Vol Gets Involved with Game Capture!

Game Capture!

One of the things that South Africa is world renowned for is its incredible wildlife. My new home for the next 12 months, Mokala National Park, is known for being the place where "Endangered Species Roam".  The park is filled with a variety of extraordinary and highly endangered animals. Most visitors to the park however, will only get to glimpse these animals from their cars as they drive by. When I had the opportunity to join in on a game capture and get right up and close and personal to the animals in the park I could not say yes fast enough!

Mokala is being utilized as a breeding centre for rare and endangered animals for all of the parks in the country. Game captures selectively take specific individuals from the population and remove them from the park for transfer to other parks or to be sold in auction.

The animals are herded together through the use of helicopters and are then darted with tranquilizers by highly trained professionals half hanging out of the helicopter (don't try this at home kids!). Once the selected individuals were down, the ground team got to work transferring the animals to stretchers and subsequently onto the truck for transport to Kimberley. All the while teams of veterinarians were running around taking blood samples from the animals and measuring their horns. At the end of this hectic day a total of 10 buffalo, 2 roan antelope and 1 sable antelope were transported to Kimberley for sale in a future auction.

Special thanks to Kathy and her team from Veterinary Wildlife Services for letting me be a part of such a mind blowing endeavour! 

Caitlin Cunningham
Mokala National Park GVI Volunteer

Vol Gets Involved with Game Capture!