triptrick: Hi there,
Have a mail I would like to get to you re: GC13HAF (Rocky Outcrop) at Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens, placed by Yourself a while back. I did get in touch with the reviewer, erik88l-r, but he's essentially retired or some such, and suggested I get directly in touch with you.
This Treasure Hunter (i.e. me) has been geocaching for a while now and am also involved with Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens in my capacity as a TV Gardener etc.
Was chatting to Andrew Hankey, assistant curator at the gardens, about geocaching (which he and his son do) and he mentioned this cache which is in an ecologically sensitive area.
Here's his email to me:
Dear Melanie
We have a geocache which has been located in a sensitive breeding and feeding area of our endangered Mountain Reed buck, this is a natural population of relictual individuals that were not introduced into the nature reserve and are thus of great conservation value. The fact that they have managed to survive and persist in the face of significant human impact in the area is of great interest and we have appointed an ecologist to monitor the population so that we can better protect them.
The area where the geocache is located is important for the antelope to move between their night forage area and day refuge area. It is part of the reserve where we do not allow people for purposes of protecting the breeding mountain Reed buck.
During monitoring of the population our consulting ecologist has picked up people on the camera trap entering into this specific sensitive part of the area mostly approaching the location of the geocache.
As discussed if you would assist us with the removal of that specific cache we would be very grateful.
Please see attached screenshot showing the location
Thanks
Kind regards
Andrew Hankey
Assistant Curator
Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens
What can be done about this? Would you be able to take it down?
If you would send me your email address I'll put you in contact with the curators. Or you can contact Andrew directly on A.Hankey@sanbi.org.za (copied hereon)
All the other caches at the gardens are greatly received!
Kind Regards
Melanie Walker