Moholoholo Rehabilitation Center

We woke up around 8am to drive to the moholoholo rehabilitation center, not too far away from our accommodations. Moholoholo rescues animals that have been trapped in snares, or injured out in the wild. We had an informational talk about their goals, and how they are run. They will usually get calls from farmers, or other wildlife stations in South Africa, about injured or pesky animals. They have saved many lions, leopards, hyenas, etc, from being caught in snares, or injured by humans. Snares are very common, and very deadly to the wild animals. Everytime they pull, the wire gets tighter, which can cause some very severe damage. They showed many before/after photos of the animals they have seen in snares, and the images were very disturbing. The team also catches pesky animals, such as leopards, that eat local cattle. Farmers have been taught that instead of trying to kill these animals, they can call moholoholo, and the team will relocate the animal. 

Before our tour, we had the treat of watching a cheetah get it's exercise! They had a chew toy on a string, that the cheetah would run, and chase down in front of us. Afterwards, we were all able to pet the cheetah while it finished it's snacks! Here is a photo of me playing with the cheetah tail! 

When everyone was done petting the cheetah, we started our tour of the resident animals. All the resident animals are there for different reasons. These reasons are, they are too tame to be sent back in the wild, they aren't socialized enough to go back out, or they are too permanently injured to survive on their own. We met their trouble maker honey badger, who was extremely cute. We learned that honey badgers are dirty fighters, because they will go directly to your genitals when they attack. Our guide said they can easily take down a lion. If the lion is unprepared or weak. He had escaped from his enclosure more than 10 times, in multiple different ways. 

Then we saw a few small cats, and moved onto the huge birds. We saw the largest eagle in Africa, and a bird that looked similar to a Do Do bird. The guide actually invited us into the vulture enclosure to help him feed them. Vultures are still ugly close-up, and are quite heavy birds. I'm glad I didn't wear sandals that day, because they sometimes try to eat unmoving toes. 

On the rest of the tour, we met the lions, wild dogs, leopards, and hyenas. Hyenas are a lot bigger than I expected them to be!