Circle the VulPro Conservation Centre on your Harties ‘to-do’ list
A beautiful Cape vulture. Image courtesy *Kicki*
“What we gonna do?” ... “I dunno, what you wanna do?” ...
You’ve just had an awesome time at the Harties Cableway, but you still have daylight to burn – so why not make a booking to visit VulPro, the nearby vulture rehabilitation and conservation centre?
Situated just outside Hartbeespoort Dam on a smallholding beneath the Magaliesberg mountains, the centre provides a safe haven for recuperating birds before they are released back into the wild.
Those birds housed at the centre on a permanent basis form part of its educational and research programmes, giving visitors a chance to get up close with some of Africa’s most important creatures.
“Today, vultures face an unprecedented onslaught from human activities,” reads the VulPro website. “They have to cope with electrocutions and collisions with electrical structures, poisonings, land-use changes, a decrease in food availability and exposure to toxicity through veterinary drugs ...
“Vultures, positioned at the top of the food chain, are an indicator of the health of the environment below them – and dependent for their survival on a healthy environment. As such the work of the Vulture Conservation Programme is intended and expected to impact on many other aspects of the environment – beyond vultures.”
The Centre is home to a large number of birds of prey, including:
- Cape vultures
- African white-backed vultures
- Lappet-faced vultures
- Palm-nut vultures
- Bateleur eagles
- Black eagles
- Andean condors
- Steppe buzzards
- Yellow-billed kites
- Spotted eagle owls
- Giant eagle owls
The centre offers school tours, and family picnics can also be arranged. Admission is R50 per adult and R20 per child under the age of 12, but pre-booking is essential.
Click here for more information and directions.
(And just in case you didn't recognise the opening quote ...)
