Start the day with breakfast looking over the place where they leave out fruit scraps from the kitchen. Hyenas and mongoose attracted this morning
Then on to the rehabilitation centre. I was the only person at the lodge scheduled for this trip so I got a lift from the effervescent Rocky (the lodge has an array of guides of different characters. Rocky is spectacularly outgoing!). And there was a report of a lion nearby so we took a little detour.
And then on to the rehabilitation centre (after I was passed on to another guide - there is a slick relay operation!). Weirdly, and almost ominously, the rehabilitation is surrounded by a population of maribou stork, almost as if they are guarding the place . (And they were the fifth of the Ugly 5 after seeing the other four yesterday. Tick!)
The Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre is a place where animals are taken who are either injured or are unwelcome where they turn up , eg at a farm. It has also, obviously, been turned into a tourist attraction which helps fund their work. While I said I was the only person from the Lodge coming, I was far from the only person here. I just arrived first. Tour groups followed before the guide came to take us around
In addition to the live animals there is the ubiquitous gift shop, but also a little natural history museum. They pretty much give you a trigger warning on entrance as most of the animals have been stuffed as found, ie with wounds from being caught in traps or by wires. Anyway here are some of the taxidermy subjects
After the museum I still hav
d a little time to kill so wandered around the fauna and went back to the sentinel storks outside the gates
And then we got our guided tour around the animals. It was made clear that the creatures on show are mostly never going back into the wild, mostly because they have got too used to captivity and visitors . The real rehabilitation work goes on away from gawping tourists
A white lion. One advantage with this place, or a zoo, is you can get great photos in a way you would unlikely to be able to do in the wild
Unfortunately I didn't see a cheetah this time in the Kruger so this was as close as I got
Similarly didn't see any hunting dogs out in the park, but here...
And the notorious honey badger, supposedly the most aggressive creature on Earth
No comments:
Post a Comment