Our young team loves their weekly conservation lessons at the Gate of Hluhluwe Park. We share fun and knowledge of How to protect Vultures that venture outside protected areas. The young ambassadors are also taught how to spread information about other wildlife that is at risk, to their peers, family, and school. Various lessons help them better understand the importance of saving rare animals and birds. We also help encourage awareness of humane care for their domestic animals and encourage them to report any injured animal that may need our help.
Please help prevent the suffering of ill, injured or orphaned wild animals by contributing to emergency veterinary treatment. We provide habitat & home for a vast diversity of wildlife including more than 80 indigenous animal species in the Rural Environs of Isimangaliso World Natural Heritage Site South Africa. Your support will also help to build urgently needed recovery stables and a warm nursery where orphaned wild babies can be nurtured till they are released again.
Over a period of 32 years, we have provided an important safe extended sand forest habitat for leopards and other rare species. We continue restoring, expanding and protecting the biodiversity in the Buffer Zone of False Bay Park.
The problem leopards face in our area is serious. Adjacent to our Nature Reserve, False Bay Park, provides only a narrow area of protection – a strip of 500 – 1.5 km wide on the western shores of the lake edge. Outside the UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site, that we border, many properties are farmland or rural habitation. This provides little safety for leopard and other species that need a larger range that they have in False Bay Park.
They often move out of the Park to seek food, and new mates, to keep cubs away from other males, and for the mother to move cubs away from her once they mature. So where do they go? They move into extended ranges out of the Park and then they get poached, hunted, baited and tracked down at times, even with dogs. For this reason, leopards in particular are hugely impacted and are recorded in the Red Data assessment as being vulnerable, which means without protection they could become extinct.
Community involvement is also important and we reach out through our Young Environmental Ambassador Zulu Dancers to encourage leopard protection in the rural area.
Our practice sessions with the wonderful group of Young Environmental Ambassador Zulu dancers are going well. They are preparing to represent KZN in the National Talent Africa contest in Sasolburg on 6 October. (They won High Gold in the TA regional contest in KZN where they qualified for Nationals)
3 out of 5 children in rural areas in South Arica face lives of poverty. Young underprivileged children between the ages of 6 and 14 years of age walk miles from their rural homes, to reach the area where they spend their day training in Zulu dance to perform outside Hluhluwe Wildlife Park. Often, they have no lunch, or shelter from rain. Our project will provide meals, and studio shelter for arts, dance, and conservation, to empower them to be leaders while expanding their talent nationally.
Keeping alien plants out of our reserve to protect the indigenous biodiversity is a regular task, especially after the rain. Here the common guava (Psidium guajava )is being removed by cutting it and then applying herbicide to the stump. It has a delicious fruit but the wildlife feast on it and spread the seeds extensively, so it has to be managed. Other than this we never use poisons in our Reserve and we prefer to remove invasive alien vegetation manually.
Suni-Ridge is in the midst of a unique birding area with over 400 species recorded in surrounding areas. This beautiful European Bee Eater has a limited range in South Africa where it homes for summer months after migrating from Europe. It is one of the many 350 species of birds recorded at our Sanctuary. Their impact on bee populations is known to not be very significant being only 1% of worker bees where they feed as they also feed on other insects, during flight. Of interest is that they remove the sting from the bee before eating it, by hitting the bee on a hard surface.
Good news is that our wildlife emergency medical treatment fund has successfully enabled us to treat a severe injury on the lower back leg of one of our wildebeest (Ngu) He somehow cut his leg and a wound of about 7 cm needed urgent attention.
A veterinary assistant darted him with an antibiotic in his rump and this began a healing process. Thereafter we have been able to approach him and while he enjoys the feed that we provide and layout for him, we manage to spray the wound from a distance. We have bought a number of bottles of F10 Germicidal Wound Spray that we have used. This topical treatment has been important to prevent infection and fly strike(maggots) from entering the wound.
Thankfully the injury has now healed and closed almost completely. Unfortunately, the damage has affected the strength of his suspensory ligament – above his back hoof, and he may continue to limp. However, he presently grazes happily and he is not presenting any symptoms of weight loss. He is still able to run, lie down, and walk distances without distress.
As we progress into 2021 we hope to raise sufficient funding to build our long-awaited treatment boma. Your ongoing support means the world to us and of course to the wild that we help protect.
We found this tiny, juvenile Eastern Hinge back tortoise (Kinixys zombensis) crossing the exit road on our Reserve and placed it safely in the bush.
It is one of the many Red Data species found on Suni-ridge Reserve. It is recorded to be vulnerable, considered rare and the species is registered on Cites appendix 2. It has a number of threats outside protected areas where its habitat has been removed for agriculture. The female would lay up to two eggs in April and they hatch in September. The hatchling will weigh between 8 to 10 grams. The Eastern Hinge Back Tortoise is omnivorous and feeds on plants and invertebrates.
We are pleased to ensure that it has a protected habitat at Suni-Ridge.
Caring for injured or orphaned wildlife is a challenge. But with the new facility we are developing much more will be accomplished.
Sadly a baby wildebeest was recently orphaned was injured.
Zebra showing concern for injured baby wildebeest
We located the baby wildebeest in the bush this afternoon and the zebra were around him showing concern. He saw me and came up to me, somehow he knows we are trying to help him and he kept approaching us. We decided to try to hold him by his little horns again, and managed to do so.
The baby was quite docile so I inspected the wound. It needed to be cleaned which we attended to. It was fortunate that we were able to find him, without treatment he would have died an agonizing death. It would have been safer for him to have been homed inside a boma and should it rain, inside a stable.
We were eventually able to home him in a temporary boma but this was an emergency measure – we are now now developing a secure rehab facility.
Temporary canvas boma
We will now establish a safe rehab boma and stable for orphaned and/ or injured wildlife. We also aim to secure timeous professional assistance for future wildlife in need. Any support for this project would be greatly appreciated.
An urgent appeal to all who care: Please support our drought relief appeal Zululand is experiencing the worst drought in 20 years. The entire Province of KZN has been red flagged because of the drought. Rivers have dried up and virtually no rain has fallen during the past months in our area at False Bay Park.
Any amount however big or small towards feeding the wildlife at our Sanctuary would be greatly appreciated. Please click below to donate through PayPal. Thank you for caring!
A bag of game pellets costs R250.00 (18.11 USD)
One bale of Lucerne R105.00 (7.61 USD)
We have been doing our best to help our wildlife through the drought and we have to supplement food for our wildlife in our Sanctuary. There is no longer grazing and very little browsing available. Nyala graze 30% and browse 70% depending on availability of foliage and grass. Wildebeest are bulk grazers and zebra each need 10kg of hay/grass per day. Although we bring in grass from areas where there is no grazing, we now need to supplement this with Lucerne and game pellets. The female antelope that are pregnant especially need more food to tide them through.
Any support you may be able to offer – however big or small – would be greatly appreciated.
We had a 5 day battle in our Sanctuary, to save a baby wildebeest (featured as newborn, in the video ” Hello World”) Sadly he was injured when he and his friend also a little bull, were forced out of the breeding herd by the territorial bull.
Sadly although we tried our best to help him, eventually having to place him in a boma for treatment, he did not make it. We would like to thank all for their support.
NEW YOUNG ENVIRONMENTAL AMBASSADOR MOVEMENT
We have linked our Young Environmental Ambassador conservation movement with Kenya! How exciting. We are connected geographically through the Great Rift Valley that runs though Kenya and ends in our environs of False Bay World Natural Heritage Site of Isimangaliso Wetland Park .
Leopard Walk Lodge Romantic accommodation in our Wildlife Sanctuary in Hluhluwe, KwaZulu Natal.
At Leopard Walk Lodge guests may relax in well appointed “Out of Africa” Safari accommodation which is situated at the edge of a unique sand forest.
Enjoy the privacy of a Secrets of the Forest Suite or Buffalo Thorn Room and then join other travellers at the Moonrise Deck overlooking a waterhole to partake in refreshments and leisurely dining.
Since March 2007, Victoria Koning of Marvic Web Design has worked very closely with Janet Cuthbertson to realise the Suni-Ridge website. The project lasted several months and proved to be very helpful in raising funds for the various campaigns and projects. Continue reading→
When we established Suni-Ridge in 1992, most of the workers at surrounding farms were very poor and no school had been established for their children. To provide a school for these children was to be our first community outreach priority.
Our first school building was situated in the premises of an old pineapple factory close to Suni-Ridge and volunteer teachers provided lessons for the children. Unfortunately we were given notice to move and we found ourselves unable to find other premises, so we borrowed a large South African Defense Force Tent and moved the school into this tent which we erected under a huge maroela tree. Continue reading→
Conservation and the protection of biodiversity is of the utmost importance to Janet and Rob Cuthbertson. Suni-Ridge Sand Forest Park Environmental Rehabilitation Centre was established to expand Janet and Rob’s focus of environmental concern into the surrounding area and local communities. Continue reading→
Animal rescue centre for orphaned or injured young wildlife.
Currently, many orphaned wild animals are left for “nature to take care of herself”, which means that any baby wild animal will surely die being unable to fend for itself.
Our goal is to give orphaned or injured wildlife the care & survival skills needed, so that they can return to the wild
There is a dire need in Maputaland for an animal rescue centre/ wildlife orphanage. Suni-Ridge Sand Forest Park is presently establishing a facility that will provide a haven for rescued and orphaned animals. Support for this will be important as it would only be with those who share our concern that we would be able to establish this important facility.
The project will form part of a community outreach program that will encourage awareness about the protection of wildlife.
It is essential that we protect our wildlife from poaching and hunting. One might understand the terrible “need” if it was driving by hunger for the poverty-stricken table, but in most cases, it’s because of the bush-meat trade or other profit-driven reason.
If things carry on as they are now, there won’t be any wildlife left to see. This needs to stop.
