The famous Karoo is an arid to semi-arid geographic region of the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, and Northern Cape provinces in South Africa. It has no surface water, and its name is derived from the Khoisan (Bushman) word meaning ‘land of thirst.’ The Karoo is therefore in part defined by its scant vegetation of succulents, stunted trees and low scrub bushes and its fascinating assortment of wildlife, including the aardwolf, about which very little is known. This is not a wolf, but actually a largely nocturnal member of the hyena family. Surprisingly the aardwolf feeds almost exclusively on insects, especially termites using its long, sticky tongue and can consume as many as 300,000 in a single night.
The Karoo is also a traditional sheep farming region, but also has some of the poorest communities in the country. The sheep farming often conflicts with nature conservation as caracal and black-backed jackal prey on lambs but methods of control are often indiscriminate and fatal to other species, such as the aardwolf. However, some farmers have changed their farming methods to raise their lambs in protected stations and thus removed all risk of predation, and all risk of indiscriminately killing other mammals too. As a result, these farmers also increased their lambing success rate by a third, so everyone’s a winner!
Local former farmer now wildlife specialist PC Ferreira has recently switched from raising livestock to establish the Khoisan Karoo Conservancy on his farm. He has asked WWA to assist in the development of the reserve with the purchase of vital night camera and electronic weather and environment monitoring equipment to help him gather basic biological, behavioural and ecological information about the nocturnal aardwolf in particular. But the aardwolf is not alone in its night-time foraging, and PC will also be recording the nightime activities of aardvark, porcupine and other rare small mammals such as the zorilla. He is hoping that this basic data might attract more students to study these amazing mammals, some of which are also endangered. His also aims to monitor the influence of climate change and rainfall patterns.
To fund plans for the reserve PC has also developed ‘The Shy 5’, a largely nocturnal safari business to showcase the aardwolf other wildlife that can only been seen in such arid areas. This initiative isalready proving successful both as a source of revenue to fund studies, and to develop local employment. There are many benefits from Shy 5 safaris and tourism, such as more jobs being created by increased occupancy in local lodges and ‘farmstays’ and the training and employment of local drivers and safari guides, all of which helps to bring income to the poorer communities of the Karoo.
Our appeal target is to raise US$2000.
Will you help WWA help PC and the Khoisan Karoo Conservancy to provide the monitoring equipment needed to study and protect the aardwolf and these other most unusual, fascinating and rarely seen nocturnal mammals, and generate employment of local people in the Karoo?
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