Rescuing Imperiled Wildlife in South Africa

Dear friends and supporters of PNHF,

We are pleased to rerport back on what the Phalaborwa Natural Heritage Foundation (PNHF) has achieved over the past couple of months. Below are some of the successes we had since our last progres report in July 2025;

1. We've conducted 41 anti-poaching Operations. 
2. Patrolled over 262,45km on foot.
3. Removed 1028 illegally set poacher's snares, 3 bear traps, 2 spears, 4 fish traps, 2 fish nets, 3 porcupine traps and 2 large trap cages.
4. Discovered 15 poaching camps.
5. Discovered 67 animals illegally killed in snares and poisoned by poachers, these include 1 lion, 1 leopard, 1 spotted hyena, 1 white-backed vulture, 1 aardvark, 2 guineafowl, 11 nyala, 4 warthog, 14 bushbuck, 3 cape buffalo, 1 porcupine, 4 zebra, 15 impala,  3 waterbuck, 4 southern bush duiker and 1 kudu. 
6. Taken 339 local community members and international volunteers out on anti-poaching operations.
7. Successfully rescued 15 animals. We darted and relocated a large male kudu and a male plains zebra that found themselves in areas where they were at risk. We assisted with the capture and relocation of 5 lions that started killing cattle. We assisted with the confiscation of two South African Hedgehogs from smugglers, they were treated and released back into the wild, South African Hedgehogs are a protected species. We assisted with the darting of 1 endangered African Wild Dog to remove a snare from its neck. We relocated 5 African Elephant bulls from a high risk area with the use of a helicopter.
8. We collared a second female spotted hyena that is part of our monitoring project.
9. We assisted with the arrest of two wildlife smugglers that were in the possesion of two protected South African Hedgehogs.
10. We hosted conservation evenings with guest speakers Martial Rappo - Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, John Davies - Vulture conservation and Hannah Edwards - Spotted Hyenas. We had 180 people in total attending the talks.
11. Presented a environmental education talk at a local school to over 300 students.
12. We purchased another 2 4G Trail Cameras that we are successfully using to monitor wildlife, focusing mostly on predators. The camers have also proven highly effective to pick up poachers moving through hotspot areas. Unfortunately 1 camera was destroyed by a spotted hyena and 2 were stolen by poachers.

The above mentioned data and statistics gathered during the past four months has contributed to the conservation of our local biodoversity in the nature reserves, parks, tribal game reserves and neighbouring communities where we conducted operations. In some areas we have noticed a decline in snaring even zero snaring in certain properties, this is a big win for us and shows that our efforts are successful. 

We would like to thank each and every one of our supporters for making this possible. 

Your continued support is greatly appreciated by us and every animal and person benefiting from our efforts.

Links:

• Good Things Guy Article
• Patrollin.org Article