Namibia Cheetah Conservation

As a volunteer on this incredibly worthwhile programme, your day will generally be split into two main sessions, in the morning you will need to be up bright and early as you head out into the reserve to help out with essential maintenance duties. After lunch and a nice break, you’ll head back out into the reserve for the exciting afternoon game drive activities which can include Leopard and Cheetah tracking! You’ll be working a six-day week during your time on the programme, with Saturdays being your day off to hang around the pool, relax with a good book or head out on walking trails in and around camp.

The mornings will require you to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty as you get involved in essential reserve maintenance including the dismantling of old cattle farming fence lines, bush clearing tasks, repairing waterholes and old water troughs and clearing the land of debris to name but a few. There will also be opportunities to work at the foundation on the reserve which is responsible for rehabilitating the big cats in the area; activities at the foundation will involve bone collecting within the cheetah camps, putting up new fences, repairing existing fences and installing netting to enclosures.
 

In the afternoons there are lots of different and exciting game drive activities that you will be involved in, some of which will include the following:

Leopard tracking and monitoring - Leopard tracking and monitoring will take place from within a vehicle. You’ll learn about using technology such as antennae and telemetry equipment to track these beautiful creatures as well learning how to spot unusual behaviours, signs of injury and other problems and reporting any findings to the foundation project managers.

Cheetah welfare programme - This is the opportunity to get close to the cheetahs by entering the rehabilitation enclosures. You will be accompanied by a guide who will explain to you about the fantastic work that the foundation does. You’ll have the chance to learn the cheetahs’ individual stories, giving a good insight into what the foundation is looking to achieve.

Cheetah tracking and monitoring on foot - You will head out with a guide and the telemetry equipment to locate cheetahs in the area. You’ll walk through the bush for up to 1 hour at a time- every time you venture out is different to the next! The main aim of the walks are to check the cheetahs are in good health and you will have to report your findings.

Behind the scenes feeding run - This activity involves joining the staff of the foundation on a ‘feeding run’, feeding over 90 of the big cats in the welfare programme. You will be required to follow the vehicles for up to 2 hours depending on the cats. You will get to spot all sorts of big cats; cheetahs, leopards and lions. This is another way to get a great insight into all the essential work that is taking place at the programme and how it is helping not only the cats but the locals to. Depending on how long your stay is, you will get to do this feeding run at least once.

Hyena tracking and monitoring on foot - You will head out with a guide and the telemetry equipment to locate hyenas in the area. You’ll walk through the bush for up to 1 hour at a time - every time you venture out is different to the next! The main aim of the walks are to check the hyenas are in good health and to report your findings.

Bushman walk - This activity gives you the chance to learn all about the daily lives, culture and traditions of the disappearing bushman tribes. These people live in harmony with nature so you will be able to master skills such as making rope from plants, lighting a fire with sticks and the innovative man made traps used for hunting.

Tracking the wild dogs - There is also the opportunity for you to get within a close range of a pack of hunting dogs in the reserve. The pack were rescued as puppies when they were only a few days old so they have grown up at the foundation and since released into their 16,000h rehabilitation park.

Sleeping out under the stars! – A unique and very beautiful way to spend a night sleeping out under the stars in one of the dry riverbeds. Weather permitting, you will get to experience this once every 2 weeks - a great way to feel totally at one with nature and will no doubt leave you with memories that last a life time!

Based in a reserve of around 55,000 acres, the project area was converted from a cattle farm to a destination for tourists in 1993. There is a fantastic variety of wonderful wildlife in the reserve ranging from leopard to warthog and everything in between – dik-dik, eland, giraffe, oryx, duiker, kudu, wildebeest, impala, steenbok, red hartebeest, zebra and such nocturnal beasties as aardvarks, honey badgers, porcupines and brown hyena.

Shortly after the founding of the reserve, the animal welfare foundation was also launched to become the largest big cat conservation programme in the world. With a long-term objective to preserve the Namibian populations of cheetahs and leopards.

Unfortunately, over the last 150 years cattle farming has been a major cause of degradation to the areas native grasses and plants as well as to the game that are reliant on them. Another of the project's major objectives is to both rehabilitate and develop the environment, with long-term structures that will allow the land to flourish naturally again. The dedication and commitment that you give this programme will be in direct support of the foundation’s aim of creating employment opportunities for the local people, which will in term, enable the future success of the project.