The Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation, based in Limpopo, is battling after being struck by a severe storm earlier this week. Hope is holding them together.
Limpopo, South Africa (22 October 2025) – The Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation, founded by Carina Crayton and Paul Oxton, has been instrumental in saving thousands of animals from illegal trade and stepping in when wildlife is most at risk.
Just less than a month ago, we shared the story about how the team has lovingly and painstakingly nursed a tortoise named Blue back to health. He had escaped from a traditional healer’s yard where he was held in captivity, covered in blue plaint. Thankfully, the Wild Heart team showed up with open arms and endless patience, as they have done for over nine years.
The devastation that the recent storm has left behind has brought overwhelming stress to the staff and animals currently in care at the Wild Heart facility in Limpopo.
The team has fought with love and hope to save thousands of desperate animals, and now they’re in need of a healthy dose of it themselves.
Carina explains the extent of the damage:
“A severe storm has struck our facility, causing a massive tree to fall dangerously close to our ICU section. The other half of the tree crashed into our rehab enclosure area, forcing us to evacuate all the animals from the outdoor rehab space. Every cage had to be manually relocated, putting immense strain on both our staff and the animals.
One of our truly wild animals, an adult Caracal, had to be caught by hand as there was no time to arrange sedation, and she was moved to a temporary enclosure. All the rehab animals are safe, but sadly, a wild Pearl-spotted Owlet died when her nest was destroyed by a falling tree.
The tree damaged our main water supply and the water point to the Rehab area, cutting off water to all the animals and disrupting the power supply. It also caused further damage to the concrete slab, bamboo screen fencing, and exterior fencing in the rehab area.It completely wrecked our food garden for the animals. We had to call in an emergency tree felling company to handle the dangerously unstable part of the tree, which turned out to be very expensive due to the high risk involved, and there’s still a lot more to do. Other trees also pose a threat and need to be taken care of.
This situation has pushed our resources to the limit, leaving us exhausted and overwhelmed.”
It’s immense and the need for help is great. It’s also urgent – they must juggle caring for animals, rebuilding after the storm, and preparing for the influx they see every year as new wild animals are born.
The work that needs to be done is extensive too.
The team must acquire emergency shade cover for enclosures now exposed to the elements, boundary and screen fences must be repaired, water and full power must be restored, damaged infrastructure needs to be rebuilt and made safe for animals and staff, the food garden needs replanting and cages need to be safely relocated back to restored facilities once the urgent task of rebuilding has been tackled.
The good news is that animals are alive, the team won’t give up, and the wider community now has a chance to step in. Once they have support in their corner, the Wild Heart team will be able to make a full recovery and go back to serving the animals that most need help.
If you’d like to offer your support to the Wild Heart team, you can do so via contributing to their BackaBuddy campaign.
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