PAWS 2

PAWS stands for People and Wildlife Solutions, and is a volunteer project run by the Africat foundation on the Okonjima game reserve. The whole thing is run by the Hanssen family who originally farmed on Okonjima before working to conserve Namibian predators. Since 20 years surrounding farms have been bought and donated to Okonjima, forming the current 220Km2 reserve, with 2000ha fenced of safely for the lodges and staff camps. Okonjima is a huge tourist draw, and many guidebooks describe it as a ‘must see’ destination as you are guaranteed to see wild leopards and cheetahs from up close. Not everyone agrees, Bruno was pretty cynical about the impact they’ve had and wasn’t too happy about the collaring of leopards for tourist purposes – and I tend to agree with him. Throughout my time here Ive been surprised to find that they are pretty open about their failings, but this is blended with an odd arrogance in that they still ask for donations and support.

Africat has so far basically been rescuing captive or trapped cheetahs and has developed a method of rehabilitation. They would also receive calls from farmers who had caught predators and wanted them removed – Africat would then relocate them. Over 1000 cats have been moved so far.

The rehabilitation hasn’t been too successful. The Cheetahs would be kept in 1ha enclosures until they were seen as fit enough, and then they would be released into the 20000ha Okonjima reserve. In a group, they would learn through trial and error how and what to hunt, and how to respond to other potentially dangerous animals. It was expected that many cheetahs would die in the process, but that those left would learn from those mistakes and continue on. To some degree it has worked as they do learn; for example one cheetah in a group of 5 (called The Siblings) was killed by a leopard and afterwards the remaining 4 would always sleep facing 360 degrees outwards. However during my two weeks here some more sad news cast doubt on the method: Hammer, the leader of The Siblings was chased and killed by Hyenas. Without a leader the remaining 3 are a little lost, AJ (Okonjima ranger) is still confident that they can learn, but when we found them one afternoon they came to the car and appeared to be begging for food. One of them seemed to be making the effort to go and look for prey, but the other 2 hadnt learned enough yet and didn’t cooperate with him. A little sad, but it was only later that I learnt that these 3 and one other (Tongs) are the only remaining from an original release of 17 cats. Although, to be fair Tongs is doing exceptionally well hunting on her own.

The relocation is also being understood now as unsuccessful as only a very small percentage of the cheetah and leopard populations are being impacted and relocating cats may not save them. Leopards are territorial, so you necessarily move the leopard into another’s territory. This could lead to fighting and perhaps death, or maybe the leopard will move a great distance to find a free spot in which case it will likely be outside of the predator-friendly zone to which it was originally moved.

Africat is also now left with many cats unfit for release, which cost a lot of money to feed.

The interesting thing is that Donna Hanssen, who runs Africat, spoke freely to us of all the failings and that they’ve realized their lack of impact. The plan is to move towards education, bringing in school groups to see the captive cats and the wild cats in order to instill conservation in the next generation of farmers.

The question Bruno raised was; why is such effort and cost necessary to work in conserving leopards and cheetahs? Neither species is endangered in this country, and the cheetah population is now at a historical high. This is due to the extermination of lions and spotted hyenas on farming land, both of which kill cubs in order to eliminate competition, and both species in more urgent need of conservation.

Still, I had fun working here and it was fascinating to gain these insights into the working of conservation in the country. Through my conversations with the rangers, Ive come to realize that Mundulea is really unique in its purity of ethics and vision and I gained further respect for what Bruno is doing. On the other hand, organizations like Africat have a point that creating a 13000ha island that is ecologically intact (Mundulea) can preserve some species and genetic lineages, but may not have a big impact on the state of endangered wildlife through the whole country.

So what is PAWS? It’s a small volunteer project based on Okonjima that helps them and Africat with their work, but more than anything really I think its designed to immerse the volunteers in their world so they have an understanding they can spread at home. There were ten of us, we slept in tents with two beds in each and a locker for our stuff. There are two toilet shower blocks with hot water provided by gas and there is a central lapa, which is a small roofed area with charging points, a kitchen and a big long wooden table with wooden benches. Just in front of the lapa is a long concrete cooking area and 20 metres further on is a small waterhole where Oryx and Warthog come, and Porcupine come to feed on our leftovers at night. On a rotational base, we’re responsible, in pairs, for the whole days cooking and cleaning which is a shit job as the washing takes you well into the night.

We would work in the morning, have lunch and a siesta and the go do something fun around 4. The work was mostly fun, sometimes interesting, sometimes just physical drudgery, but it was always worth it for the fun stuff which was really the same activities that the lodge guests do. There were two guides, Beth and Louis who led us in the work and then guided us on the activities as well as helping us cook from the set recipes.

Lets see… we chopped bush using big spinning blades and poisoned the roots to clear the encroachment. Bush encroachment is a country-wide problem cause by overgrazing with cattle, the grasses they feed on can no longer compete so a few species of bush take over the whole land and close it up. On Mundulea Bruno is planning to fight this using burns. We also chopped by hand using saws and machetes in order to clear roads in the Africat cheetah enclosures. Both very tough work in the heat and after cutting a bush with a machete my forearm felt stiff as rock. Other groups also worked on taking down old fences but I managed to escape by opting for a town trip and sitting in a café with my laptop, drinking milkshakes and eating German bakes.

Some of the more interesting things included the TRACKS project, which is preparing a catwalk and then taking photos of the tracks left by three captive caracals as they walk over (Max, Shinga and Yoda) it. This is to build a worldwide database allowing a computer to identify various animals tracks. Im not sure entirely of the use. The caracals tolerated our presence quite closely, but one step too far and they would hiss and bare their teeth.

Another close encounter with a cat occurred while we were cleaning the poo and bones out of the captive cheetah enclosures. One cheetah, Jago, was hand raised and is very fond of people, but doesn’t enjoy the company of his own kind. As we walked around his enclosure picking up his refuse and left overs he followed us, purring all the while, and when he could catch up he would rub his head against us and lick our legs. The same morning we also followed the feeding run, where two workers go past all the enclosures on a quad bike to feed all the captive cats. Many would stamp on the ground and hiss when they approached in contrast to cats like Jago and the Adams family who are ambassadors for their kind (although the Adams family still become very aggressive when they see kids and hiss and pace up and down, Jago is likely the only cheetah in the world who is tame enough to approach small people). One thing I found quite impressive was when we rounded a corner to where there are three rescued lions, a male and two females. Seeing them in such a short time after seeing a leopard and cheetah really made me appreciate the difference and size, and just how powerful lions are. Not even a leopard could stand a chance against a lioness.

I also spent one morning teaching maths at the Okonjima country school to the staff’s children. It was interesting, the kids in the class were from ages 7 to 14 and were learning about very simple additions and subtractions of numbers up to 10, but at the end I pulled out a world map and we had some interesting discussions about various countries. They only really knew of countries from the news like Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya.

The final thing we did was go to REST and help Martin clear his paths of rocks and dig trenches against the rain, just like the PAWS volunteers had done while I was there. It was nice to see Martin and the vultures again and also the land there with the hill. I only have good memories there.

The siestas were fairly long and I usually spent them in the lapa. The group of people here were fun and nice enough for me to do that. The tents were too hot anyway. I could joke and laugh especially with a young German (married couple) and two middle-aged German women. I got on well with an English girl and an English woman as well and with Beth the guide who took me and another on a special trip to see birds as I was getting a little tired of seeing Kudu and Impala. A few people had been to Namibia before, but most had never been to Africa so everything was new to them. I felt like I could teach them a lot of things. Breakfast was cereals, but I had bought yoghurt and muesli in town for myself (I wasn’t the only one to buy my own foods), and lunches were sandwiches with a huge variety of stuff to put on them. Dinner was always cooked on an open fire.

The activities were usually just game drives, but of course being Okonjima, all the predators in the reserve are collared and highly habituated. We tracked a lot of leopards, cheetah, wild dogs and even hyenas. All barring the leopards could be followed on foot at a close distance, and all barring the hyenas cooperated and posed for us. While it was great seeing these animals, it also felt a little unrealistic and not very exciting knowing where they were and having the certainty that we would see them. Also, the collars ruled out the possible photography bonus, for that we had to go see the enclosed cats.

We did get to go behind the scenes of the lodges, and regularly came behind in the staff area to pick up equipment. I spotted our guides from last year a few times (We visited the lodge last year).

AJ is a ranger at Okonjima and he is going to take over the PAWS side from next year, to further integrate it with Africat. I spoke with him a lot about how the reserve is run, about the animals populations and how they monitor them. The reserve is really managed with a focus on the predators, and although they do hope to restore the ecosystem and reintroduce some further species, the main concern is having a large enough prey base. For this reason, I disappointingly surmised that they didn’t have plans to phase out the common impala and replace them with the Black-faced Impala. This is a shame, as although the black faced impala is only a subspecies, it is in fact more endangered than the cheetah, but therefore also more expensive. The common impala is not a native species here, but fulfills the same ecological role and is cheap enough to build a large population for the predators. With other endangered species such as Roan there is talk of bringing them back, but first letting their populations grow in the ‘safe zone’, and with rhinos it is an ambition in the far future. Unfortunately in the context of managing a reserve for the purpose of conservation, Mundulea wins here.

I also spoke with AJ about the camera traps and traded experiences. It seems the ones we used on Mundulea are about as good as you can get them and that they face the same issues as us. I gained some advice also which I should share with Bruno. One difference is that at Okonjima they have live video cameras at all the waterholes permanently, and use the other traps on game paths and at baits.

There were also two workers who joined us in our work and did the general labour in the camp, Felix and Hanguera from Rundu. They were both very friendly and we had a bit of a rapport as I had been to Rundu in September. Hanguera asked me to burn a CD of music for him which I did, though I think he found it a little hard to understand the music, when he is used to Usher and 50cent.

Clive and Roma (both English, lived in Namibia for 8 years, clive big, bald and very funny) who founded and run PAWS are leaving and handing it over to Africat so Louis and Beth arranged a goodbye party. The top management and the Hanssen’s all came down to enjoy a spit-roast, which is a lamb cooked over hot coals for nearly a whole day (tastes amazing). It was good meeting them and was a lot of fun. When Donna heard I had done the Pangolin research she exclaimed, ‘oh, youre the Pangolin guy!’, and when I told her it was near Otavi she asked if it was with Bruno who she said was an amazing guy. I then talked with Wayne (the owner) about various pangolin experiences. All in all they were very friendly but very macho. Wayne told a story about how he accidentally shot one of his father’s cattle when he was 16 and then cut it up and buried the bits. The whole family spent weeks searching for this one cow, but he only confessed it when his father was near death.

Eventually the time came for gifts and speeches and then the Hanssens abruptly left to catch some stray impala.

The next morning was obviously time to leave and us workers swapped email addresses in order to share photos we had of eachother. Before we left however, Felix wanted to say his goodbye to Clive and Roma. It started off very nicely about how he came here young and loved working for them and thank you, but then he began to say they were like parents to him and he didn’t think they would meet again and eventually he couldn’t go on and Clive had to take him away and assure him they weren’t just leaving forever. Some of the others even began to cry, and I thought we had been forced into a drama, although I also felt it was a sad time.

That was yesterday, and we stopped in Okahandja where I visited the craft market. There was this beautiful wooden box with a rhino carved in the front and a board game inside. I have the seller explain to me extensively how to play, and even played a game with him before buying it for 35% of his original price.

Now im in Windhoek. Its weird being in a town ill tell you. Yesterday I walked to go pick up my passport and visa, which has been extended, and then to a mall to buy a new phone (I lost mine on Okonjima)  and have lunch. For the first time In ages I had distractions from my food in the form of a TV. Still im enoying electricity and a decent bed and internet despite the noise and heat.

On a broader note Ive found it fascinating how things in the environment change with the seasons. Calving season has just recently started, I noticed already a few springbok lambs on Mundulea, but it became more obvious in Etosha and at Okonjima there were many many calves and lambs of all types just barely walking with their mothers. Obviously we are entering the rainy season, and we had lots of clouds in the last weeks with a few horrendous downpours including thunder and lightning. Various species of birds like swallows, martins and kites are popping up, arriving at the end of their migration from Europe. Tortoises and some other species have come out of their hibernation and are visibly walking the roads. Insects are coming out of the ground en masse to breed and ant colonies are flying off to form new settlements.