The unique white Lion gene is carried by the Tawny Lion and sometimes, though rarely, a white cub is born to a pride of Tawny Lions.
Since their discovery these beautiful animals have been hunted and removed from their natural habitat by humans and the last White Lion was seen in the wild in 1994.
They are now technically extinct in the wild. Perhaps the most disturbing thing is that there is still no law which protects these animals even though we have practically wiped them out and the only remaining White Lions exist in captivity. They are still not even classified as an endangered species as they are considered to be merely a subspecies of the Tawny Lion. I am including them on this page, however, as there are less than 300 White Lions left and they no longer breed or are self sustaining in the wild.
We went to Sanbona Wildlife Reserve in as a part of our trip to South Africa and this reserve has 54,000 hectares of land in which the animals roam freely. One of their mission statements is to preserve the White Lions and they boast that they have the only "free and self-sustaining" White Lions in the world. When we visited we saw evidence of this, we were told that they started with one pair, a male who had been bred in order to be shot and a female who had been kept to mate with the male and produce offspring. Sanbona took these animals and although they were unable to be freed, as they would not have been able to hunt or care for themselves, they did produce offspring. On our visit we were lucky enough to see one of the original pair's offspring with her two young cubs.
We had been out on a game drive in search of the White Rhino, which had been proving elusive all day, and we were on our way home when in the semi-darkness Karel spotted a white Lion cub sitting in the bushes just off the road.
Our guide immediately stopped the vehicle so we could look and asked us to be quiet so as not to alarm them. The cub came closer to the vehicle and then we heard the rumble of the cubs mother calling him back to the safety of the trees - it was the most incredible sound. The cub ran back into the trees but less than a minute later the first cub emerged with his sister just behind him, a little more cautious, but still curious. They came over to the vehicle, so close we could have reached out and touched them, watching us and listening to the various clicks and whirs made by our camera's as we snapped photo's. The worst possible time of day to take pictures as the sunlight was fading away quickly and I was loathe to use my flash in case we scared them away.
It felt like only a minute passed before the mother Lion also emerged from the bushes, keeping more of a distance from the vehicle, but clearly more concerned about what her cubs were doing than about the fact that we were there. She wandered away from us down the road rumbling at her cubs to follow... which they were clearly not interested in doing given that they had found something more amusing.
The cubs hesitated but eventually followed the mother off down the road and we drove on leaving them in peace and daring to breathe again. It was an amazing experience and such a stroke of luck that we got to see these beautiful creatures in as close to a wild setting as they exist now.
More information on the White Lion can be found at:
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