Game management consulting

Game farming is one of the fastest growing “agricultural” sectors, yet many game farmers have relatively little in-depth knowledge on game ranch management, suitability of species for a habitat, camp design etc. With many years of experience in this industry we are well qualified to assist with advice and education.

Irrespective of your concerns (optimal size of camps, which species and how many, what feed to give, how to build a boma, what permits to get, what to look out for when buying at an auction etc.), give us a call and we will do our best to provide you with good advice. We are willing to do farm visits (ideally in combination with other work done on the farm or alternatively outside the game capture season) to assist you with farm specific management issues.

  Training and Courses

To further empower game farms and people involved in wildlife work, we provide training and courses throughout the country and abroad. If you have any specific topic that you suggest we provide a course on, we would be more than happy to hear from you! If you would like to join one or more courses, feel free to contact us on: mariska@wildlifevetsnamibia.com. 

Post-Mortem course

Due to a deficiency of experienced wildlife vets in Namibia and the long distances to be travelled to most game ranches, with the obvious time delays and financial implications, few farmers have regular post mortems done on game or livestock mortalities. We feel that farmers will benefit greatly from being empowered to do a proper, systematic post mortem examination, collect the appropriate diagnostic samples and then have these submitted to a competent laboratory for analysis. Over and above the obvious benefit to the farmer, who will soon have a much better understanding of the health status of his herd (game and domestic), and will thus be able to take appropriate management steps, we as members of the farming community will all benefit by getting a better understanding of disease processes affecting game in Namibia. With time this knowledge will be of great value in overall herd and disease management. We will thus start offering 1.5-day courses where we will teach you how to conduct a proper post-mortem examination, including appropriate sample collection etc. This will be an intensive yet practical hands on course! If you are interested in such a course, please contact us. Click here to view the course outline. 

Animal Crime Scene and Evidence Handling course

One of the biggest threats to both wildlife and livestock is poaching for the trade in ivory, horn and skins, but also for meat. Especially the latter one is not much highlighted by the media, but it impacts game- and livestock farmers economically, and undermines conservation efforts and tourism. When an animal has been poached, it is important that the right steps are taken to investigate the case, and find and handle the crime scene and evidence in such a way that will lead to the arrest and conviction of the culprits.This course is meant for farmers, managers, anti-poaching units, game rangers, police officers, and all others that might encounter wildlife crime/poaching situations. In this 2.5-day course we teach you about the proper handling of a crime scene and evidence in case of poaching, stock theft or another wildlife or livestock-related crime. Click here to view the course outline, and/or contact us for more information. 

Dart immobilization course

We started this 5-day course in 2016, aiming at people who are involved in wildlife research and/or working with wildlife vets. But if you are a game farmer, a vet student, or just somebody with an interest in wildlife work this course could be also very interesting for you! In the course we teach you more about the Namibian legislation surrounding the use of drugs, we give an introduction to the various (remote) drug administration systems, darts, physiology, pharmacology and the drugs we use. We also teach and show you how to monitor an immobilized animal and what to do in emergencies and drug accidents. Practical work will involve practising with a dart gun, and we will immobilize and monitor some animals. Again, if you are interested in such a course, just let us know!

Training for e.g. vets, wildlife rangers, farmers

In addition to our routine activities we also provide training of wildlife veterinarians (aspiring) as well as farm/reserve personnel on a variety of wildlife related issues. These training sessions are adapted to client demand, level of existing expertise as well as local circumstances. Our aim is to improve animal care through mostly “hands on” on the job training. Depending on demand, time and facilities available, training usually involves a combination of lectures with strong visual Power Point support as well as practical application of lessons learnt.

Examples of courses and lectures we have presented both within Namibia and abroad:

• Different game capture techniques 
• Translocation and transport of wildlife
• Capture and handling of different species (e.g. giraffe, rhino, antelope, predator, elephant) 
• Elephant encounters (what to do (and not to!) when you encounter an elephant
• Wildlife diseases
• Pathology in wildlife management (1 – 2 day course including training in doing a field PM, proper sample collection techniques and reporting)
• How to handle a poaching scene (investigation, collecting and preserving evidence, forensic PM and photography etc.)
• General wildlife management
• Training to identify animals in poor health through the application of body condition score