News

06 May 2026

The day the bush stopped being scary

Forty-two grade-fives, two stalled bakkies, one porcupine quill in a school shoe. Field notes from our spring schools day in the dome — and why we keep doing them, even when nothing goes to plan.

05 May 2026

The Vaal at sunrise — counting birds we hadn't seen in a decade.

Annual bird census reveals the river is healing faster than we thought. Field notes from a wet July morning, with our shoes off in the reeds, and a list of who came back.

04 May 2026

A snare is just two pieces of wire. The cost is everything.

Inside the anti-poaching unit's first hundred days on the dome — what they pulled out of the grass, what it tells us about the year ahead, and why the quietest patrols are the worst news.

03 May 2026

Mavi: from snare to rim — three months in the leopard ward

She came in dragging a back leg and a piece of fence wire. Ninety-four days later she walked away from us at first light, into the long grass on the north rim. This is what happened between those two ...