Wildwatch - Biography - Hendrik Fehsenfeld

Name: Hendrik Fehsenfeld

Country: South Africa

Profile:

My love for nature started when I was very young, spending hours in the garden looking at birds and insects. When I was eighteen, my parents relocated back to Germany from South Africa, and I moved to Edinburgh University where I studied Ecology. I spent six years in Europe studying, working and traveling, and finally decided to return to South Africa. After working five years in the surf industry and for the IEC, I moved to Durban where I started my guiding career. Initially I conducted tours to the Drakensburg, Hluhluwe-Umfolozi game reserves and surrounding areas. During this time I studied Nature Conservation and Game Ranging and soon joined CCAfrica in January 2002. I started at Ngala where I guided for four and a half years. I soon became passionate about the lowveld bush and spent many hours walking and learning how to track from my tracker Norman. Nothing excited me more than tracking rhinos on foot and looking for my favourite Caroline Pride. This love of tracking resulted in me gaining my Grade 2 walking qualification, which enabled me to conduct walking safaris from the Ngala Walking Safaris camp. I also had the opportunity to work at Londolozi for a short time and went to CCAfrica's Sossusvlei Mountain Lodge where I thoroughly enjoyed guiding in the desert for two months. In May 2006, I moved to Phinda, and after working at Mountain Lodge for a few months, moved across as the Zuka Lodge ranger. I have a very keen interest in most aspects of the bush, and have a keen eye for interesting or unusual animal behaviour. I am also a very keen photographer and love assisting photographers in getting those special shots. I have a good sense of humour and enjoy delighting my guests. I am able to provide an interpretive and entertaining guiding experience in either English or German. My other great passion is fly-fishing and I'm currently involved in a fish species project on Phinda.