The Reservations Department meets Sylvester & the Elephants.

Last week, after work one evening, the entire Wild Horizons reservations department was transported to The Wallow at The Elephant Camp where the Wild Horizons elephant-back safaris and interactions are operated out of. Some of the newer reservations staff had never visited the camp or any of the elephants before, and as such were quite excited at the prospect.

First we checked out the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust's laboratory, which is also on the property, and we were impressed to see and learn how much actually goes on there. Jessica Dawson gave the group a brief but interesting talk on the functions of some of the sophisticated veterinary equipment in the lab, which is essential for quick detection of diseases in sick and/or dead animals that are found by the VFWT's rangers. With all of this state-of-the-art equipment, the Trust recovers the running costs of the lab through providing veterinary and pathology services to local livestock farmers, such as cattle and crocodile farmers in the Victoria Falls region. The Vic Falls Wildlife Trust also works hand in hand with the Zimbabwean National Parks, and the community funded VFAPU - the Victoria Falls Anti-Poaching Unit.

Routinely, the Trust along with National Parks and VFAPU respond to reports of distressed/injured wildlife in the local area - which consists mostly of snared animals (laid by poachers) such as warthog and small antelope. The Trust also specializes in identifying outbreaks of disease, which could potentially affect local livestock populations, and even jump across to the human population. Aside from the medical / research side of things, the Trust also provides invaluable education to surrounding local schools, and has a different school attending fun educational afternoons every Friday.

From the lab, we then carried on a short distance down the road to The Wallow, where the Wild Horizons herd of elephants were waiting for us to interact, feed and socialize with them. All of the Wild Horizons elephants are hand reared rescue-elephants, and have been put into the WH elephant-back safari program in order to prevent them from being shipped out to zoo's or circuses, which would otherwise undoubtedly become their fate. The elephants are allowed to live as natural a life as possible within the reserve, and will all eventually be allowed to retire and roam freely once again within the reserve.

One thing which I found most fascinating was the fact that as we were feeding the ele's thier pellets (much like horse cubes), inevitably some pellets would fall to the floor. The elephants would then use their massive trunks to pick them up again, one by one, with the precision of a human hand using a finger and opposable thumb to achieve the same! After the interaction and the feeding, all the ele's stood back, and put thier trunks in the air to salute us goodbye. The elephants know how to respond to around 29 separate commands when instructed to do so by their relevant masters.

An added highlight to the evening was the fact that Sylvester - the Cheetah Ambassador, was also out at The Wallow interacting with some clients, who donate money to the Trust in order to meet and walk with him. He is a beautiful specimen with a very interesting story to tell aswell! He was found in the Bube Valley in the South-Eastern region of Zimbabwe by a National Parks ranger who happened to be called Sylvester. The rangers had spotted a female cheetah getting chased by a male lion, and when she failed to appear again after the chase, was assumed to have been killed by the lion. (Predators regularly attempt to eliminate any possible competition). So the rangers then tracked her spoor back to her den where they found a brand new litter of cubs, only a few days old (their eyes had not even opened yet). Unfortunately, out of 5 cubs, only 2 were still alive - the lion had killed the other 3. Of those two, they sadly could not save the one - and the last surviving cub is now the beautiful 4 year-old boy that we know today as Sylvester.

After Sylvester's rescue, he was hand reared by the rangers as a family pet - but soon outgrew his welcome when he started to bully the other pets and the smaller children. National Parks then put out a tender to private organizations country-wide to see who could viably take over the care of this fast-growing animal. He will unfortunately never be able to be released back into the wild - as he was rescued before his eyes even opened and as such humans are the only thing he knows.

After receiving several proposals from organizations which planned to use Sylvester for commercial gain, The Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust decided to put in a bid to take care of him and use him purely for educational purposes - as an ambassador for all Cheetah's and to use him as a tangible, living, breathing specimen with which to educate young children on the plight of big cats in the area. (Culturally, big cats have always been killed by locals if sighted in a populated area as they have been known to kill livestock. This has led to their critical endangerment and now the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust is attempting to educate the younger generations in order to try and stamp out such unnecessary actions).

After the staff had had an opportunity to stroke and get some photos with Sylvester - we were treated to sun-downers and snacks from the kitchen at The Wallow, whilst Zenzo - the elephant-back safaris manager, delivered an interesting and interactive talk to the group about various points in the history of the Wild Horizons elephants, to ironing out some of the operational issues which are sometimes experienced when the reservations staff are sending clients for rides and interactions.

It was a super evening all in all and the staff seemed to really enjoy themselves, and even push a few personal boundaries - as I doubt that any of them would have guessed that they would one day take a photo next to a large male cheetah!

An Introduction to Wild Horizons

Wild Horizons is a multi-faceted tour company that provides a large array of activities, operates out of multiple locations, has a huge fleet of vehicles, 2 luxury bush camps, employs over 400 people and operates at full tilt, 24/7. So you can imagine, that as a new employee arriving on day-one of the job, the introduction is both hugely exciting and somewhat overwhelming. For my first blog post, I thought I would re-count what my first couple of weeks in the Wild Horizons marketing department has been like!

One of the things that struck me first and foremost was the friendliness of absolutely everyone. From the gate-guards, to the mechanics, to the camp managers and the directors – I was instantly made to feel welcome. I started off with a tour of the main HQ in the industrial sites of Victoria Falls, the size of which blew me away. Four large wings of offices surrounding a big courtyard with lush green buffalo lawn and teeming flower beds around the sides. A large workshop at the back and ample room to park the large fleet of vehicles and luxury transfer busses. My tour of the HQ was accompanied by mass introductions to all the staff in every department – around 100 people in total would be my guess. I admitted to myself that it would be pointless to stress too much about everyone’s names as I would never remember them first time round. No doubt I would pick them up one by one as I deal with each department in due course. 

One of my first tasks is to join the marketing team in coming up with a marketing campaign for one of Wild Horizons’ many products - the Vic Falls CanopyTour – the newest of 4 products which Wild Horizons offers from it’s jump site – “The Lookout”.

The Lookout (#wildhorizonslookout) is a thatched deck structure, which is perched right on the lip of the Batoka Gorge, just downstream of the Vic Falls Bridge on the Zimbabwean side. It has a spectacular view of the bridge, and sits overlooking the first ‘bend’ in the zig-zagging gorge which occurs below the Victoria Falls. There is even a tame wild goat called Dixon who hangs out there like all the time! 

The other 3 products which operate from The Lookout are the ‘Flying Fox’ – a foofie slide which extends across the width of the entire gorge; the ‘Gorge Swing’, which is a death defying free-fall off a platform into the gorge attached to a rope, which then ‘swings’ you as you reach the bottom; and the ‘zip-line’ – which is a dual-cabled foofie slide that makes a rather steep downward parabola, but without quite putting you into freefall. Finally, the Vic Falls Canopy Tour is a series of 9 shorter, low speed cable-slides that criss-cross the inside of the first bend of the gorge (below the Victoria Falls Hotel) where the vegetation is thick and very jungle like – with vines and steep drops galore. It offers a very mild adrenaline rush and is the perfect ‘in-between’ activity for those who can’t quite bring themselves to do the more intense adrenalin activities such as the gorge swing, whitewater rafting or the bungee jump.

So off I go with a group of paying clients on the Vic Falls Canopy Tour. We harness up and set off on a path down the side of the gorge, and it’s not far before we get to slide no.1. The guide hooks our safety lines up to a safety rope that runs along the entirety of the course - all the walkways, bridges and even on the actual foofie slides where is a second steel safety cable which we are attached to whilst sliding. My first impression is that the safety is being taken very seriously. 

We step up onto a box/platform that overlooks a cliff and the guide hooks our main & safety lines to the respective cables, and upon hearing a whistle through the trees from another guide  indicating that he is ready to receive us - we step off the platform and start whizzing down the slide. Now we have been given thick leather gloves for our hands, and we have been instructed to hold our harness line which connects us to the cable with our left hand, and then loosely hold the cable with our other hand, BEHIND the pulley. This allows for us to squeeze the cable with our hand to slow ourselves down when we start reaching the end of the slide. It took a few go’s to get the timing right, but before long I was timing my hand-braking perfectly and was landing gracefully on the box as is required for the guide to dismount you from the pulley and hook you back up to the ground safety line. 

This carried on for 8 more slides of varying lengths and speeds, and I looked forward to each slide more than the last – the views were just spectacular and the ambience of being in the Batoka Gorge canopy, with the view of the bridge right in front of you, and the Zambezi roaring beneath you – was just incredible. A really great product indeed, and it even had really nice boarded walkways and rope bridges for the more difficult parts. So far, I’m thinking I love my job!