Daktari Children Experience a Game Drive print story

July 26, 2012

Daktari Bush School and Wildlife Orphanage, South Africa

Daktari’s Outreach Programme got the opportunity to take 8 students on an afternoon game drive in the Makalali Game Reserve with Robin, from Kristy’s camp, who is a fully qualified field guide and game ranger.

We got picked up at 13.30, had a safety briefing and explanation about what we were going to do. Then we went straight into the reserve and started the game drive. In the first 10 minutes we saw several animals the children had never seen and some never heard about. These included wildebeest, zebra and even a dark chanting goshawk.

Throughout the drive the students saw many different types of animals and were told very interesting facts for each of them. Robin also explained why each animal is special to the environment and what would happen if they were all to die. Each student mentioned which animals they wanted to see and why. Robin found as many as he could, these included a family of White Rhino. As you can see from the picture we got very close. Also we found a pride of lions with adults and many small cubs. None of the children has ever had an opportunity to see these animals in real life before and they all appreciated this opportunity.

Apart from seeing various types of animals Robin also showed the children tracks and markings, then explained what animal it was and how you can tell, also which way it was walking and why it was going that way.

Next time we go to the Eco Club I shall ask each student to give a short presentation on what they saw and learned to the other members. This will hopefully give them a chance to learn from others experiences and encourage them to look after the environment.

We would like to thank Robin for giving the children this fantastic opportunity and an amazing afternoon.
 

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Full screen

The Children spot a White Rhino Family!

 

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