Wildlife Conservation Projects in South Africa
African Conservation Experience supports vital wildlife conservation projects in southern Africa. ACE works with sustainable and ethical African organizations to provide experiential opportunities year round. As a conservation volunteer you can be involved in animal care and rehabilitation, reserve management, wildlife surveys, veterinary work or marine conservation.
Wildlife Veterinary Experience: The Wildlife Veterinary Experience offers you the opportunity to join the day to day activities of an experienced wildlife veterinarian in South Africa. You could be assisting with wildlife capture, collar predators for research purposes, micro-chip the horn of a rhino or carry out pregnancy tests on rare antelopes.
Hanchi Horseback Conservation Project: You will patrol and manage a vast reserve in South Africa’s Limpopo province on horseback. Daily tasks include fenceline patrols, monitoring the reserve’s rhino population and helping with wildlife surveys. You’ll also be responsible for the equine care and habituating the horses to the bush on work rides.
Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Center: Moholoholo is home to a vast range of injured, poisoned and confiscated wildlife. As a volunteer, you’ll be directly involved in the daily care for all the animals, from feeding them and cleaning their enclosures, to nursing infant wildlife and helping with rehabilitation and release.
Phinda Wildlife Management Project: Phinda Game Reserve offers a huge biodiversity, being home to black and white rhino, elephants, lions, leopards, cheetah, buffalo, many antelope species and hundreds of different types of birds. The reserve management rely on volunteers to support the research taking place at Phinda to ensure that the wildlife populations are balanced and animal management is optimum within the reserve. This is a fantastic project for anyone who is interested in learning what it takes to manage a wildlife reserve!
Game Capture Team: Working with a dedicated mass and specialised capture team, you will be part of a local team relocating wildlife. You’ll be involved in all aspects of the work, from building capture enclosures to conducting the actual capture, quarantining and relocating the wildlife. Capture is exciting, hands-on work and you can expect to be in the thick of darting rhino, buffalo and giraffe or herding impala, zebra and wildebeest.
Coastal Conservation and Education Project: Based in scenic Plettenberg Bay on South Africa’s South coast, you’ll get to join the comprehensive marine conservation work done by this amazing project. You’ll monitor dolphin, whale and seal populations and help with hands-on conservation work like turtle and penguin rehabilitation or beach clean-ups. You will also be part of an established education program, visiting pre-schools to teach children about the environment at their doorstep.
Game Ranger Guide Course: This course is an ideal introduction to the wildlife and habitats of South Africa. You’ll learn the basics of tracking, wildlife and bird identification and navigation in the bush while in a vast reserve in the North of South Africa. Spending a night in the Kruger Park, you will explore the bush on foot before concluding with a full day workshop on identifying and handling dangerous snakes and reptiles.
