Popular wildlife tourist centre evacuates animals after heavy rains

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Popular tourist attraction, the Cango Wildlife Ranch in Oudtshoorn in the Little Karoo, has had to evacuate its animals after the river running behind it burst its banks and flooded the property.

This is a result of the heavy rains in the area over the past few days. Staff members and volunteers worked tirelessly to ensure the animals were safe.

One casualty, a small animal, was swept away in the flood waters after a barrier wall collapsed.

‘We got the alert around 1.30 that flooding was going to occur and we immediately began evacuation procedures. We evacuated about 90% of our animals to the safety of our care centres. The only animals we didn’t evacuate were our big cats, our lions. We evacuated our cheetahs to our breeding centre and the lions, leopards and tigers were left in their enclosures as they were high enough to be out of the flood area,” explains Cango Wildlife spokesperson, Garrett Eriksen.