Pieter@Conservation and Hospitality: Species Care Wildlife Centre

Species Care

Wildlife Centre

Started my 4 and a half week species care course with much anticipation with the hope of learning a lot and let me tell you the whole course didn’t have one disappointment in it. I learned a hell of a lot from the people I worked with in the course. And loved every second of my learning experience.

On the 17-05-2011 we had to catch and tag 2 blue wildebeests and tag them. We lured them into the boma with some bokkos and the we needed to get the animal on the ground to tag its ear, No this was a adrenalin rush for sure, when the animal came into the boma we grabbed it by the horns and I grabbed it around its body, now let me tell you that is a strong animal we got her on the ground and tagged its ear. That was my best day at the wildlife centre.

I Learned all the different types of food given to the carnivores and to the herbivores. I also teethed a Giraffe giving it full cream milk and dencative. And we also gave the younger bucks milk from a bottle. After using the bottles we put them in water were inside the water we added Milton witch kills the bacteria in the bottles it sterilises it.

Now every day in the Morning, Midday and late afternoon the animals gets their food. To help us there is boards against the walls in the prep kitchen to show you what food and the amount of food given to the animal and then also at what times in the day.

Every day after feeding in the Mornings we did Spot-checks to see if everything is fine with the animals and if their cages is clean do they have water it is like taking care of your kids. We picked up the animals excrement every day to prevent bacteria and cross contamination.

I also build a boma outside of the cheetah and lion cage to make the lion walks and the feeding easier. We started digging holes to plant the poles in and then we put crossbars in between to form the boma shape and put up diamond mesh wire for the fence.

Night Shift no this I did on my working weekends and in the week. Doing night shift was fun and also scary sometimes. You have different times to go out and patrol to see if the animals are still fine. This times was 10h00 02h00 and 06h00 three times to see if everything is fine with the Animals.

Skinning and slaughtering no this was fun skinning and slaughtering and cutting up the meat to give to the carnivores . I skinned and slaughtered I think 7 animals including a zebra.

The least fun of the whole course was the cutting up of the chicks and chickens. I didn’t enjoy that so much because off the smell.

Playing with porky the wlc baby!