Louise Joubert was an account executive for a major advertising agency in Cape Town when she first became involved in the Rhino & Elephant Foundation back in 1989. In 1990 she decided to leave Cape Town and her career behind and went to live in the Limpopo Province in order to work with wild animals. However, she inadvertently found herself involved in a component of a then fledgling wildlife industry - game capture. During the next decade she began taking in orphaned and injured animals for hand raising - particularly plains game species such as zebra, kudu and blue wildebeest. This one on one close contact with young wild animals and the success of her efforts to rehabilitate them to become independent, free-ranging wild animals - exactly as they should be - awoke her silenced conscience. She became increasingly empathic to the animals caught up in South Africa’s wildlife industry and more and more she became an outspoken critic of the industry’s unethical and inhumane operators.

On the 30th November 1998 Louise and her husband Andre purchased a 1014-hectare piece of land that was used predominantly for cattle grazing. After they occupied the land the old cattle fences were removed and the wild animals on the 21-hectare property were moved to the new, larger property in September 2000.

The couple wanted to ensure that the SanWild Wildlife Sanctuary would continue even after they had gone and the same year the SanWild Wildlife Trust was formed to ensure protection for the sanctuary and the rehabilitated animals so that they did not inadvertently find themselves back in the very industry and trade from which they were rescued. For the first time in South African history a wildlife reserve was being established that indeed belong to the wild animals themselves.

Although the new property - the SanWild Wildlife Sanctuary - could accommodate many more wild animals, it was acknowledged by the trustees that it was too small to be viable in the long term and Louise continued her efforts to increase the size of the sanctuary. Despite many failed efforts, perseverance finally paid off and on the 1st July 2002 the deposit to purchase an adjoining 1016-hectare farm was paid with a substantial donation received from France.



The SanWild Wildlife Sanctuary website can be found here: www.sanwild.org

In 2000, after having purchased an old farm in the limpopo province of South Africa you began the SanWild Wildlife Trust: what are it’s objectives?

Our objectives are a combination of saving individual animal in need of help and to secure safe habitat for them so that they can live in peace and eventually die of natural causes.

What are your own personal day to day activities within the trust?

Running rehab centre, planning emergency rescues and fundraising.

How many animals are currently under the trust's care and what species do they consist of?

Just over 4500 including a wide range of species: impala, kudu, blue wildebeest, nyala, waterbuck, reedbuck, zebras, giraffes, wild dogs, lions, brown hyenas, leopards, cheetah, red hartebeest, warthog, bush pigs, pangolin, aardvark, jackals, caracal, genet, etc. etc.



How do the animals come into the care of the SanWild Wildlife Trust?

Many arrived as orphans, injured or traumatized and have been nursed back to good health and released into the reserve where they interact and breed naturally with other already released animals of their own kind.

Within the SanWild property you have a large predator holding facililty. Please tell me more about this and the big cats you have in your care.

Pleasa read the section under Success Stories, Cats Rescue Centre full details available.

www.sanwild.org/Successpages/Cats%20Rescue/CATSRESCUE.htm

Constructed with donor funding from the UK specifically to help lions rescued from canned hunting. Very expensive for us and makes up our single most expensive expenditure every month - approximately ZAR 50 000.00 pm to feed predators.



On your property, as well as the animals that have come into your care is there also an indigenous wildlife population? If so what wild animals are there and how do they come to be in the reserve?

Pls see point 3 above. Should clarify. All animals on the property introduced initially.

Is the property run as a reserve, offering safari type holidays, or solely as a wildlife preserve where utmost is the wellbeing of the animals?

We will be launching the SanWild Experience this year concentrating on exclusive limited tourism to help fund our work, project growing too rapidly to just rely on donor funding, not sustainable anymore. Presently we run a commercial volunteer project that is used to generate funding for veterinary fees and emergency rescues at the rehab centre.

How many visitors are you able to accommodate at any given time and what facilities can you offer them?

Volunteers maximum 6 at one time. SanWild Experience will accommodate 8-12 tourists at a time once upgrades have been done on main camp. Presently we can accommodate 8 tourists in this this in additon to the volunteers.

What are the running costs of the trust and how do you attract funding?

Presently our monthly overheads total approximately ZAR 120 000. per month. Only income from volunteers and donors, mostly off website coverage.

How many staff does the Trust have and what percentage of these are volunteers?

16 Permanent staff members. 8 Field rangers, 2 cleaning staff, 2 gardeners and rehab assistants, 4 General labour. Volunteer number vary but we don not rely on them to do actual work, they just cannot cope with the hard labour needed for resource management and are mostly involved with light daily tasks like cleaning at rehab, feeding animals, painting, etc. It is very rare to find a hard working volunteer unfortunately.



How is SanWild involved with the local community? – Does it provide jobs and training for local peoples?

Yes we would like to be more involved with our rangers especially, but funding is still lacking. See rangers proposal on our website.

On the Sanwild website you talk about “Canned Hunting”. Please describe exactly what this means.

Canned hunting constitutes the breeding of large predators (particularly lions) in captivity as hunting trophies. This is consitutes a "production line" that speeds up breeding in lions to supply a growing demand for hunting trophies. Lionesses are mated, gives birth, cubs are removed after 7-10 days for hand raising so that female can come into season again so that she can be mated again to produce yet another litter of cubs for hand raising. Lions are hunted in large (or small camps) after 5-6 years. Animal become totally habituated to people and do not fear them at all. No natural flight response when hunters arrive to kill them.

If canned hunting is legalised will this bring a certain legitimacy, (or at least the the turning of a blind eye) to the poaching of wild animals? – and if so how ill this affect the numbers of endangered species in South Africa?

Canned hunting has nothing to do with poaching, it is two seperate issued all together. Canned hunting has now effectively been legalised in South Africa, the only stipulation that a captive bred predator must be "free-ranging" and supporting itself by catching its own prey before it may be hunted. This is not going to happen and our concerns are that no animal welfare concerns have been addressed in new legislation. Releasing a captive bred animal unchecked can lead to more animal welfare concerns. The new legislation only deals with how the animals are killed, not how they are "produced" in the whole system of captive breeding.

Poaching by means of hunting with dogs, snaring and rifles are rife in most provincial parks and have increased in many state controlled areas such as the Kruger National Park where rhinos and elephants have been targetted. However it is the commercial poaching for bush meat on private land that is the most concerning. This type of poaching for bush meat is out of control on most provincial government controlled reserves. Here we have three types of conservation areas: National Parks controlled by SA National Parks, Provincial game reserves controlled by conservation authorities in provinces and then privately owned game farms.



Does SanWild itself suffer from poaching and if so what measures are you taking to combat it?

We initially had a lot of poaching, but it is now under control. Our last incident took place almost 2 years ago. Combatting with regular ranger patrols and ambushing of poachers on adjoining properties to SanWild. We stop them before they set foot in the reserve.

How did SanWild become involved in the elephant herd relocation from the failed Thukela Biosphere Reserve?

We were tipped off by a member of the public that the elephants were going to be culled within 24 hours.

How do you see the elephants adopting to their new life in the long term?

To date no problems have been experienced and we are confident that they will adapt to the challenges posed by their new environment and live happily at SanWild.

SanWild runs offers volunteer opportunities for interested persons: what do you look for in a volunteers and what would their responsibilities consist of?

Presently our criteria is non exsistent. We accept all paying volunteers as it is a project for us to raise funds, but we do evaluate volunteers that arrive here and draw long term volunteers from this pool once we know what they are capable off. Long term volunteers stay for free and we do pay them pocket money. We appoint them as and when we need specialised help.

How can interested Safaritalk readers get involved with the SanWild Wildlife trust, other than by directly volunteering?

By supporting our various fundraising efforts, by joining as a member, purchasing ART FOR SANWILD, by joining our commercial volunteer program or simply by visiting us, or making a donation. Membership of SanWild is what we are really going to be marketing this year as a sustainable regular montly income is what we really need to grow our project. If we have a set number of yearly members we can plan ahead and that is the ideal situation for us.

With the South African government’s land restitution scheme, how does this affect the future of the trust?, and it’s objective for establishing a larger wildlife reserve?

Land redistribution presently is threatening most wildlife conservation areas as land claims have been registered on most land. However before a claim is legally recognised it must be published in the government gazette. Presently this has not happened to any of the land under our protection, but the possibility remains that it can happen. Fortunately it has not yet become a problem if we are to increase the reserve. Our main obstacle to date has been the lack of funding and suitable investment partners that could join us to establish tourism ventures. We are continuing our effrotst to find partners to whom our objectives are compatible to create a win/win situation.

In hindsight, is there anything you wish you could do again, differently and if so why?

I love what I do, however what has saddened me greatly is the malice we have experienced in South Africa because we have spoken out against unethical and cruel practises relating to our wildlife industries. A number of people here has worked very hard to destroy our credibility and the work we have done. We have also learnt the hard way that many people are not to be trusted, but on the flip side of the coin we have found fantastic support from a donors and friends. On a personal level I know that I would not have managed to establish SanWild without God's help and support, He has been one of our most reliable supporters and have helped us to do what is right for the many fantastic creatures He has created. I just wish I could have done more, but will continue to do the best we possibly can.