12 Feb Protection Partnership at Welgevonden Game Reserve

Welgevonden Game Reserve’s Proactive Protection Partnership

Thanks to the vast, open spaces, the climate, forward-thinking conservationists, nature lovers, entrepreneurs, diverse terrain, and landscapes – each with its own natural features and animal habitats – and all the glorious fauna and flora that is so abundant throughout South Africa, this country is home to a huge number of game reserves, both public and private.

Welgevonden Game Reserve, home of our exclusive game lodge, Fifty Seven Waterberg, is proud to feature amongst the collection of private conservation areas in the wonderful, wild Waterberg area of this country’s Limpopo Province. Welgevonden is also home to the famous Big 5 game species – the African elephant, African lion, Cape buffalo, African leopard, and the endangered rhino, poached and hunted ruthlessly for its supposed restorative (falsely so) properties.

Our conservation efforts across all game species throughout Welgevonden’s >37 000 hectare expanse have been successful since our establishment as a private reserve, a project initiated from scratch in the 1980s and completed in 1993. Nevertheless, we have never been content to rest on our laurels where our wildlife conservation and protection is concerned.

Where/when necessary, certain once-indigenous Waterberg species had been reintroduced or translocated to the area that was to become Welgevonden Game Reserve. Our project was the first of its kind in South Africa, which successfully translocated entire breeding herds of elephants to our park, indeed no mean feat.

Game Protection Partnership

Today, we remain proactive rather than reactive at Welgevonden Game Reserve. Determined to protect our precious game, particularly those species that are threatened or endangered, we are at the forefront of utilising the latest technology – IoT – to achieve our conservation goals, enabled to do so in a much-valued game protection partnership with Wageningen University and IBM.

Although you are almost guaranteed to see rhinos roaming throughout the reserve, they are not as abundant as antelope species here, or anywhere else for that matter. The IoT project involves fitting sensor collars to antelope, which detect the presence of and act as sentinels if illicit intruders or poachers were to enter Welgevonden surreptitiously.

Details of abnormal skittishness, movement, and behaviour, detected by the collars, is transferred to rangers and security personnel, enabling them to react and respond at once, in real time, so preventing any damage to or destruction of our wildlife, including endangered rhino.

When you are ready for a wildlife experience par excellence to observe the Big 5 and an abundance of freely roaming African wild creatures in their natural habitat, accommodation in luxurious privacy at our 5-star Fifty Seven Waterberg Game Lodge, a visit to Welgevonden Private Game Reserve is definitely on the cards.