SOUTH
AFRICA durban | scottsburgh | mosselbay
SCHO
TIA. The oldest private game reserve in the Eastern Cape.
In Africa there is a phrase, “the big five.” Which refers to the Africa’s five big game animals including lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and Cape buffalo. The term was orignially coined by big-game hunters reffering to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot. While we were at the Schotia game reserve we were able to see four of the “big five.” We saw all of them excluding the leopard which wasn’t on the reserve. All of these animals beautiful.
Big Five.
While we were in Schotia, we spent much of our time with the park rangers. The park ranger we got to spend most of our time with Dale, he is from Port Elizabeth and has been a ranger for five years.
Each day of our time at the reserve we spent every breakfast talking about which animals we were interested in looking for and at dinner we talked with all the guests and other rangers about their adventures that day.
One of the most interesting things Dale shared with us, was a bit of detail about thier training. When a lion is attacking, you are told to stand your ground and look big. For training the rangers were put in one on one with a lion that was ready to attack and the ranger is supposed to stand their ground.
One of the animals that we were really given a unique experience with was the rhino, they are largely endarngered at this point becasue of the poaching and while photographing them we were able to get within feet of a wild rhino which is very uncommon.
Conservation. The entire reserve runs on the idea of conservation. With much of their species populations endangered or on the verge of going extinct they take pride in providing an environment for them that is safe and comfortable. Providing them with protection from poachers or other large game hunters. While also giving them shelter and food. The work Schotia does is incredible, and much of South Africa has followed suit.
Throughout this program we were assigned a field specialist. Our field specialist, Harrison Gardiner, always knew how to make everything fun. Not only do I consider him a mentor but also a friend.