Okonjima Reserve

Not so nice in the mornings
at 4 degrees with a breeze

The PAWS project is located in Okonjima Reserve, about 3 hours drive northwest of the capital, Windhoek. Once past the front gates of the reserve it takes another 40 minutes to drive to the project (to give you an idea of how big the place is). The reserve has 3 seperate enclosures: a small (supposedly predator-free) one where PAWS and the other tourist accomodation is situated; a medium one where the radio collared leopards and hyena are kept; and a large one where the cheetah are rehabilitated and which is also home to 4 wild dogs.

Other than PAWS, there are 2 basic lodges which hold all the 'common' guests, 2 exclusive villas where the rich and famous stay, and the Rare and Endangered Species Trust. Having seen the basic tourist accomodation, I certainly wouldn't be complaining if I were a paying guest!! As a basic rate people will pay about 200 pounds per night per person, and another 300 to 400 on top of that for a game drive. The exclusive accommodation costs 700 pounds per person per night, and that comes with your own host, chef and game driver. To put that into perspective, I've paid about 50 pounds per night and I get a free game drive every afternoon!! All the staff that work for Okonjima, including all the managers and the family that owns the reserve live on the reserve also.

The Campsite

A loo with a view!

The camp we are staying on was purpose built for PAWS volunteers. There are 10 tents which have 2 wooden beds inside and are big enough to stand up in, and a large porch area- luckily I've had a whole tent to myself for 2 weeks. Each tent is covered by a large A-fram consturction to protect the tents during the rain and keep them cool in the sun. There are 2 sets of bathrooms, each with 2 open air showers and 2 open air toilets ( a little scary when you see pairs of eyes reflected back at you when you're sitting on the loo at night)- the lock is a rope you put across to let people know it's in use. The sinks are metal buckets.

The lapa

There's a communal area called a lapa where food is prepared and where we spend countless hours playing cards. There's no oven so food is cooked on the fire each night. At the end of the lapa is a watering hole and a hide, built so that we can watch the wildlife as we're eating our dinner- we've seen oryx (a type of antelope), porcupine and jackal all feeding there. Every day there are 2 people on duty who prepare the meals and do the washing up. The food is quite basic but the evening meals are often good.

All in all it's a very nice little camp, and wonderful to be so far removed from all kinds of normal life.

An apple a day keeps the dentist away...

Up to 75% of the work that africat does is funded by tourism, however with over 100 large animals to feed with 3 lots of 5kg bags of Iams per day and 12 donkies (yes donkies) per week, as well as the 4 members of staff to pay, the money does not go far. They don't have a resident vet, and calling the vet out is extremely expensive, so they keep track of which animals need vetinary attention, and when they have enough animals that need seeing they call the vet out for 3 days at a time.

 

I was extremely lucky that I was working with PAWS for one of the very few visits that the vets make every year, and as such I got to see all the action. Over 3 days I saw an incredible number of procedures. Animals in captivity are prone to dental problems, and Africat uses a vet who has specialised in animal dentistry- over the 9 years Africat have been using him, he has learnt to identify problems from just a photograph (this is only way to get an opinion on the animal's health without paying for the vet to come out).

 

Pooh the hyenah on the table

On the first night Pooh, one of the 3 spotted hyena, was darted and brought in as it was believed he had some dental problems. A clan of hyena are actually above a pride of lions in nature's hierarchy, based on the power of their jaws; simply put you keep your distance from a spotted hyena! We got to see Pooh close up on the table and even stroke him! [His teeth were fine by the way, just a bit of tartar!]

A newly toothless Willow

As I didn't get to see a procedure on a cheetah the day before, I was one of 4 who were allowed into the clinic to watch one of the welfare cheetahs, Willow, being operated on. He is one of the biggest cheetah on the reserve, and one of the oldest. Cheetah have a number of health problems as they get older, which in nature may well kill them. Cheetah tend to lose their teeth at about 8 years old, however in captivity a cheetah may live to 14 or 15. Willow is 14, and is fed only on a diet of Iams and donkey meat (no bones), however his teeth were so bad that almost all of them had to be removed. One tooth was so absessed that when it was removed the hole could fit an entire swab and you could see through the bone up to the nose.

Luckily I couldn't see the blood!

You would think I would have passed out by this point, but I conquered my fears and stayed for the whole procedure- I even held up his leg while the vet was trying to put a catheter into Willow's artery. Goodness knows what would have happened if that catherter came out, but luckily I remained standing throughout (if a little green looking).

The highlight of the week has to be going to capture Toby. Toby is a solitary cheetah living in the largest (32,000 acres) rehabilitation enclosure. An unfortunate side effect of all the farming in Namibia is that it is overgrown with invasive thorny bushes. This poses a problem to cheetah, as they are susceptible to scratching their eyes, which is exactly what happened to Toby in April this year. It took 4 darts to actually put Toby out as the darts kept bouncing off the poor guy, and he was still struggling when we got him on the truck!

 

In the wild, catching Toby

While we were there, there was actually a cameraman filming for the production company Tigress, who are producing a documentary called something like Case Files, looking at the case of Toby and how the invasive bushes are protecting cheetah from humans but also are causing injury. I was definitely filmed as part of Toby's capture, and I think I may well be in the programme so you will have to keep an eye out for me!

 

Beautiful Wahoo

On the last day, when we were supposed to be catching up on all the work that had been missed by going to see the vet checks, we got a call that a leopard called Wahoo was coming in and would we like to see him.... that was a no brainer! So we downed tools after a grouling 25 minutes and got to see Wahoo have a root canal. Wahoo was brought to Africat before his eyes were even open, taken from a farmer's land. He was brought up by Wayne Hannsen, the owner of the reserve, until Wahoo turned 4 when he matured and became a solitary animal. He is an absolutely beautiful cat who is used as an ambassador for leopards, used

to teach children about his species. We got to go and re-release him once he had been awake for a few hours- unfortunately he was still pretty dosed up so all he managed was to stand up, wobble around before slumping back down again dribbling.

Not sure if Matata was roaring more loudly
before or after the 4 root canals!

Then as if we thought it couldn't get any better, we were told that they were bringing in Matata, a fully grown, 250kg male lion! Matata had such extensive problems that they were operating on him for 4.5 hours and had to draft someone to get extra anaesthetic from the nearest town 1 hour away as he would use a bottle in himself.

I have been so lucky to not only have seen this animals up close, but stroke them, help with procedures and even have stuck my head in a lion's mouth! Not something you do every day!

Hello from Namibia!

Sunset over PAWS

Perivoli school children

Roadside bush clearing

Trimming trees in the caracal enclosure