Marataba Conservation Safari

We will start the day off with a mid morning transfer by road heading north West to the Marataba National Park and the Marataba Conservation Camps.

On arrival we will settle into our rooms (we have exclusive use of the small and intimate Founders Camp) before enjoying a leisurely sundowner cruise along the Matlabas River where elephants, rhino and a variety of general game often come to drink.

DR Andre Uys,General manager of the Marataba conservation and park operations, will join us for dinner and brief us on the following days activities and the role that Marataba play in the conservation of both white and black rhino populations in South Africa.

Notching is an ongoing intervention at Marataba and our long-term objective is to identify every single rhino in the Park. This will ensure that annually we are only required to notch the younger animals that are dispersing from their mothers. Animals are individually located and immobilised (a tranquilising dart is shot by a professional veterinary team) from a helicopter. Once immobilised, the animal is moved into a comfortable position. Then, notches are incised into the ears, under anaesthetic, and microchips are inserted into the horns and the body. The tissue removed from excising the notches is collected and the DNA, now correlated to the microchips, is submitted to the RHoDIS database (Rhinoceros DNA indexing system). RHoDIS is a national DNA database maintained by the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at the University of Pretoria and is kept to provide forensic evidence related to the provenance of confiscated rhinoceros horns.

Our afternoon activity will focus on finding a suitable site to setup a camera trap which will be purchased and donated to Marataba through your participation in this safari. These cameras play a vital role in both the monitoring of wildlife populations, assisting with the identification of species such as leopard, whilst simultaneously playing a vital role in detecting security breaches by poachers. On the final evening we will return to the camera and take a behind the scenes look at what happens in the Park during the day and night with analysis of footage from camera traps.

A full day lies ahead as we head out on a morning game drive towards the entrance to the spectacular Bushman’s Gorge. Armed with a picnic lunch, swimming costumes, some hammocks and a book, we will spend the middle of the day relaxing in the majestic Gorge, taking time to digest the previous days activities, swimming in the crystal clear mountain pools and generally just reconnecting with mother nature.

As the day cools we will walk out of the Gorge and return to the vehicle to begin our afternoon drive, stopping for sundowners on the Matlabas River.

Careful monitoring and identification of individuals in the carnivore populations are required to accurately inform the timing of required interventions. Today we will join the monitoring team to get an understanding on how radio telemetry assists them in monitoring wildlife movements and make use of this technology telemetry track a pair of collared cheetah. We will walk into the sighting, assess animal behaviour and report our findings back to the conservation team.

In the afternoon we will once again take to the river for an afternoon boat cruise and will review images from the Camera Trap on a laptop back at camp before enjoying dinner beneath a canopy of stars.

After a short morning drive we will depart Marataba for a road transfer back to Johannesburg and the OR Tambo International Airport (roughly 3.5 hours drive) leaving plenty of time for you to connect with your return flight home or onward travels.