Guides must be Namibian
FGASA Level 1 Qualification or equivalent is the minimum requirement
Only hard workers need apply – we are a busy lodge

(Salaries are according to training & experience. Erindi in-house guide training & Guide Levels allow field guides to increase their salaries over time by completing given tasks & gaining specific experiences)

Please send your CV to ruan@erindi.com or tasha@globalleopard.com

©Tim Smith

Rumours about a Lion kill at lake giraffe came true when Ranger Jerimia and myself found a big male Lion feasting on the adult Kudu carcass in the tree line. For me it was special as i have not seen this big guy since the start of the year.

Minizil is not the biggest male but he did show his power by dragging and flipping the kudu around a few times before finishing one of his many courses of Kudu meat. He then proceeded to go and sleep in the shade 100 metres away with a meat coma.

Yesterday afternoon we had a plan to find the Wild Dog pack and maybe some Elephants as the day before we had found 3 black rhinos and Shadow – the big male Lion roaring. Ranger Will was on the radio half an hour into drive to inform everyone the Pack was at the waterhole in front of the lodge.  We raced back towards the lodge and halfway there we bumped in to them hunting. 

First morning back i was lucky to join the AM Cheetah Walk with ranger G.P Britz. We headed out towards the last known location of the “Leopard Pen Boys” four male Cheetahs and with the change in the daylight saving time we used a spotlight for the first 15 minutes of drive. We found a relaxed Brown Hyena just outside the lodge and this seemed to be a good omen for the rest of the trip..

The sun only letting out rays at 7.10am we reached the entrance to the Vlei and picked up good signal for the Cheetahs. As we headed out slowly walking along game trails towards the open floodplain of the Vlei we noticed Springboks running and pronking. Not too long after we had our first sight of the coalition of males looking right across the plains towards the whistling antelopes.

We followed them right in the open across Vlei as game watched both the cats and some weird two legged animals behind them.
Finally stopping at the waterhole for a drink we had such a special intimate sighting of the boys sitting directly opposite them.

Great morning to sum it up and topped off with Amarula coffee! Good to be back.

Timmy “Nighthawk” Smith is “Zimauswean” – this means that he was born in Zimbabwe and he grew up in Australia!

“As a guide at Erindi, I love trying to get guests to see every possible animal they want to see.
I love to show guests animal interactions, much more exciting than seeing a lion sleeping – try lions roaring, mating or hunting for example!!”

BIRDING is a special interest of Tim’s. Big raptors are tops on his list together with trying to find the rare yellow morph crimson breasted shrike!

“Like all people, I love leopards but finding them is a difficult story – alas the entire experience of driving through leopard territories and finding just track to begin with is great and when I do get to see one I feel incredibly privileged!”

On his time off, Tim is a very enthusiastic photographer and has a unique passion for catching snakes and photographing them.

Tim completed the FGASA affiliated EcoTraining course in early 2011 & he is currently working towards completion as an Erindi LEVEL 1 GUIDE. He takes fantastic game drives!

Tim will be going on holiday in Australia for a month, so his regular updates will be temporarily missed, but he has ensured us that he will be bringing back some new camera equipment, which will result in some more brilliant photos.

He has been on the kill for the last few days with hundreds of kilograms of meat at his paws. We estimate shadow to be around 220-230kg’s but that is tiny compared to the possible 700 – 800 Kg Eland bull in picture. We cannot imagine he can eat anymore without his stomach bursting, but tonight he gave it five minutes.

It was a nice change to see him active instead of sleeping with a full tummy. He has done well to keep other scavengers off so far to have this feast all to himself – we wonder for how long…

Prior to his guiding career, Jesse studied at Juanita College in Pennsylvania USA and he worked in Construction.

Jesse enjoys cataloguing animal behaviour with his video camera and he has contributed a great deal to the Erindi Library. Jesse is a qualified TELEMETRY TRACKER working on completing ERINDI LEVEL 1. 

Jesse has a special passion for elephants and he is currently working on cataloguing and identification of the Erindi Elephant herds.  He truly will have his work cut out when the new Elephant Relocation Project (the aim is to translocate 200 new elephants to Erindi) begins!

Read his article on the recent relocating of 5 new elephants here: http://www.erindi.com/new-elephants/

Henco takes game drives and thoroughly enjoys photography but he also has a special interest in projects running on Erindi and he spends a huge amount of his time getting involved in the ecology of the reserve and management of all the game.

Henco takes CHEETAH WALKS & BUSHMAN ART WALKS and is known to have “good knowledge of everything”!

Actively working with the CCF (Cheetah Conservation Fund), Henco was also involved with the rehabilitation of the new cheetahs brought to Erindi by the CCF. Read more about it here: http://www.erindi.com/coco-chanel-and-the-chocolate-sisters/

In his free time Henco likes to take his motorbike for a ride through the bush & together with Ruan, the reserve ecologist – a great deal of game management occurs while these red & white Honda’s are in the field!

“The Cheetahs gets transported to Erindi” © Rob Thomson

To prepare them for their re-wilding, they were released into a 4,000 ha fenced game camp at CCF at the end of 2011. This camp, called Bellebenno, has a wide diversity of different prey animals that inhabit the area, but is a relative “safe zone” in terms of competitive predators such as spotted hyenas and lions that would normally steal carcasses from cheetahs and sometimes even kill them. After a month of being intensively monitored by CCF staff and volunteers on their behavior and movements across the camp, they were deemed suitable for re-wildling, particularly due to their successful hunting trips. They had made an astonishing eleven kills during this time, including oryx, eland, kudu, warthog and steenbok. This is was impressive list as it shows that the males had learnt necessary skills to bring down a variety of different prey.

After a month of being monitored by the CCF, they were deemed suitable for re-wildling

During this soft release, Omdillo continually proved himself as being the leader of the coalition, with Chester close behind in this hierarchy. Both males were also the most successful hunters of the group, almost always initiating hunts and being the ones to take the stranglehold on their prey. Omdillo showed himself as being an extremely independent and intelligent creature, as he was able to work out how to escape from the game camp using a variety of tactics during his time in Bellebenno! He was, however, always lured back with the cunning use of meat.

“The cheetahs are anaesthetized for their radio collars to be fitted” © Rob Thomson

On the day of their transfer to Erindi, they were all anaesthetized for their radio collars to be fitted around their necks for use in further monitoring of their movements in Erindi. Each cheetah also had a thorough veterinary examination to ensure the health of each cat was suitable for re-wildling. Chester’s x-ray revealed the pin placed in his leg from when he arrived at CCF in 2008 due to a broken leg sustained from when he was trapped. Despite the bone showing signs of arthritis forming, he is still able to run and hunt effectively.

Once the exams were over, each cheetah was placed into an individual holding box for transport to Erindi. These boxes were loaded onto trucks and, after a long drive on a dusty dirt road from CCF, they arrived at their final destination: an open area deep in Erindi’s private game reserve with large trees, a giant termite mound and a watering hole nearby – perfect habitat for cheetahs! This site was also chosen for its convenient access to multiple watering holes, which is important for the four cheetahs, as they were used to being provided with water during their captivity back at CCF.

At around 4 pm on the day of release, the crates were offloaded. An oryx carcass had been placed in the shade of a large tree for the final supplementary feeding of the coalition.

“The cheetahs from the CCF gets released to explore their new home, Erindi Private Game Reserve” © Jed Winer

Finally, the crates were opened; out ran the four cheetahs! After the initial sprint, they began to walk around slowly, exploring their new surroundings.

Three of the four cheetahs soon made their way to the carcass and began their last easy meal. However, Omdillo took off into the bush, perhaps being a bit dazed and confused from the long journey. Little did he know that this 172,000-acre protected reserve would be his permanent new home. Some of the team drove off to check on Omdillo, who was found a short distance away calling for the rest of his coalition. The next morning Omdillo had reunited with the group and all were at peace near the carcass with fat bellies!

Since the release, the cats have fitted back into life in the wild wonderfully and have been observed successfully hunting eland calves and oryx. Omdillo appeared to have sustained a leg injury from a warthog, but despite this apparent disability, has been contributing to hunting and is able to keep up with the rest of the group well. We have no doubt that this coalition will continue to thrive in Erindi.

Best wishes,

Niki Rust - Ecologist
Cheetah Conservation Fund
www.cheetah.org

Photos copyright © Jed Winer & Rob Thompson (Cheetah Conservation Fund 2012)

It’s not often the guides can go from one special sighting into another, so yesterday was fun for everybody! We went to check up on Hershey, the female Cheetah, and her Water-buck kill which she was still feeding on. While watching her, we heard over the radio that the Wild Dog pack was at the waterhole in front of the restaurant…

We raced there and eventually picked them up with help from the other guides. We stayed with the pack for close to 45 minutes and watched their behaviour change when they would pick up scents of other animals, or see them! They chased 2 warthogs but were unable to catch them… as they came back onto the road, Ranger Will found some White Rhino just up ahead, so we decided to stick with the Dogs as they were slowly making tracks towards them.

Something i would only dream of happened – The pack of Wild Dogs ran in to the Rhinos and tried to chase them (biting off more than they could chew obliviously) but still amazing to see non the less – the pack soon lost interest and ran off.

To top it off, we found 3 Bull Elephants feeding and shared some AMARULA with the guests before heading back to the lodge.