Discover Eden

28/03/2024

It’s turtle rescue season in the Western Cape, and we are proud to be part of the Plett Marine Animal Stranding Network that covers our coastlines efforts for Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation - today, Mark Brown collected a young turtle found in the dunes on Lookout Beach. Well done to young Sasha for finding it and to her mom, Chevon, for contacting the network! The young turtle will now make its way, in its snazzy turtle rescue box, to Two Oceans Aquarium for rehabilitation before eventually being released back out at sea! As always, a big thanks to Chanel Gemae Visser for coordinating the rescue! Possibly the first turtle rescue by scooter? 😂

28/03/2024

We love being part of the important work being done by Raptor Rescue Plett!

26/03/2024

We checked out a new bird ringing (banding) site in the Fynbos this morning! We love sharing our passion for our feathered friends with people from different spheres of life! Today we had a bird photographer, three scouts, a massage therapist, a marine ranger, a software developer, a occupational therapist, a retiree and some kids join us! We managed to net and ring 24 birds and had an epic morning!

24/03/2024

A quick rescue of this stunning adult male Little Sparrowhawk at Plett Manor in Keurbooms for Mark Brown and Jesse this afternoon - trapped in a house. A few measurements and a nice new shiny ring and it was release back outside!

20/02/2024

If you are interested in seeing the talk on Hope that our Conservation Director Mark Brown gave at the Plett Hope Spot meeting hosted by Dr Sylvia Earle from Mission Blue in Plett last week - check it out here:

Our Conservation Director, Mark, was invited to give a talk in a Hope Spot workshop hosted by Dr Sylvia Earle and her Mission Blue team. Mark chose to give a...

20/02/2024

We love getting hands-on with important local conservation work! Today, our team headed out to one of our conservation partners, Raptor Rescue Plett, to ring a Spotted Eagle Owl and two Barn Owls that are getting ready to be released after intensive rehabilitation efforts. Raptor Rescue is an incredible organisation doing fabulous rehabilitation and education work on the Garden Route, and we are proud to partner with them. We ring all raptors they release back into the wild, and our Ecology South Africa course includes a half-day raptor rehabilitation workshop by the dedicated team there.

14/02/2024

On Monday, our Conservation Director Mark Brown got to spend the day with one of the planet's biggest conservation heroes! We attended the Mission Blue Plett Hope Spot workshop, where Mark presented a talk on hope! The obvious highlight was spending time with her Deepness Sylvia A. Earle , whom Mark first met 10 years ago when he was part of the team that launched the Plett Hope Spot!

It was also great to meet other members of the incredible Mission Blue Team, and to see inspiring presentations from local and national conservation partners we have - in particular, we loved watching talks from Talitha from Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation, Kyle Smith from Sanparks, Justin from Rockhopper Fund, Melissa from Plett Shark Spotters, Chantel and Tony from ORCA Foundation, Cindy from Plettenberg Bay Tourism, Hendri from Natures Valley Trust and Rob from Plett Whale Heritage Area. It is fantastic to see the awesome work being done in our region, the collaboration around it, and to know that we can all make a HUGE difference together!

A massive thanks too to Councilor Dave Swart from Bitou Municipality for doing the opening address for us!

01/02/2024

2023 saw a few Marine Biology Tours that took our expectations to the next level!!! We had INCREDIBLE students and amazing experiences and worked with fabulous partners and guides. It is hard not to use expletives when recapping all that our participants got to see and experience! Here's hoping for an even better set of Marine Biology tours in 2024!

01/02/2024

Reflecting on the 2023 Big 5 Experiences reminds us just how special these experiential learning tours are! Being able to interact with top conservation professionals, get hands-on with conservation work, and have interactive fun as part of a small group is unique and something we are very proud of! A massive thanks to our conservation partners, guides and participants for a special set of 2023 memories! We are super excited for the 2024 tours to kick off!

01/02/2024

Looking back at some highlights from our Conservation Ecology South Africa Tours in 2023! We had incredible participants, amazing guides, and fantastic conservation partners we worked with, and we made long-lasting memories! A massive thanks to all involved - we look forward to another exciting year in 2024!

29/01/2024

We shared a feel-good story almost a year ago today, highlighting one of our local conservation heroes, Chanel, who had rescued and rehabbed an entangled African Oystercatcher. The story was picked up by Good Things Guy and got a lot of traction in South Africa. We were stoked to hear they selected this story as one of the 100 feel-good stories they published in a commemorative book focusing on positive stories for 2023! See https://www.goodthingsguy.com/

Pictured here is Chanel Gemae Visser with a copy of the book they sent her! Well done, Chanel, you make us super proud!

02/01/2024

Happy New Year from the Discover Eden team! Seeing big cats in Africa is a definite bucket list item, and one that students can experience on three of our conservation courses. On our Big 5 South Africa and our Ecology Kenya courses we spend time in large game reserves where encounters with a range of these predators are possible, while on our Ecology South Africa course you spend time learning about cheetah conservation and even get to use radio telemetry skills to track them on foot. We still have a few limited spots on some of these courses for 2024 - go on, visit our website and sign up today!

31/12/2023

A massive happy new year to our conservation and education partners, supported, friends and alumni! 2024 is going to be epic for those booked on our courses! Here are some pics taken by the team this week in Kruger National Park, South Africa where part of our Big 5 Conservation Course takes place!

30/12/2023

Everyone loves primates! On most of our courses around the world chances are you may encounter at least a few different primate species. Here is a few we caught up with in Kruger National Park, South Africa, this week.

26/12/2023

Hello from Kruger National Park in South Africa! Here are some insights into what students get to see on our Big 5 conservation course which includes time in this world renowned park. To learn more about our courses visit our website.

02/12/2023

Every year in the first week of December for over a decade, a team of researchers heads into the Plettenberg Bay Kelp Gull breeding colony to ring chicks for long term monitoring. This morning the team consisted of rangers from CapeNature, researchers from the Nature's Valley Trust, Birdlife Plettenberg Bay, Dunefields, the Plett Animal Stranding Network, ringers from Sedgefield and ourselves. The rings enable us to see where “our” Plett gulls go in their lifetime (we have had birds reported all the way from Cape Town to Durban) and how long they live (over 20 years!).

We carefully enter the seabird breeding colonies, which also host numbers of Sacred Ibis, Little Egret, African Spoonbill, African Oystercatcher, White-fronted Plover, Egyptian Geese, Water Thick-knee and of course Kelp Gulls, and avoid disturbing nests as much as possible, concentrating on carefully adding rings to the leg of each Kelp Gull chick we can easily access.

Strangely, the numbers of chicks to ring were way down this year, and the team on Lookout Beach only managed to ring 26 chicks while the team on the Keurbooms side of the river ringed 10. In comparison we normally ring between 150 and 250 chicks around this date!

Recent disturbances in the colonies (at least three instances of groups of children or adults going in chasing birds and smashing eggs), possible higher predation rates, late initiation of nesting or a combination of all three may be resaons for the reduced numbers.

The team will head out in a few weeks time to see if more chicks are old enough to get their bling. A big thanks to Chanel Gemae Visser for arranging the day, Eben, Lauren and the NVT team, Zanri Strydom, Tiaan Strydom, Kelly Brown, Minke Tolsma, TJ Witteveen, Victor and Kate for assisting us on the day. With Mark Brown.

20/11/2023

Still wondering if you should sign up for one of our Big 5 Conservation Experiences in 2024? Hurry, there are only a few spots left! Maybe these pics from a recent trip we did to Addo Elephant Park will help!

Visit https://discovereden.co.za/ for more details on the courses we offer and to book.

20/11/2023

We are super excited to be listed on the Gateway International Education Abroad Provider Directory! This gives more students the opportunity to come across our exciting and life-changing programs. Check us out at https://directory.gatewayinternational.org/providers/125

06/11/2023

Not sure whether you should book a course with us yet? Please don't take our word for it! See what some recent participants thought... Some spots are available for 2024, but the courses are filling up fast!

https://youtu.be/GAiGM5m6TMk

Visit https://discovereden.co.za/ to check out Ecuador, South Africa and Kenya course options.

🎥 Aquila Stadtherr from Numinous Media House

Not sure whether our courses are worth it? Check out what some recent participants say...

27/10/2023

We love feedback from ringed birds! On 1st October 2023, we noticed a post on a local page by Tyrone Cass about an Osprey he had photographed in Kruger National Park, one of the reserves our students spend time in on our Big 5 Conservation courses. We noticed the ring and initiated a process to track it. Amazingly, this gorgeous bird was ringed as a chick in Estonia in July 2022. That's around 9275km away from where it was ringed! Bird migration is fascinating, and one of the main reasons we expose students in several of our courses to the valuable tool bird ringing is.



📸 Tyrone Cass

24/10/2023

Our conservation team spent some time at the fabulous Riverbend Lodge in the greater Addo Park this weekend. Part of the weekend’s activities was some bird ringing training for reserve guides. We managed to net 48 birds of 20 different species, including 8 retraps from our previous visits there! We also spent some time collecting data for the national SABAP project, atlasing 114 bird species in 4 days.

20/10/2023

An early morning start this morning for Mark Brown who was assisting the Nature's Valley Trust team with some shorebird chick ringing training on Keurbooms Beach this morning. We love training the next generation of passionate biologists!

20/10/2023

Yesterday our Conservation Director Mark Brown and his family went to assist the incredible team at Raptor Rescue Plett - they ringed a magnificent Forest Buzzard and a gorgeous male melanistic Black Sparrowhawk. Both birds have been through intensive treatment and rehabilitation for injuries and are now ready for release back into the wild where they belong! The buzzard had been shot by a shotgun, leading to broken wing and leg bones which have fortunately healed well. The sparrowhawk managed to break a bone when impacting window, presumably while chasing doves!

A big well done to the Raptor Rescue team for getting them back up to speed!

06/10/2023

Are you still wondering if you should sign up for one of our courses for 2024? Check out this fabulous video created by Numinous Media House for us!

Want to know what a course with Discover Eden is all about? Here you go!

20/09/2023

We love being able to be part of the amazing work being done by Raptor Rescue!

18/09/2023

A great re-sighting of a ringed Kelp Gull by Henk Nieuwoudt and Tania Ferreira Nieuwoudt at Central Beach in Plett yesterday! This gull, carrying ring number K27799 was originally ringed as a chick in the breeding colony nearby by A. Schultz on 2 December 2003, making it almost 20 years old, and still going strong. CapeNature is the custodian of the breeding colonies in Plett, and our Conservation Director Mark Brown has assisted with ringing chicks for the last decade, with loads of interesting data coming in from these ringed birds!

12/09/2023

Amazing news just in this morning of an Amethyst Sunbird ringed by our Conservation Director in Howick in June 2010. Sadly, it was recently found dead just a few km from the original site where it was ringed, but incredibly, it lived for 13y 2m 27d (4832 days) after being ringed, which is a new longevity record for the species in the Safring database it seems. Great to see our bird ringing efforts adding value to the acquisition of knowledge about the birds we love!

12/09/2023

Amazing news just in this morning of an Amethyst Sunbird ringed by our Conservation Director Mark Brown in Howick in June 2010. Sadly, it was recently found dead just a few km from the original site where it was ringed, but incredibly, it lived for 13y 2m 27d (4832 days) after being ringed, which is a new longevity record for the species in the Safring database it seems. Great to see our bird ringing efforts adding value to the acquisition of knowledge about the birds we love!

29/08/2023

A massive congrats to Megan, Treyton, Erinne and Maeve who completed their Ecology course this morning! We wish them well as they head home and can’t wait to see what these powerhouse youngsters are going to get up to in the future!



📸 Aquila Stadtherr from Numinous Media House