Animal welfare for African wildlife in Namibia

As a volunteer, you are involved in all daily tasks on the farm: from preparing food and feeding the animals to animal care and keeping the enclosures clean. Together with other volunteers, you will look after the watering holes for the animals, check fences, help with animal observation, take care of horses and, if necessary, ride horses, count wild animals and carry out research work. You can also help out at the Lifeline Clinic or help rehabilitate animals if needed. You will also explore the bushland together and learn how rangers work.

Another special feature is the exchange with the San community, an indigenous people in Namibia. The San regularly visit the farm to give visitors and volunteers an insight into their cultural heritage and to share their skills and knowledge. So you see: it never gets boring on site, because no two days are the same.

An example daily routine in the wildlife project in Namibia

• 7:00 a.m.: Enjoy breakfast together (cereal, toast and fresh fruit)
• 8:15 a.m.: Morning meeting: Details about the daily program are discussed here every day. Afterwards, everyone does a group activity together! Examples could be: food preparation, farm work, feeding tours, cleaning the enclosures, etc.
• 13:00 p.m.: Lunch in the "village", free time and opportunity to rest for work in the afternoon
• 15:15 p.m.: Group meeting: activities for the afternoon are discussed.
• 15:30 p.m.: Volunteers start their afternoon activity, e.g. preparations for the afternoon feeding tour, farm work, research, etc.
• 19:00 p.m.: Dinner together and time to end the evening together, for example.

Activities after work can look like this:
Listening to San Bushman stories under the stars, lions roaring in the background, night rides if anyone wants to join in, Junior Ranger is a small program where children can spend a night outdoors with the APU and join a patrol: 
Junior Rangers are of course safe. They sleep in tents, on the ground, on thin sleeping mats and in sleeping bags with a blanket. You are allowed to bring additional bedding if you wish.

The team at the deployment site expects you to have team spirit, a sense of responsibility and a willingness to actively contribute. The team needs to be able to rely on you being able to lend a hand, day or night, if necessary.

The site is not a petting zoo! The goal is to release as many animals as possible back into the wild. At no time can you be guaranteed direct contact with animals. The lions, leopards, wild dogs and hyenas are too large and therefore too dangerous to come into contact with safely.

We can promise you one thing: a lion's roar sounds just as beautiful in a safe place behind the enclosure as it does in the enclosure itself - you can even enjoy it a lot better because you can close your eyes.

Even if the animals appear "tame", they are still wild animals. Please treat her as such. This is the only way you can observe how, for example, a cheetah sneaks up on its prey while getting used to the wild and maybe even kills it successfully. Animal behavior as it should be: as free, natural and wild as possible!

There can be no guarantee that young animals will be on the farm at any time. No predators are bred on the farm. This is prohibited by law and contradicts the philosophy of the project as well as that of RGV. Contact with large predators such as lions, leopards, wild dogs and hyenas is prohibited by law in Namibia in the interest of animal welfare.