Posted January 31, 2025 in News
Let the round up begin…
Animals
Game Counts
We missed just December this year, with the weather and the Interns leaving early December, we didn’t have time to slot one in. Despite this, the total figure for 2024 is higher than 2023 even though we missed December which is usually when we get the higher count, but we did do a second count in June.
| January 2024 | February 2024 | March 2024 | April 2024 | May 2024 | June 2024 |
| 2235 | 1682 | 1585 | 1621 | 1600 | 1502 |
| June 2024 | July 2024 | August 2024 | September 2024 | October 2024 | November 2024 |
| 1359 | 1412 | 1239 | 1476 | 1296 | 1584 |
| January 2023 | February 2023 | March 2023 | April 2023 | May 2023 | June 2023 |
| 2081 | 1942 | 1687 | 1443 | Not Done | 1342 |
| July 2023 | August 2023 | September 2023 | October 2023 | November 2023 | December 2023 |
| 1379 | 1260 | 1360 | 1609 | 1828 | 2152 |
The key animal events in 2024 were:
- In the cold snap of Quarter 3 we lost 38 animals including a mixture of Wildebeest and Impala.
- We lost a further 38 animals to wild dog food and 25 animals to predation.
- We know of 16 animals which were lost to poaching.
- We brought in 101 blesbok / 3 male giraffe / 10 ostrich / 9 buffalo / 3 red hartebeest / 10 common reedbuck / 3 male eland. A total of 139 animals.
- 4 juvenile giraffe / 33 male kudu / 73 female kudu / 30 male wildebeest / 102 zebra left. A total of 242 animals.
| Species | Dec 2021 | Dec 2022 | Dec 2023 | Nov 2024 | Highest number recorded this year |
| Blesbok | 59 | 88 | 44 | 59 | 171 |
| Buffalo | 0 | 0 | 14 | 30 | 30 |
| Common Reedbuck | 11 | 13 | 10 | 7 | 7 |
| Duiker | 11 | 12 | 33 | 15 | 57 |
| Eland | 14 | 124 | 112 | 72 | 122 |
| Giraffe | 41 | 38 | 40 | 40 | 61 |
| Impala | 380 | 465 | 360 | 304 | 385 |
| Kudu | 459 | 561 | 323 | 193 | 378 |
| Mountain Reedbuck | 10 | 23 | 17 | 5 | 11 |
| Nyala | 73 | 75 | 50 | 56 | 108 |
| Red Hartebeest | 78 | 73 | 57 | 13 | 47 |
| Warthog | 306 | 344 | 212 | 254 | 254 |
| Waterbuck | 47 | 66 | 66 | 40 | 60 |
| Wildebeest | 292 | 269 | 351 | 185 | 324 |
| Zebra | 337 | 481 | 551 | 303 | 551 |
| Total | 2,118 | 2,632 | 2,226 | 1584 | 2,589 |
With the results of the vegetation assessment and the forthcoming game count in January we will again be looking at concentrating on juvenile giraffe, kudu, eland males, zebra and wildebeest.
Top Events
We had 4 exciting events this year with the introduction of a further 9 buffalo from the neighbour. Unfortunately they have not yet met up with the big herd, but we are hoping over time they will find each other!
Then there was the release of an African wild cat, 3 spotted eagle owls and 2 large spotted genets. Whilst we are hoping they make their home here they may have already made their escape!
And finally the wild dogs who stayed with us for 5 months, left us in July, just in time to have 5 pups at their new home Makalali. The news from the Endangered Wildlife Trust was that these were the only dogs bonded successfully this year!
New species recorded for the year include:
Mammals – African wild cat
Birds – purple crested turaco
Insects – baboon spider
Amphibian – painted reed frog & Boettgers dainty frog
Rain
As you know 2022 was a record year for rain and 2023 we thought was low but 2024 saw no improvement. Planning ahead now into 2025 it has been great that we have been able to purchase a rake and baler, we are hoping to start baling sooner rather than later so we have food in stock. Looking at trends 2025 will again be a year with similar or less rain (I hope I am proved wrong). On a high note with 2 additional boreholes drilled in 2024 as long as they don’t dry up we will at least be able to top up some of the dams.
| 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| 867 | 740 | 319 | 770 | 845 | 733 | 564 |
| 2008 | 2009 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
| 618 | 543 | 547 | 534 | 477 | 461 | 707 |
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
| 776 | 728 | 833 | 852 | 1212 | 902 | 756 |
Security / Poaching
In Q1 we lost 25m of fence and of the 9 standards stolen this year we found 2 thrown into the Bush. With just 1 snare recorded this method of poaching is very rare. With most of the incursions reported in Q1 there is definitely a downward trend over the year – this is probably because of extra cameras, more variation in patrols, more night patrols and OP’s in hot spot areas and the best thing the buffalo seem to have taken a liking to being up on Ithala thus deterring would be poachers from coming in. The thermal drone has come into it’s own – being able to spot poachers hiding in the bushes as well as zoom in on the houses they return to has helped, so much so that we took the local Police Colonel out to a known house with the pictures of the poachers and dogs and they gave him a warning. To be able to arrest him he has to be on the Reserve.
We have increased our WPS cameras by 1 purchasing another one with our pecan nut money, we were also donated 12 pairs of binoculars from Vortex – these are high quality bino’s so the Rangers can see way into the distance now!
Interns
We hosted 56 Interns at Sully this year which included groups from Writtle, Suffolk and East Coast university. We recruited a new Student Intern Tiffany who stayed with us right up until the end of November.
Overall feedback on the project has been positive apart from a few concerns in the early part of the year – although these were addressed and since then all feedback has been very positive. Highlights reported by our Interns this year was game capture, game release, looking after the wild dogs, buffalo release, wild cat release, the arrival of a new table tennis table, athletics day at the local school as well as the lessons attended at M L Sultan. A few new activities this year included pitfall traps – new because it was structured in a different way and was more successful as we got 2 new species. Also plaster paris animal foot prints was fun! They have done a variety of maintenance including licks, road repair, painting fence poles, alien plant clearing, bush encroachment as well as much more.
We purchased a luggage trailer in May to help with space in the mini bus for the universities, as well as 4 trail camera traps with the Pecan nut profit. The Interns also helped out with Jeff Morris who was doing research on the Bottlebrush tree as well as Cobus from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development who was doing the vegetation survey of UmPhafa.
We also received a full size wire Rhino from Project Rhino for our Interns to decorate in 2025. We also hosted 34 students from University of KZN for their annual soil studies trip!
