Tourism – Page 3 – See Animals Wild

October 20, 2021June 30, 2022

A tesla plane? what impact would this have

Elon Musk has talked about creating an electric plane, I think that this is a fantastic idea, but not from a tesla fanboy point of view.

Electric planes are in their infancy. There are a range of extremely light weight aircraft for learning to fly. There are also an increasing number of island hopper jets, which can allow easy access for small communities – at prices that are affordable, and therefore long-term as well as the far more environmentally friendly setup.

The other big move in this arena, is Ryanair. They are a budget airline operating throughout Europe, but they are building an aircraft which should be able to carry 186 people (31 rows of 6 seats) that would cover 80% of their routes. My hope is that this is a move into them behaving in a more compassionate way – they have a reputation of treating people poorly (I have experienced that first hand but that is another story)

Elon Musk envisaged a vertical take off and landing aircraft, and one which would fly high enough to travel at supersonic speeds. He did state that he thought batteries needed to reach 400wh/kg and the batteries that run tesla cars are currently 260wh/kg, so were still some way off. Having said that, tesla has some of the best battery research going on, and they are confident that the batteries will be ready in the next 3 or so years.

So what impact would a tesla plane have? Well what Musk is describing is largely a private jet, not a passenger jet. Never-the-less Tesla cars started and high cost and came down. It is likely that a Tesla plane would do something similar. Certainly, with the weight Tesla can bring to bare, it is likely that any involvement by Tesla would push the electrical aviation market place to new heights.

September 13, 2021June 30, 2022

Why are so many African countries on the government’s Covid red list

Out of the 54 countries in Africa 20 currently listed on the British government’s red list. This list is a list of countries that you cannot travel to without then spending 10 days in quarantine.

All well and good you might say, after all the government’s main concern is the health of its citizens. The problem is that this does not seem to be about the health of the UK citizens. Instead it seems more aimed at protecting against people’s misconceptions.

France is on the British amber covid list, yet this country alone has 115,000 death registered, or roughly two-thirds of the number of deaths recorded in the whole of Africa (between 150,000 and 200,000 depending which statistics are used. Indeed Germany is on the government’s green list and yet has had 90000 deaths and is currently running at 10,000 new cases a day. What is more given that these numbers are broken down by country, more than 80,000 deaths occurred in South Africa, even the rest of the African continent a share only about 100000 deaths.

The whole of Africa (a contingent of 1.3 billion people) only recorded roughly twice the number of daily cases recently to Germany – a country on the green list.

Now, it could be argued, these countries are only on the red list because the government cannot be sure of the data coming in.

Why is this a problem? Well, apart from the astounding level of institutional racism that this seems to show, tourism is essential for many African economies. As a result this failure to follow the science to have long lasting socio economic problems.

The problem is that China has been claiming virtually no cases for months. China is currently on the amber list, yet there is a little faith or put in the numbers they are quoting. It’s true that with some of the African countries, there is also a little faith in the numbers.

Why is this of concern to a wildlife travel and conservation website? It is simple! The longer these countries stay on the red list because of covid, the bigger an impact this will have on wilderness reserves and national parks. If only a few people are willing to enter the country and tolerate the quarantine on return, we run the risk that these countries will turn to hunting instead of photographic safari.

Time will tell if this is a racist move, allowing the government to appear to be taking covid seriously – without too much worry of backlash from the country in question.

Obviously the sooner these rules change (for me as well as the tourism sector in Africa) the better, however this is the same for the natural world. I just hope and pray that the government has better reasons than it appears for its current covid red list, and will open up travel to these relatively safe countries soon enough to save the wild places that they protect.

July 15, 2021June 30, 2022

Personal note: where to go on holiday

Travelling during the epidemic even if fully vaccinated is hard or even impossible.

We have been hoping to take our children back to South African for a few years, partly to show them the incredible places such as the Kruger, but also so that we can list many of the cheaper places to stay on this website. Unfortunately, that will have to wait (we hope only until next year.

So where will we go this year?

We are in the process of setting up our “in the shadow of mankind” and we are hoping to visit some places we would love to add.

We are thinking of heading to Scottish islands, possibly Skye and Shetland. What will we hope to see? Well Otters would be top of the list, but other creatures will include red squirrels and if were lucky orca and humpback whales.

What is happening on the website. While it does not always show on the surface we are hard at work in the background. We are building a system that will allow people to list their own wilderness place far quicker, which hopefully will allow this site to list enough places to move towards its original goal.

Watch this space

July 2, 2021July 1, 2022

The British governments slow progress on opening up travel endangers wildlife around the world

The governments approach to opening up after the epidemic has been slow. This is of course entirely understandable.

However, wildlife destinations around the world have been starved of finances for 2 years now. It is increasingly clear that fully vaccinated people are little at risk. I should note that this website is in the same position.

Many of the reserves that are listed here are run by a company called Singita. who is calling for a more nuanced approach.

There is a need for tourists to be able to return to wild holidays asap. Without this source of income, many of these destinations will be forced to resort to hunting tourism. Due to the expense, hunting tourism can keep a reserve in business with far fewer people visiting.

Of course, this is not good for the long term viability of the industry. We must start rushing out Delta variant boosters if we wish to live in a world where lions and elephants still roam the wilds.

June 6, 2021June 30, 2022

Contradiction of wildlife tourism – do not kill the wild natural world while cutting your emissions

The world has an unfortunate problem. In many parts of the world we are successfully reducing our carbon footprint dramatically, through cleaning our electricity generation among other improvements.

Unfortunately, in our current setup, often the only way to pay for conserving the wild places on our planet is by visiting them, and for most people, this requires long-distance flights.

Something we must avoid in more wealthy countries is to simply halt all tourism to wild places. If in order to cut a few tons of carbon from our personal emissions, we remove the reason to conserve a large rainforest in Africa or Asia, can we really blame the locals when it gets cut down? In theory, money does indeed get sent to some of these countries to pay for offsetting our emissions. Unfortunately this rarely reaches people on the ground.

List your wild place

Would you like to list your wildlife destination on this site?

Living alongside wildlife can be complicated. A farmer will struggle to enjoy the presence of predators, even if they have not attacked his livestock.

On this website, our aim is to allow people to benefit from wildlife that they share their land with, whether this is to bring in some extra money, or to pay for protection for livestock, or whether it is the primary use (any farmers care about the environment more than city dwellers, so our aim is to make sure that where possible protecting wildlife pays – by giving them the ability to list their land for people to see the wildlife that they farm beside). Whether you live or work in one of the worlds great wildernesses or national parks, or you own wilderness on the edge of one of these (Sabi sands, one of the oldest private reserves borders the Kruger) we want to help people find you, so that you can show them all the wonderful wildlife on your land.

There are examples of each type of page to look at. Do look at the ecosystem you are located in/by is already listed as we can add further options, but will not list ecosystems more than once.

We follow a relatively simplistic booking process, where a form on the website will generate an email booking. We can also include a calendar showing your availability.

There is a link to a form for each category, as well as a further form at the bottom of the page for any questions. This form includes the ability to submit photos of your offering and the wildlife in your vicinity (both are of importance, unless your wildlife destination is already listed) . We work on a simple pricing structure, where we charge you 10% of the cost of any booking that you recieve through us.

Do you run a lodge or campsite within a protected area?

As you can see we have listed a number of lodges in parts of Africa, but the aim of this site was to simplify wild travel and so we are keen to work with any lodge that would like to.

In order to list your property, we will need:

Pictures of your accommodation, with information on cost and amenities
Information on the wilderness that surrounds your property, whether it is information on a national park or reserve.
Information as to what wildlife can be seen in the area, with some good pictures.

Feel free to view our lodges and reserves currently public to see what your listing can look like. If you are particular about your branding look, we are happy to put up your listing as you would like. Fill in the form at the link below

Fill in the form in this link to list your wild place -campsite lodge or similar

Or perhaps you run a wildlife hide of some kind

For many people the only way they can have a chance of seeing many animals, particularly nocturnal ones, is by sitting in a hide. Many of my most memorable wildlife moments have been had sitting in a wildlife hide watching something unfold in front of me. This need not be on protected land, so long as the hide is not ever used for hunting.

In order to list your hide, we will need:

Pictures of your hide with information on cost and amenities.
Pictures of the view people will get from the hide
Pictures of some of the wildlife that has been photographed from the hide, as well as information on frequency and anything else of interest.

See our one example currently live

https://seeanimalswild.com/wildsweden-bear-hide/

Fill in the form you will find if you click on this text to list your hide (bear bird or some other hide -hunting hides not accepted)

Or perhaps you share your vicinity with wildlife

Whatever the reason that you own land, it will be part of a natural ecosystem and as such you are likely to have some animals that live on it with you. This can cause complications with many land uses such as farming, where predators may eat some of your livestock.

Many people will happily pay to have a chance of seeing some of these animals that can be a complication, and by utilising these visits you can make some extra money to help offset any financial losses from predation or damage to property.

This could range from South African farmers who share their land with cheetahs, to European farmers who might share their land with bears or wolves, or perhaps simply an active badgers sett in the UK.

Alternatively, you could own a restaurant where bush babies could be seen in the evening.

The possibilities are endless.

To be listed we will need:

Photos of your land with the animal/bird in question (or information on the ecosystem in which your land sits. It is worth looking at what is already up, as we will list ecosystems only once- so if someone has already listed your ecosystem, we can simply add your wildlife opportunity below.

Details of what you are offering and where it is

- Accommodation (camping or hut etc). This is particularly important if the wildlife is nocturnal or is based in a particularly remote area
- A game drive to see the wildlife at a set time.
- A restaurant, from which wildlife can be watched. This could be anything from interesting birds, lizards or indeed perhaps a resident bush baby
- Anything else that you can think of that follows along similar lines

Information on price

Fill in the form in this link if you see a lot of wildlife on your land and would like to be able to invite other people to see it

(opens in a new tab)

Finally, we are keen to support wildlife guides, boat trips and wildlife drives.

Even in some of the wildest places on earth, it is very easy to spend weeks there and see none of the local animals.

A wildlife guide can make a big difference. Be it a trip on a boat to sea the marine life, or a car journey into a reserve nearby.

I am aware though, how often, it is hard to connect with local guides when you are visiting an area.

As such I am keen to list local guides, and the ability to book.

To be listed, I will need:

Some information about the wildlife you often see when you take people out, preferably with some pictures (and where)
What services you offer (are you just a guide or can you offer a place to stay as well)
Any other information that you would like to pass on
Pricing

Fill in the form in this link if you are a wildlife guide and would like to list your services on our website, or you run trips to see marine wildlife, or in reserves around your home.

if you have a question or do not believe that your wildlife encounter falls in one of these categories please fill in the form below (we aim to be a place where the whole of the wildlife tourism industry (bar any form of hunting) if we do not serve your field let us know, we can either create a new section or instead fit it into another area.

Have a look at the listings we currently have to get an idea of what your listing will look like, and what we need.