MANAGERS REPORT

Dear Friends and Colleagues

The Lodge

Well here we are in the first month of a New Year, and although it already seems a long time ago that we were seeing the New Year in, all of us would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy, healthy and safe 2008.

It was wonderful to see the New Year in with all of our Guest who were in Camp over this Festive Period, I think all agreed the sore heads the next day were worth it.

As mentioned in our December Report, 2008 is going to be a milestone in Leopard Hills’ history, as we will celebrate our tenth year of opening on the first of March. Louise and I have had the privilege of being at the Lodge since that very first day, and on the first of March we will be standing side by side with so many of our Team who have been with us right from the beginning, namely:

It has been a unique challenge and experience for us to have watched the Lodge develop and grow over these last ten years, and we stand here almost a decade later with a product that has become world renowned and most certainly in my twenty years of operating in the Game Lodge Industry, a Product that is unrivalled in its overall ability to produce the best wildlife experience anywhere in Africa. We have surrounded ourselves with very talented Individuals, who together make up the best Team we have had the privilege to work with over the years.

On the same subject of service, we would like to congratulate Marius who celebrated his fourth year of being with us on the 3rd of January. In the time he has been with us, I think Marius has developed into one of the best Guides in the Industry today, and those that know him and have spent time out on Safari in his Company will agree it is an “education” of the highest quality to spend time in the bush with him.

Employee of the Month

We are very pleased to announce William Temba as our first Employee of the Year for 2008. William has been a Chef for over 50 years in this business and it is a pleasure and a privilege to have him working on our Team.

The Employee of the Month Award has been such a rewarding concept since we initiated it during the course of last year, and it is encouraging to see how many individuals have attained this accolade in the short time we have instituted it.

Community Development

With the “madness” of the Christmas period and many people and businesses not getting back to work until at least the first week in January, I am afraid very little has been achieved on the Community Development front since our last Report. We have scheduled a meeting with the Chief, and are hoping for a very positive outcome in this regard.

At present the Children are still attending the existing Sandra Crèche, and we continue to supply all the food from the Lodge and whatever supplies and equipment we receive through such wonderful donations. The substantial amount of funding we have received through donations for the building Project of the new “Day Care Centre” is more than enough to complete the entire Project, and we are simply awaiting the Chief to give us the seal of approval and we will commence immediately. I sincerely apologise for the delay in getting this Project off the ground, but as mentioned previously, we will not give up until we have achieved our objectives.

Rangers Report

This months Report has been compiled by Gary, as Marius is somewhere in Uganda tracking Gorillas’. Thank you to Hannes, Lisa and Mark and Jacqui Wymer or the use of their photos in this months Report.

Take Care and kind regards.

Duncan and Louise Rodgers
Operations Director and General Manager

Rangers Report

Well hello to all once again, we have had yet another month packed with some awesome sightings. We have also had a fair bit of rain which has been a relief after a spell of very warm weather. Our highlight of the month has been a cheetah and her cub that made an appearance and another territorial male cheetah that has been around.

Leopard

Makwela’s cub has been the entertainment of many of our drives, one particular story sticks out. Raymond and Gary were out on a morning drive tracking the cub who was giving us the run around. Eventually after persisting for about 2 hours, Raymond called on the radio “Gary, come, come this is only the second time I have never seen this before.” He had found the cub stalking monkeys, then, in true cat style caught one of the baby monkeys and started playing with it. It eventually ended up in the cub killing the monkey and eating it.

Gary and his guests have also seen an old unidentified female leopard in the area and on chatting to some of the rangers that have been here for years they didn’t know her either. Another tick on the list.

Mambhirhi and her young one have also been seen on a couple of occasions.

Lion

The “BIG 6” Mapogo male lions have been a bit scarce but Hannes and his guests saw one of the males mating with one of the Ximungwe pride females which means in about 90 odd days we should be expecting a new litter, exciting stuff.

On one morning Hannes and his guests saw all 6 of the big male lions finishing off a wildebeest kill on the camp clearing.

The Ximungwe pride has been going great guns slowly eating their way through our wildebeest population.

You all will be ecstatic to know that the one female of the Sand River pride that had been attacked by a hyena and badly injured had made a speedy recovery and is now very healthy. Their 5 cubs are getting big now but not big enough to stop messing up some of the hunts for the lionesses.

During this month the Shalala pride has seemed to have moved on to greener pastures (for the moment). They were tracked from the heart of the Mapogo’s territory, moving over the cut line and haven’t been seen again; we hope they will be back soon.

Buffalo

The big heard of buffalo has been frequenting us and we are pleased to see that there are a whole lot of additions to the herd. Gary and his guests counted as many as 10 very young calves in one sighting.

Gary and his guests stopped at a water hole for the proverbial morning coffee. About half way through our break we were interrupted by no less than 100 buffalo that were on their way to drink. They made their way to the dam, some even laying down in the water. There were 2 hippos in the water that were not too happy with the buffalo invading their personal space. The hippo crept up to the buffalo under the water and slowly nudged the buffalo one by one out the water.

Elephant

The elephant sightings this month have been great. There have been many sightings of young elephants. They have also been appearing at the watering hole in front of camp and quite a few times during lunch.

Raymond and his guests had the pleasure of seeing a very distinctive bull with one skew tusk that he said he hadn’t seen in 10 years.

Cheetah

Gary and his guests saw great cheetah and hyena interaction! They joined a cheetah sighting just after the female had given chase to impala but unfortunately missed. They heard the bird like calls of mother to cub and vice versa and then watched the cute performance of the two reuniting. A hyena appeared out of nowhere and went for the cub. Luckily the female cheetah jumped in and charged the hyena, smacking it twice with her front paws. This was just too much for the scavenger and he turned and ran away with his tail between his legs.

Specials

Hannes and his guests had a brief visual of 2 honey badgers late one morning. Unfortunately the honey badgers moved off into thick bush and they were not able to follow them.

Hannes and his guests also had the pleasure of watching a yellow billed horn bill who was trying to swallow a chameleon! They watched for about 15 minutes as the hornbill tried to maneuver the chameleon into the best position but it seemed impossible; the hornbill’s eyes were bigger than its stomach.

One morning, while enjoying a refreshing cup of June’s special bush mix (coffee and hot chocolate mix), Hannes and his guests were privileged to watch a male yellow billed hornbill feed his partner and their young through a small slither in the base of a tree. Hornbills have a strange way of breeding; first the couple finds a suitable hole in a tree. The female will enter the hole and the male will then come and seal the hole up with mud and clay, leaving only a thin slither for his beak to fit through. Only after the young are old enough to fly will the male release the female and young from their safe ‘prison’!

We have also been having quite a few sightings of a white impala. Luckily this youngster has made it through the danger period and should now be able to reach adulthood within the safety of the herd.

Well that was another fun filled month, hope you enjoyed it. Till next month,
Gary, Hannes, Marius and Raymond

Sightings totals for the Month

Lion:31 Leopard:48 Buffalo:28 Rhino:33 Elephant:54 Cheetah:18 Honey Badger:1

Note: The above sightings totals reflect the number of individual sightings of animals, not populations of animals in the area. e.g. If we see a herd of 12 buffalo this is noted as one sighting. These sightings are then tallied to get the figure reflected above.