Daktari Bush School and Animal Orphanage in South Africa

Some villagers caught a pregnant female duiker and tied her up with wire and sacking and tried to sell her for meat. One of our volunteers, Lizzy Dening, heard about this and immediately offered to buy the duiker to try to save it. We know this could encourage the villagers to do it again, just for money, but we wanted to create communication with the local people and to speak about the cruelty of their act. Unfortunately the duiker had suffered so much from stress that he only lived for two days.

One week later, other children from the village found a baby duiker. They caught it and immediately contacted the wildlife club at the school who contacted Daktari and the baby was brought back to the orphanage. The children didn't ask for any money and just called us because they were concerned by the survival of the orphan. After hours of trying, the baby eventually started taking milk and appears to be healthy. We have named her Lizzy after our volunteer.