Typical daily itinerary | Course details

Giant Sable Conservation Efforts

Found only in central Angola, the giant sable is one of the most impressive but also one of the most critically endangered African antelopes. It was unprotected during the civil war that began in 1975 and only ended in 2002. Government and rebel armies alternately occupied the 8,280 sq km Luando Integral Reserve of the Giant Sable and the 630 sq km Cangandala National Park, 50 km from Malange, the provincial capital. Without a giant sable bull, the sable in Cangandala were doomed to extinction, hybrids or no hybrids.
To read his article further and see the slide show of the operation, go here.

Breaking News - Giraffe kills Impala

Fresh scarlet brain-blood had flowed from the baby imapal's nostrils to pool thickly in the footprint of a bull giraffe Read further...

How can we help you!

With holidays, career breaks or future employment opportunities taking a back-seat, many people are looking towards doing something constructive, affordable and above all for themselves. EcoTraining offers a wide variety of courses to suit many individual needs for now and the future!

Why Choose EcoTraining?

•We’ve been training since 1993 - one of the first organisations to conduct formal training.
•We train in great wilderness areas including the Kruger National Park.
•Our students train while living in the middle of the African wilderness, with wild animals potentially right outside their tents as our canvas tented camps are unfenced.
•We have trained Field Guides for top tourism operators such as Wilderness Safaris, Tanzania Wildlife Safaris, KZN Wildlife, Heritage Group and various privately-owned game lodges in southern Africa.
•and more reasons to choose us…

Join the Butterfly Survey at Makuleke

Let us know if you encounter these butterflies at Makuleke in the Kruger National Park. 79 species were recorded during the last survey, a couple of species that were of interest eluded the team. We need your help in documenting the species below.

It would be great if the presence of the following species can be confirmed for the area, as the current records are either very old, doubtful or based on single records only, which could indicate that the specimens recorded were onlymigrants into the area. The species that would be really great to record again are:

• Acraea acrita ( Fiery Acraea)

• Charaxes bohemani (Large Blue Emperor)

• Euxanthe wakefieldi (Forest Queen)

• Cyrestis camillus (African Map Butterfly)

• Dixeia doxo (Black‐veined white)

• Andronymus caesar philander (White Dart)

• Andronymus neander (Common dart or Nomad Dart)

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Typical daily itinerary

The daily programme will vary depending on which course you attend, however most of them, be it our Field Guide, the Wildlife Photography or the Birding courses tend to follow this basic daily itinerary. It is wise to go out into the hot African bush in the morning and late afternoons…to avoid that African heat and to see the animals at their most active.

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, bushbabies 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.

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