Meet the conservationists saving rare animals in Uganda

euronews (in English)

In partnership with Media City, Qatar

Transcript

00:00 I've always loved animals. When I was a kid, I found crickets. Some of them were

00:06 eating. The way they have fluffy tails and the way they eat the whole food with

00:11 both hands, it was fascinating. I was wondering, are there more animals in the

00:16 wild? That's where my passion and love for wildlife started. My name is Akelo

00:25 Holly Oliver. I'm a wildlife animal handler at the CTC Conservation Center.

00:31 A typical day for me here at the CTC Conservation Center is waking up, checking

00:47 up on the animals, then feeding those that need to be fed early morning. Every

00:53 day it's exciting because you get to learn different things. What you thought

00:59 that you've already learned about this animal will surprise you tomorrow. I'm

01:02 still excited. They become part of my life. I'll get to take care of them and

01:08 if any animal is sick, to help the vet in treating of the animals. It can be quite

01:15 challenging working with animals because they are rare. You have a precious thing

01:21 in your hands. You don't want to lose them. You don't want them to die on your

01:24 watch. The animals receive all kinds of Medicare. They get vaccinations against

01:28 all types of viruses and bacterial diseases. We have to make sure that they

01:33 have proper enrichment because these are animals that are usually in the

01:37 wild and they are now living in captivity. We make the animal enclosures

01:41 as close as that in the wild by doing a closure enrichment. Different species of

01:48 animals have different enrichment plan. There are those animals that live in the

01:55 open savannah. Zebras are in like 12 acres of land and it's open. Another

02:01 enrichment plan is through interaction. They have scratching posts by hiding

02:08 their food in places the animal moves to find it.

02:16 Our animals come from different sources. We have several rescues here like our

02:21 donkey is a rescue. He was mistreated. The animals are just licensed to us by

02:25 Uganda Wildlife Authority. The majority which are sourced in Uganda are

02:29 community problem animals where they're having reports from the community that

02:35 animals are picking their goats or their chickens. We have two very large

02:39 crocodiles. One of them was a man eater and he supposedly ate three fishermen.

02:44 Uganda Wildlife Authority captured him and asked us if we would like him.

02:49 Human wildlife conflict is happening because we find that not many people really love

02:54 the animals. The local community don't understand what is going on. In other

03:00 places a lot of poisoning is happening. You find human activities like poaching,

03:05 illegal wildlife trade. The animals that you hope to see in the wild you don't

03:11 find them anymore. The numbers of animals are decreasing day by day.

03:18 My role at CTC Conservation Center is to guide tourists, explain to them about

03:31 different things about the animals. By the time someone leaves they go back with

03:35 positive mindset towards conservation. I do work with the local communities

03:40 about the importance of wildlife conservation and also how they can

03:45 coexist. Ugandans are more involved in conservation these days and also they

03:51 are more exposed. Communities have been rescuing the animals like the pangolins

03:59 to bring here for safe custody. We hand it over to Uganda Wildlife Authority for

04:06 self relocation into suitable environment. We are trying to push for

04:11 some of our captive bred animals to be released into the parks and other

04:14 protected areas in collaboration with Uganda Wildlife Authority. Our dream

04:18 would be to expand this facility as big as possible reaching maybe 250 acres

04:23 and being a sanctuary for orphaned wildlife as well as injured wildlife and

04:29 also a head start facility for reintroduction of local species. We have

04:35 been able to successfully breed different species of wildlife for

04:40 example the African golden cat. By breeding wildlife we try to create a

04:46 sustainable environment for them where we also possibly have the opportunity to

04:51 have excess offspring which we can reintroduce back into the environment. We

04:55 of course also have to conduct a full environmental impact assessment. We don't

04:58 release something which then just will be poached again. I aspire to be exposed

05:04 to a broad set of skill that will enable me to train different people and also

05:11 inspire more people into wildlife conservation. I'm studying Bachelor of

05:17 Science in Wildlife Management and Conservation. I hope that will provide me

05:23 with the knowledge that I need to implement in my career. Some of the

05:30 future goals is carrying out research and documenting this research so that

05:36 people can easily access the information about these wild animals so that more

05:41 people are involved into conservation. We can conserve for the next generation.

05:48 Conservation is everyone's role.

05:52 [Music]

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