The Southern African Wildlife College (SAWC’s) K9 Unit won a prestigious Kudu Award at a gala event at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Gauteng on 16 November. They shared this honour with the Meerkat Project, a high tech surveillance operation in the Kruger National Park. Both projects were recognised for their innovation and results in...Read More
The last few months have been rather strange weather wise. Normally we start to experience a few warm days during September with a light rain shower here and there, so when October arrives we already have a slightly elevated humidity factor. This coupled with blistering hot days makes for a rather uncomfortable time in the...Read More
On 21 September 2018 the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) released an official press release with the latest statistics on rhino poaching. Below is the breakdown of rhino lost in the various provinces for the period January to August. It’s extremely encouraging that we have observed a decrease in poaching statistics over past few months....Read More
A message from the Board of Directors We have once again successfully finalized another year of our responsibility to ensure the delivery of education, training and skills development, whilst contributing to the natural resource management of the southern African region. Amidst the welcome and generous infrastructure development funded by the German Development Bank via KfW...Read More
A substantial grant from the German Government through KfW has taken the Southern African Wildlife College (SAWC), one of Africa’s premier conservation skills and training facilities, to the next level. “Conservation in southern Africa is facing enormous challenges. We are proud of the role the College is playing in developing the human and social capacity...Read More
Latest forecasts from the South African Weather Service (SAWS) indicate that over the next few months, sea surface temperatures over the equatorial Pacific Ocean will become warmer than normal. This means the area is going into an El Nino phase which will peak toward the end of this year. Forecasts indicate a 70% probability of...Read More
(Source – Koedoe Vol 59, no 1 2017) Are there too many elephants? What is the solution? These are questions we get asked regularly. South African National Parks (SANParks) manage landscapes rather than numbers of elephants (Loxodonta africana) to mitigate the effects that elephants may have on biodiversity, tourism and stakeholder conservation values associated with...Read More
(Source – News24) The Hawks have announced a significant breakthrough in a two-year long operation that led to the arrest of two men suspected of being kingpins in a rhino poaching syndicate operating in Gauteng. The Hawks’ Colonel Johan Jooste said that the directorate, in cooperation with SANParks, had managed to disrupt the supply chain...Read More
(Source – defenceWeb – Africa’s leading defence news portal) Six SADC states, namely the close-knit countries of Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe have undertaken to co-operate in order to deal with the poaching scourge, particularly that of rhinos and elephants. The countries met last month in Mpumalanga for the fourth multilateral meeting...Read More
At the time of writing, no reliable statistics could be sourced on the number of rhino poached to date. Unofficial statistics estimate the figure to be around 300 rhino to date, as of end July 2018. Poacher arrests have however increased exponentially due to the new pack-hound initiative. These dogs have at least an 80%...Read More
