FRESHLY returned from the African savannah, two dale residents are keen to raise cash to help continue the work of conservationists looking after endangered animals.
Friends Yvonne Wilkinson, of Lynesack, and Samantha Whitehead, of Boldron, have just spent two weeks in South Africa as part of a volunteer conservation project to help critically endangered species including black rhinoceros, African wild dogs and cheetahs.
“It was such an amazing experience,” Ms Wilkinson said. “We track and monitored wildlife using telemetry and spoor. We recorded animal behaviour and health.”
The duo, who were rewarded with the trip to see where funds they had previously raised was being spent, tracked and identified elephant bulls and helped with the releasing of a cheetah back into the wild. But it was an invitation to the Zululand Rhino Orphanage which has inspired their latest fundraising effort.
Over the past few years a poaching crisis in South Africa has devastated the rhino population with many slaughtered for their horn.
Many female rhinos are slaughtered in front of their calves and if the calves aren’t killed they need to be helped recover from the trauma and are cared for at the orphanage, Ms Wilkinson said.
“The calves are released back into the wild,” she added. “But in the meantime they do need a lot of care. Rhino babies drink several gallons of milk a day and need constant care, which is expensive.”
Ms Wilkinson runs the Little Owl Lodge, a luxury holiday accommodation complex in Lynesack, and is offering a two-night stay at the lodge for up to four people in a prize draw. The draw will take place on July 1.
Entrants must be over 18 and minimum donation for the draw is £5 and can be made via their Just Giving page www.justgiving.com/fundraising/yvonne-wilkinson2. Entries can be sent via the Little Owl Lodge Facebook page.
Money raised will go to the good cause.
