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Game Ranger Training South Africa

Game ranger training course location: South Africa, Kruger National Park.

“From personal experience they are certainly a cut above the rest in standards, safety definitely and in game reserve experience. Karongwe and Kruger are exceptional for this.”

GAME RANGER: Our Game Ranger training will give participants a taste of what it is like to be a game ranger and will focus on some of the more interesting aspects of the job including the counting, catching and monitoring of animals, the maintenance of fences, the supply of water, and how to measure the physical condition of animals.

What is a Game Ranger?

The term game ranger has up until recently been used in the safari industry to refer to field guides. Strictly speaking, a game ranger is a person who manages wildlife areas such as national parks and game reserves. His duties usually do not include guiding, but will involve such activities as game counting, fence repairs, anti-poaching work and all that outlined above in this course description.

You will still be exposed to and interact with the big and small game in our game reserves and learn some basic information about game and wildlife.

The Game Ranger Experience is for those people who want to learn some of the principles of managing wildlife areas for conservation and preservation of the ecosystems.

Game Rangers are the custodians of our wildlife areas and are responsible for ensuring that our game and nature reserves are managed in a sustainable manner.

For people to understand what a game ranger does, it is very important to understand ecology which is that which we teach in our Field Guide Training or that reason it is open to FGASA graduates.

What Will You learn on the Game Ranger Course?

Graduates from the game ranger course will learn an in depth knowledge about nature ecology and wildlife, but that is only one aspect of the course. It is about absorbing nature and learning how to interact with the environment, tuning you into the ecosystems.

Tasks include:

Students fill in observation forms which contribute to the collection of data which can be passed on to the game reserve's management for their own use and the students get to contribute to the authentic operations.

Evaluating and monitoring all aspects of the ecosystem then applying management principles to ensure that the ecosystem is kept in balance.

Active counting of animals by means of road strip counts and learning about other types of counting such as aerial counts.

Students are split into two teams to do 24 hour waterhole counts at two different waterholes. This will be exciting as it will combine a sleep-out with 24 hour observations.

Students are taught basic veld (field) condition analysis, which involves the identification of plants.

There is a game capture activity involving the darting of large game.

An anti-poaching subject involves local Shangaan trackers who set up snare lines which the students have to find in a competitive game between the two groups.

Typical Itinerary:

A typical daily programme at the camp follows a routine of rising early, usually before sunrise, drinking hot coffee and biscuits and then leaving the camp for an outing into the wilderness.

The outings are extremely flexible and determined by the unpredictability of what is found during the outing in combination with the subjects that have to be covered. The outing could be a game drive following up on the roar of a lion heard during the night or a walk learning about the plant species occurring in the area. It could be a walk following fresh elephant tracks, learning how to track the animal and finding it or it could be a game drive to a waterhole where animals come to drink.

Students return to camp in the late morning for a hearty brunch which is followed by a lecture on the subject of the day. Study and rest time is then followed by afternoon tea and another outing into the wilderness until sunset, if walking, or until well after dark if doing a game drive.

Afternoon outings could include night drives looking for nocturnal animals such as owls, bush babies and leopards or it could be a walk looking for and learning how to identify interesting birds. It could be time spent studying the night skies or it could be a time for students to test their 4x4 driving skills.

It is then back to camp for dinner, stories around the campfire and then bed.

The emphasis is on practical day-to-day experiences in the bush. The daily outings are flexible and may focus on specific subjects such as animal tracks and tracking, birds, plant identification or animal behaviour, or may involve game viewing and learning about the ecosystem in general.

Included in the Game Ranger course:

· 2 x experts in game capture and poaching

· Lectures

· Game drives

· Walks

· Accommodation

· Meals

· Tea, coffee and cordials

Not included

Transfers to and from the camp before and after the course (can be arranged at extra cost)

Accommodation prior to the start of the course

Drinks not mentioned above