Tracking the Wild

A platform to safely share wildlife sightings and contribute to conservation

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Tracking the Wild is a wildlife social media platform that is an easy way to explore Africa’s parks & reserves, safely share your wildlife sightings and make a valuable contribution to conservation. The platform takes the concept of crowd-sourcing and uses it to collect the valuable data that conservation research needs to protect Africa’s biodiversity.

The goal is to enrich people’s wildlife experiences and raise awareness of Africa’s wilderness through sustainable tourism. Tracking the Wild’s belief is that our world's wilderness can only be protected when people have the opportunity experience its beauty and contribute towards its preservation.

Tracking the Wild has been specifically built as a platform that the public can safely submit their wildlife sightings without the location data of vulnerable species being made public. This is done by managing what species the public can see within each of the parks/reserves we list. Furthermore, rhino sightings are blocked from the platform and we also withhold the location of any species that is outside of a protected area. By taking this approach, Tracking the Wild provides the public with a platform where they can responsibly share their sightings and simultaneously contribute vast amounts of valuable data to conservation research.

Professor Les Underhill of the Animal Demography Unit at the University of Cape Town explains the value of the app: “Imagine trying to motivate that a species is of conservation concern if you do not have an up-to-date distribution map for the species. Ideally, one would like to have a distribution map that is based on records collected only in the past decade or less. This means that distribution data needs to be updated continuously. This is what this new app helps us to achieve.”

The platform features:

• Latest sightings feed

• Personal sightings history and statistics

• Hotspots - a heatmap of historical sightings (works offline)

• Detailed offline maps for each of the listed parks and reserves

• Species checklists for every park (works offline)

• Species guides covering all birds, mammals and reptiles in each park (works offline)

• A directory of Southern African parks and reserves (All South Africa's National Parks (SANParks) & most major game/nature reserves in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland and Zimbabwe)

• In app accommodation booking with SafariNow

• All sightings data sent to researchers at the Animal Demography Unit (ADU) at the University of Cape Town and other conservation partners.

Protected areas in Africa: Live safari sightings and maps for the following National Parks, Game Reserves and Nature Reserves:

Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park

Addo Elephant National Park

Agulhas National Park

Anysberg Nature Reserve

Augrabies Falls National Park

Bontebok National Park

Camdeboo National Park

Cederberg Wilderness Area

Central Kalahari Game Reserve

Chobe National Park

De Hoop Nature Reserve

Dinokeng Game Reserve

Etosha National Park

Gamkaberg Nature Reserve

Garden Route National Park

Golden Gate Highlands National Park

Goukamma Nature Reserve

Great Fish River Nature Reserve

Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve

Hwange National Park

iSimangaliso Wetland Park

Ithala Game Reserve

Karoo National Park

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Khutse Game Reserve

Kogelberg Nature Reserve

Kruger National Park

Limpopo-Lipadi Private Game & Wilderness Reserve

Madikwe Game Reserve

Makgadikgadi Pans National Park

Mapungubwe National Park

Marakele National Park

Mokala National Park

Moremi Game Reserve

Mountain Zebra National Park

Namaqua National Park

Ndumo Game Reserve

Nxai Pan National Park

Pilanesberg Game Reserve

Robberg Nature Reserve

Rocherpan Nature Reserve

Somkhanda Game Reserve

Swartberg Nature Reserve

Table Mountain National Park

Tankwa Karoo National Park

Tembe Elephant Park

uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park

Welgevonden Game Reserve

West Coast National Park

and more coming soon...