We are now moving towards the culmination of the Wildlife Ranger Challenge, Race Day. This comes after the four exciting training challenges which have prepared the ranger teams for the 21km race, taking place across Africa on September 20th.
The Wildlife Ranger Challenge celebrates the role that Africa’s wildlife rangers play as frontline advocates for conservation. From protecting numerous endangered species across the vast savannahs and plains of Kenya, to patrolling and preserving the beautiful coastlines of Madagascar, Wildlife Rangers are essential in promoting African conservation. By enhancing their livelihoods, improving their performance, training, and safety you are in turn supporting families, entire communities and the vital African ecosystem.
Now it is your chance to double your impact and support these heroes of conservation. Through our generous match-funder Mark Scheinberg and our funding partners, every single penny you donate to the challenge will be matched-funded.
One donation, twice the difference.
Ranger teams across Africa have been taking on the training challenges over the last few weeks and we have seen some incredible displays of Knowledge, speed and commitment.
Wildlife Rangers are responsible for a wide variety of tasks in addition to needing a depth of field knowledge. Our first training challenge of 2025 was the Wildlife Ranger Quiz. The winning team was NRT 9-1 Mobile Team (Northern Rangelands Trust – Kenya) Score with a score of 312056.
The Pushup Challenge and Situp Challenge both require physical strength, stamina, grit and determination, with teams of four rangers competing to complete the highest number of full pushups or situps in two minutes. The winning teams in the men’s and women’s categories, for both challenges were from the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust – Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe with the Mhelembe Team winning both the men’s pushup (407) and situp (456) challenges. The NdlopfuTeam won both the pushup and the situp challenges in the women’s categories with 199 pushups and 336 situps, the second highest across all categories.
The mixed event for both challenges saw winners from the Tashinga Initiative in Zimbabwe in the situp challenge and teams from WWF CAR – Aires Protégées de Dzanga-Sangha (APDS), Central African Republic and Frankfurt Zoological Society – North Luangwa Ecosystem – Fence-Line Unit, Zambia sharing joint 1st place!
The final training challenge saw a team from the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust – Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe again topping the men’s leaderboard with a team from the Sera Rhino Conservancy topping the charts in the women’s event. There were an impressive 7 teams across the challenge achieving an elite time of under 8ms 30s.
Thank you for all of the teams and others who have been involved with the training challenges!