If you are looking to make a difference by actively participating in the conservation of African wildlife within a fun, safe, stable and stunning environment, Buffelsdrift Game Lodge is the place for you.
Although this may sound similar to many other proudly South African volunteering projects, our dream for every person we encounter is to have a lifestyle change towards thinking conservation and living conservation. We want your time at Buffelsdrift Game Lodge to not only be the experience of a lifetime but an experience that changes your life! Our aim is to empower ordinary people (people like you!) to protect nature by creating a conservation lifestyle upon your return home.
For more information on our volunteer program, please follow the link below:
Funds for the Buffelsdrift Foundation are derived from tourism and from external funders. The Foundation aims to support projects that are focused on the long-term sustainable conservation of wild populations of threatened or endangered species.
Our habitat conservation seeks to conserve, protect and restore firstly the unique quartz-soil habitat on the Buffelsdrift Reserve and to prevent plants unique to this area from extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range.
Buffelsdrift Game Lodge opened its doors in October 2005 and we have really made our mark nationally and internationally. In this short space of time we have already been voted the top Game Lodge in the Southern Cape by the Professional Management Review and by the AA Awards as one of the top three in South Africa.
We have a Restaurant for 120 people, international standard conference facility for 120 people, wedding chapel and 34 super luxury air-conditioned units all situated alongside a 5 ha waterhole filled with hippo. We also offer bush safaris (game drives), meerkat safaris, weddings with the elephants and elephant experiences.
We actively contribute to grow and strengthen the genetic pool of the cheetah population in Southern Africa. We are privileged to be associated with the world-renowned EWT (Endangered Wildlife Trust) and through EWT we are the proud custodians of two cheetahs. The purpose of having these cheetahs is to let them roam freely and breed. The offspring will then be relocated to other reserves to ensure a clean and strong bloodline which prevents inbreeding and the extinction of the cheetah. The cheetahs are collared with VHF (Very High Frequency) devices, to enable the tracking of the cheetah for research purposes.
We have three elephants formerly from the Kruger National Park. Their parents were poached because of constant conflict with the nearby commercial farmers. There is a similar problem in the North East of Namibia where a group of 125 free-roaming African elephants are in conflict with commercial farming in the Mangetti area. A portion of the funds accumulated by the Buffelsdrift Foundation are used for the research and conflict mitigation in the North East of Namibia.
After two years of intense preparation, we became custodians of three young lions in January 2018. The first project on the list was to relocate the three young lions from a farm in the Western Cape to Buffelsdrift Game Lodge with the help of Cape Nature. The cubs, two females (already sterilised) and one male, were approximately nine months old at the time. The cubs were welcomed at Buffelsdrift Game Lodge on Wednesday the 4th of January 2018 at their new large camp, not far from the Buffelsdrift Game Lodge tented camp, from where the lion’s spectacular roar can sometimes be heard.
The meerkat or Suricata is a small carnivoran belonging to the mongoose family. Our reserve is home to three wild meerkat families. It is one of the most unique species that occur in the Klein Karoo. Unfortunately, because of land developing, farming and the lack of knowledge these species have diminished over time. At Buffelsdrift Game Lodge we are dedicated and passionate to learn how these little ones live and operate in their natural habitat. Monitoring these clans provides us with crucial information that helps us understand them better and hopefully can help them to survive in the long run. At the end of the day we can make life-changing decisions on scientific evidence collected by monitoring these clans. This kind of research helps us to mitigate the conflict between the meerkat families and farmers and people keeping meerkats as pets.
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A unique South African Bushveld experience in the heart of the Klein Karoo within the Garden Route, only 5 hours drive from Cape Town, Western Cape.
