Baby duiker surprises residents in their garden
MBOMBELA - Residents were surprised when they were awoken in the early hours at the end of last month to find their dogs barking, not at a would-be attacker or even a rabbit, but rather a baby duiker.
The animal had managed to crawl through an electric fence into the homeowners’ garden, where it was so frightened by the dogs that it ran into the pool. After being fished out and dried off, Wild and Free Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in Hectorspruit was phoned.
Their Mbombela volunteer, Anneke van Schoor, arrived to take the duiker to be rehabilitated. She looked for any signs of the mother, but to no avail.
She took the little one to the vet, where she was deemed to be in perfect health. The duiker weighed only a little over three kilograms. Van Schoor realised that the animal could not fend for itself, so she took it to her house on a farm just outside town.
The duiker could not be taken to Hectorspruit as it was demarked in a red zone for TB. “If I took her there, she would never be able to leave the area. I also don’t want her to potentially get TB.”
Van Schoor currently also has a few mongooses she is fostering on behalf of Wild and Free. The owner of the farm where Van Schoor resides has said that the duiker may be released on the farm. “It’s fantastic! At the same time it's really difficult to release the animals you take so much time to care of. But seeing them go back into the wild is the most rewarding feeling in the world.”
People are not allowed to keep wild animals as pets. If you do find a wild animal on your property, call local rehabilitators like Wild and Free. It is a non-profit organisation that believes that animals should be in the wild. For this reason, the centre is not open to the public.
“We have the necessary permits. We aren’t just bunny huggers who do this for fun; we have training,” explained Van Schoor. “Our motto is 'rescue, rehabilitate and release,’ so all animals we take in are released back into the wild.”