Progress report and Q&A

 

In case some of you didn't notice...the lovely team at Experiment granted me an extension to my original deadline of yesterday because they said they have never seen someone as determined as I am to reach my target despite all the problems I have with internet connections and powercuts, so they had to give me a fighting chance! Isn't that fantastic? And, as of today I hit the 57% mark...up 5% in just one day, thanks to some incredible new donors. Once I hit 60% it will actually start to feel within my grasp...but I really can't do it without all of you sharing your philanthropic adventures with friends and family who might just become overwhelmed by a sense of charity and feel compelled to support my cause! It is all about word of mouth.

Speaking of which...this happened on Friday:

 

WOW that's a really big image! Anyway...I was starting to feel a bit despondent about the whole Twitter thing as I have been frantically sharing away my project link and updates with all the right people, rhino organisations, wildlife advocates, activists, millionaires...the usual....but I have come to the conclusion that you need to be moderately famous or have at least 10k followers if you want anyone to reply or share your posts. There have been a few exceptions of course and for that I am truly grateful. But then I became aware of Michael Appel, a TV reporter here in SA, after he posted some news updates on the recent official announcement of the rhino poaching statistics in SA for 2015 (more on that later), so I thought I would share my funding progress with him as he clearly has an interest in the plight of the rhino and might share my project link! But NO! I received an actual personal message...even rarer on Twitter I have realised...saying he had read through my article and was keen to learn more about my PhD and how we could go about getting it on TV! So isn't that a fantastic prospect? I won't harp on about it too much at this stage, but I just thought my donors and potential donors might like to know about it.

The other objective for this update was to open the floor to a Q&A opportunity should any of you wish to pick my brain regarding my project, my aims, rhinos, illegal wildlife trade, the bush, South Africa...PLEASE feel free to shoot any questions my way in the comment section below, and I will do my best to reply within 24 hours (given adequate internet connection and electricity supply). Actually it seems the internet connection is great in the hours leading up to and passing midnight, so perhaps this should become my regular update slot.

Tomorrow I will be sharing a few rhino tales from the bush with you, since my recent work has been a little more lab and office based and a bit less exciting, they will be experiences from my MSc fieldwork up in the far northern Pafuri section of the Kruger National Park. I discovered a great website called http://fieldworkfail.com/ while I was Tweeting one day, and shared a couple of my bush adventures on there, but with only 140 character limit, it didn't quite do them justice. These stories need a few more characters than that for full effect.

For now...thank you again for all the incredible support, and please don't stop now if you think of anyone else you can share my campaign with, in order to help me reach that 100%, that would be great!

In closing, spare a thought as you lay your head to rest tonight, for all the skittish rhinos and their anti-poaching game guards on watch while the bright Waning Moon travels through the night sky after reaching her 100% peak over the weekend. Poaching levels increase during the Full Moon, hence it is commonly referred to these days as the Poachers Moon...which also happens to be the title of a book on the topic http://www.randomstruik.co.za/books/the-poacher039...