Game Ranger

Activities : Conservation / Expeditions / Tour / Adventure / Extreme / Animals
Company : Afreco
Country : South Africa
Region : Kruger National Park and Karongwe Game Reserve
Duration : 2 weeks

Info

The Game Ranger Experience is for those people who want to learn some of the principles of managing wildlife areas for conservation and preservation of the ecosystems.

Game Rangers are the custodians of our wildlife areas and are responsible for ensuring that our game and nature reserves are managed in a sustainable manner.

For people to understand what a game ranger does, it is very important to understand ecology which is that which we teach in our Field Guide Training.

Tasks include:

* Students fill in observation forms which contribute to the collection of data which can be passed on to the game reserve's management for their own use and the students get to contribute to the authentic operations.
* Evaluating and monitoring all aspects of the ecosystem then applying management principles to ensure that the ecosystem is kept in balance.
* Active counting of animals by means of road strip counts and learning about other types of counting such as aerial counts.
* Students are split into two teams to do 24 hour waterhole counts at two different waterholes. This will be exciting as it will combine a sleep-out with 24 hour observations.
* Students are taught basic veld (field) condition analysis, which involves the identification of plants.
* There is a game capture activity involving the darting of large game.
* An anti-poaching subject involves local Shangaan trackers who set up snare lines which the students have to find in a competitive game between the two groups.

Our Game Ranger Experience will give participants a taste of what it is like to be a game ranger and will focus on some of the more interesting aspects of the job including the counting and monitoring of animals, the maintenance of fences, the supply of water, and how to measure the physical condition of animals.

The difference between a true Game Ranger and a Field Guide

Please note this to make sure you are attending the right course for the right reasons.

A field guide is a person who leads tourists on trips into natural environments. Their job usually relates to ecology and nature. Field guides are open game-drive landrover guides in that they spend most or all of their time in wildlife areas and they often combine their driving activities with walking activities. The main role is to accompany tourists in the bush and to interpret nature in a meaningful and interesting manner. During a field trip you are a guide, teacher, friend, game warden, doctor, storyteller and sometimes cook for your guests! The guide should provide interesting information about the environment in such a way that the beauty, joy and wonder of these natural areas are revealed to the guests. Guests should leave with a new awareness of nature and the importance of conservation having had fun developing this awareness.

The term game ranger has up until recently been used in the safari industry to refer to field guides. Strictly speaking, a game ranger is a person who manages wildlife areas such as national parks and game reserves. His duties usually do not include guiding, but will involve such activities as game counting, fence repairs, anti-poaching work and all that outlined above in this course description.

You will still be exposed to and interact with the big and small game in our game reserves and learn some basic information about game and wildlife.