Located on the edge of Manyara Lake National Park, the Manyara Ranch Conservancy is a 35,000 acre wilderness that is home to some of Africa’s most iconic animals such as elephants, giraffes and lions.
This was the second African Wildlife Foundation project that the Drive4Wildlife team visited on their trip and whilst there, they spent their time with the anti-poaching unit. In the past, Manyara had seen a number of issues when it came to human/wildlife conflict and also poaching. However, in the past four years there has not been a single animal poached at the conservancy. This is down to the incredible efforts of the African Wildlife Foundation and the anti-poaching units at Manyara Ranch.
Corruption was also an issue facing Manyara four years ago, with rangers being paid off to allow poachers to kill animals and also keep other rangers away from areas that they knew the poachers would be going to. Over time, the corruption has been edged out of the park and now the communities around Manyara know that the area is well guarded by the anti-poaching unit.
However, despite the record Manyara now boasts for no poaching, it doesn’t mean that poachers still aren’t making efforts. A team of only 10 anti-poaching rangers cover the entire park, and during their time there, the boys did find several poacher’s snares in a wildlife corridor, an area of land that is designed to allow animals to move between wild areas without coming across humans.
This was just an example of how key the work the anti-poaching unit and the African Wildlife Foundation are doing at Manyara Ranch and why ongoing support for conservation is so important. In order to thank the teams out in Africa, Paradise Wildlife Park and The Big Cat Sanctuary donated £5000 to help aid the anti-poaching efforts and all the good work being done at there.
