quote:

Originally posted by Big Wonderful Wyoming:
Anyone know anything about this outfit. One of the loonies I work with is thinking about taking a couple of weeks off with them.

It looks like Kevin Robertson once worked for them or still does.

quote:

Originally posted by doctari505:
The Southern African Wildlife College is indeed a unique institution and I'm privileged to be part of it's exciting management team. I head up the college's Sustainable Use & Field Guiding section. Being located within the greater Kruger National Park is what makes the SAWC special. We effectively live amongst the wildlife we're so passionate about - go to sleep to the sounds of hyena's giggling and wake up to lions roaring most mornings. My unit trains the Field Guides for the Kruger Park and we also have an 18 month 'Sustainable Use' program which is heavily professional hunting orientated. We see and interact with elephants, buffalo, lions etc on an almost daily basis so our training is very dangerous game orientated. Our afternoons are spent in the veld so I still get to carry my .505 every day. And just as well - in self defense I had to shoot a grumpy old dagga boy that lions had mauled. While on a tracking exercise at the height of the drought last year he charged unprovoked myself and three of my students. At 5 paces a 600 grain North Fork cup nosed solid did it's job - but I don't think the unarmed students blinked their eyes for the rest of the day!
The SAWC is completely donor funded and without the generous support of Dallas Safari Club Foundation and Aimpoint - the Swedish red-dot scope guys my section would not be able to function. SCI regularly get a hammering on this site and I too have locked horns with them a time or two but they too have been - through their Hunters Legacy 100 Fund generous supports of my department. This was in the form of a nice Landcruiser which we converted into the ideal safari vehicle and use daily for our training exercises.
I also run the SAWC's rhino monitoring program where we systematically dart, micro-chip and ear notch for identification purposes all the rhino in our area. We them monitor their movements to get information of their home range or territory sizes etc. And we hold short-courses on dangerous game hunting for local South African hunting enthusiasts.
The SAWC is also involved in just about all other aspects of African Wildlife conservation. One section trains the field rangers who are the foot-soldiers fighting the current rhino poaching scourge. We also have a K-9 unit where free ranging tracker dogs are being used, with increasing success to hunt down rhino poachers. And we have three light aircraft and a full-time pilot who daily flies rhino monitoring patroles. The SAWC is also involve with Wildlife Area Management training where the principles of CBRM - community based resource management are taught, implemented and monitored. And we have a higher education section which trains in conservation many of the wardens for national parks throughout much of Africa. We also host foreign students and there are currently students from Sierra Nevada college on campus. I gave then classes on African wildlife diseases and elephant management last week in addition to an impala dissection. My PH students then hung the remains of the impala as leopard bait and our camera traps have just photographed a huge Tom. So who says we don't have fun! The SAWC is also now heading in a more research-orientated direction. I'm working on the genetic sustainability of buffalo trophy quality. In this regard I have recently been joined by two Oxford University masters students and our project will be to do a buffalo bull age and trophy assessment survey of the APNR using the latest aerial photography techniques and 'artificial intelligence' computers to analyze the photos. The plan is to then compare this information with buffalo from the adjoining KNP to see what the effect of decades of trophy hunting has had on the overall trophy quality of a sport hunted population. All exciting stuff. I'm planning to be at the Dallas Show next year where I hope to be able to give a seminar on all this. If there are any questions on the SAWC please feel free to e-mail me directly at krobertson@sawc.org.za

quote:

Originally posted by nhoro:
It will be great to see you back at the Dallas show Kevin! What's the best way for individual contributors to donate and ensure their donation makes it to your specific effort?