Wildlife Rehabilitation

For those interested in spending time as a wildlife volunteer there are many choices. Africa is probably close to the top of the list of countries simply because of the great diversity of wildlife. You can volunteer to work with wildlife in lots of countries but not many offer you elephants, buffalo, hippopotamus, giraffes, zebras, leopards and of course the king of beasts, the lion.

Lion conservation and rehabilitation has become a major issue. In some parts of Africa lion population has dropped by as much as ninety per cent in just thirty years. These projects offers you an opportunity that it is unlikely you will find anywhere else - actually working directly with these magnificent beasts. Not with iron bars between you but out in the African bush, walking beside them.

To try to give you some flavor for what you could be involved in, let's give you a brief run-down of the four main stages of lion rehabilitation.

Cubs are bred in captivity from "rescue" lions. Lions are never taken from the wild for breeding. When the cubs are three weeks old they are separated from their mothers. Although this may seem harsh, experience over many years says that this greatly increases the chances of survival. Great care is taken not to accustom the lion cubs to humans too much but some handling takes place so that young cubs can be walked in the wild to give them the chance to get used to their natural environment. At this point cubs are chipped and vaccinated.

Wildlife volunteers are involved with all aspects of lion care and development at this stage from looking after the infrastructure to helping the lions build confidence in their environment with daily "lion walks". That's you and several lions walking through the bush together, a phenomenal experience.

At stage two, lions are allowed to develop natural "pride" mentality. They are still enclosed but this enclosure is 500 acres! There is natural game for them to hunt and although they are monitored closely, human contact is removed as much as possible. The developing pride remains like this until they no longer rely on the volunteer organization to give them food.

Stage three sees the lions pretty much self-supporting. The enclosure, if you can call it that, is now a minimum of 10,000 acres and is effectively a managed ecosystem. There is adequate prey and also competing species such as hyenas. The lions begin to breed and these cubs grow without human intervention.

Stage four is the ultimate goal, the release and reintroduction of young adults into the wild. The precise detail of the release will depend on the area in need. It might be a complete pride, it might be females to add to an existing pride or small groups of males to increase the gene pool.

As you can see, lion conservation and rehabilitation is vital work. Your part in it as a wildlife volunteer cannot be underestimated. The work you do will help preserve a species. At the same time you'll have quite probably the time of your life!