Wildlife Rehabilitation & Veterinary Experience

The nature of the work includes partly wildlife rehabilitation with a little veterinary ongoing treatment (if needed by the animal patients)  and partly care work with animals. 

There are two main sections to this project

1. The Wildlife and Wild Cat Awareness centre
2. The Wildlife Rehabilitation and Clinic

Assisting in the Awareness Centre

To fund the rehabilitation work and to raise awareness of the conservation issues in South Africa, the centre offers small group programs throughout the day with a focus on providing a conservation-based, informative tour.

The awareness centre homes captive-bred ‘ambassador’ animals used for education and awareness purposes, which is vital to conservation efforts. Note: This should not be confused with a ‘breeding centre’ (which has no conservation value) as no breeding takes place.

The work you’ll be involved with at the Awareness Centre could include …

• Assisting with vaccinations and inoculations of ambassador animals if needed
• Assisting the animal keepers with animal enrichments
• Cleaning enclosures
• Preparing food and feeding animals
• Monitoring animals’ behaviour and general animal husbandry

Animals include lions, leopard, servals, caracal, African wild cats, meerkats, water mongoose, and a variety of indigenous birds! Many of the resident animals are ex-pets that have been confiscated due to a lack of paperwork and are too human habituated to be released into the wild.

Assisting in the Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre and Clinic

This area of the rehabilitation centre is not open to the public. Here you’ll be able to assist with much needed care for the animals in the unit which includes a pelagic bird and animal section as there are often rescued turtles and penguins that are brought in by the public.

Your duties could involve the following:

• Check the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) in the mornings if patients
• Administrating medications and hydration if needed
• Food preparations and feeding, which could involve various methods like hand-feeding through tubes, cropping etc. This would be twice a day or more depending on the animal in the clinic
• New admissions assessments
• Relocating animals to other enclosures onsite
• Assisting with hard releases into the wild
• Assisting with animals in soft release enclosures
• Helping to administer Physiotherapy to animals that are injured and need it if qualified
• Checking incubators
• Assessing the animals’ behaviour and monitoring them while they’re in the hospital and clinic.
• Assisting with the wildlife veterinary doctor if he is treating the wildlife at the centre on a call. Wildlife is also taken to private veterinary practises for medical diagnosis
• Assisting with periodic penguin releases

You’ll work 6 days on and 1 day off per week, however, although an additional day off a week can be requested. Please let us know if you have any specific skills, studies or qualifications related to wildlife or veterinary medicine  

The project work is with some of the most unpredictable factors around animals, nature, weather and people. In fact the best saying around here is “the most predictable thing about our work is its unpredictability…”   Because of this it is very difficult to get an exact outline of a day in the life of a volunteer.

For those that speak foreign languages, we would love you to assist if we need a translator and help with social media and marketing is always appreciated 

We put the animals and their needs first but as a “Guideline” we can say a day might look something like this…

07:00am – The day starts. Everyone meet up at the Rehabilitation centre for the daily briefing and go through what needs to be done for the day. In winter, the day starts at 7:30am

7:30 – 9:00am – Start with animal feeding and enclosure cleaning in the morning. This means you will be assisting the staff to feed various animals between the awareness centre and the rehabilitation facility. Exactly what animals will depend on, what is in for treatment and the schedule of the in-house animals in the awareness centre. 

9:00am – Tea and coffee break

9:30am – Food Preparation and General duties which are usually any issues noticed in the morning that need attention. If there is nothing urgent then the list from the previous day is referred too 

12:30 – 2:00pm – Break for a long lunch due to the early start to the day

2:00 – 16:30pm – General duties: Any tasks that need addressing – these could be things like fixing a small hole in an enclosure fence, removing a tree that’s fallen over, painting an enclosure, working on long term projects and general stuff that happens around the project. There may be animals that need medication or new rescued animals brought in throughout the day that need housing or attention.

Lastly the afternoon feed and animal checks. Then its time to lock up all the gates and say goodnight to all the animals.

16:30pm – Time to relax around the fire, catch up with the family or take an afternoon walk through the forest. Remember that things change constantly and the first focus is on the animals but we also want you to be comfortable and ENJOY the experience, make some memories, friends and lasting ethical practices for the future.