Sustaining Wildlife
At first glance, it looks like a small zoo with fenced areas for cheetahs, caracals, jackals, large dogs and raptors. But as Semester at Sea participants in the Animal Whispers field program found out, this is home to two projects focused on sustaining South African wildlife.
Established in 1997 on land donated by the Spier Wine Estate near Stellenbosch, South Africa, the Cheetah Outreach Project is dedicated to ensuring the survival of the species. As their natural habitat has been lost to farm and ranch land and because they are daytime hunters, cheetahs are frequently blamed for livestock losses.
With a population that a century ago exceeded 100,000 and extended over four continents, cheetah numbers have been reduced to fewer than 7,500, primarily in Africa. Of that number an estimated 1000 remain in South Africa.
The outreach project uses their cheetahs (they currently have seven on site) for educational purposes to create awareness of the animals and their plight and to build support for their protection. The project currently breeds Turkish Anatolian Shepherd dogs and places them free of charge on South African farms to guard livestock in an effort to reduce conflict between farmers and predators.
Participants in this Semester field program had an opportunity to meet the cheetahs, the Shepherd dogs and learn firsthand of the outreach project activities.
The Eagle Encounter Raptor Rehabilitation Centre, also located on the winery grounds, focuses on rehabilitation and public education programs in support of local raptor populations. The primary function of the Centre is to rehabilitate sick, injured or abandoned birds of prey and return them to the wild. Although their rehabilitation rate is high - an admirable 65% - some birds cannot be successfully reintroduced to their natural environs and will remain at the Centre for educational purposes.
Semester at Sea participants got a personal introduction to several of these resident raptors, witnessed their aerial acrobatics skills, and received information about the Centre’s efforts to preserve birds of prey and their natural environments.
Cheetah Outreach and Raptor Rehabilitation – two more threads in the growing Semester at Sea Global Sustainability fabric.