Fast Car and Take Away Coffee

Ok a Chico isn't really a fast car... but we had Tracy Chapman in the CD player and first stop, after picking up the car, before hitting the open road, was for take away coffee.
Second stop? The Hoedspruit Endangered Species Center. The center is a place that has become a safe haven for a variety of endangered/vulnerable animals, as well as a conservation facility that focuses on breeding/boosting species' numbers, and doing anti-poaching work. We spent an hour in a safari truck driving around the property checking out cheetahs, a tiger (that had been rescued from mistreatment while working for a circus in Portugal), a lion (who had been sick), packs of wild dogs (which are wild here in South Africa, but are a threat to farms and, in turn, farmers are a threat to them), a Sable Antelope, wild cats, vultures, cranes, and a variety of other types of birds. The center is only about 45 minutes from Metz, yet with public transport being the only option, no one in the village has really heard of it.
The center gives fresh meat, on the bone, to follow strict diet rules for all the animals. When it's time to feed, the animals are brought into smaller and cleaner enclosures where they eat and then are observed for an hour or so afterwards, so staff can be aware of any changes in their stools, behavior, etc. When the bones have been cleaned by the first round of animals, they're gathered up and brought to the "bone yard" for vultures to pick clean. Here is a vulture sitting on the wall above all the bones. When the bone yard gets to be full, the center sells them to a man in town who grinds them down to bone meal.
An orphaned zebra and a sheep are the best of friends. Sheep are very good surrogate mothers, they can teach their foster children what's needed when it comes to survival... where to find food and what to eat.