Aardvarks are shy animals that very little is known about. We don’t even know how many aardvarks exist in Africa. What we do know is that one is in desperate need of medical care.

In South Africa’s Lowveld region, an aardvark, who has earned the nickname Venus, is fighting for her life. After being hit by a car and enduring life-threatening injuries, she faces a long and uncertain journey. She needs our help if she is to have a chance at recovery and a return to life in the wild.

We must urgently raise $6,000 (£4,400) for specialized recovery food, medication and medical treatment.

We have promised to provide support, but we cannot do it without you. Please help us by making a donation now. Every single aardvark saved is important to the species.

Few people ever get the opportunity to see one of these elusive creatures. Researchers struggle to learn anything about their secretive behavior, partly because their wide necks and slim heads make it impossible to attach a research collar.

We have promised to do everything we can to help Venus, who is recovering at the Umoya Khulula Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre near the town of Tzaneen. But saving Venus could yield invaluable insights into aardvark behavior and how best to protect them.

Climate change could spell the end for aardvarks and many of the animals that rely on them – before we even learn how many exist.

We have no idea how many of these creatures are left on the African continent, but we do know that threats to their survival are growing. With climate change affecting weather patterns and temperatures, ant and termite colonies are forced to move deeper and deeper underground to maintain the temperatures they need to survive. But as they move deeper, they become harder for aardvarks to smell, hear and reach.

The interconnectedness of nature never ceases to amaze us, because should aardvarks disappear in an area, it will have negative consequences for many other creatures.

Aardvarks will dig 20 or more dens throughout their territory. These dens are used by multiple other creatures once an aardvark has moved on. Porcupines, meerkats, mongooses, bat-eared foxes, warthogs, hyenas, lizards, birds and even some species of bats and snakes rely on aardvarks as the landscape architects who create safe places for them to sleep and raise their young. Without aardvarks, many of these animals will begin to disappear too. We must do our utmost to ensure the survival of every possible aardvark.

With civil unrest in South Africa disrupting supply, it is critical that we act immediately to import the specialized food she needs to survive!

It is estimated that an adult aardvark in the wild needs to eat roughly 50,000 ants per day! While Venus is recovering, her immune system is dangerously weak, and she needs costly, highly specialized food in addition to antibiotics, anti-inflammatory and pain medication, probiotics and antiseptic wound treatment supplies.

With South Africa currently in the throes of devastating civil unrest, the supply of goods into the country, including the specialized prescription food this aardvark needs to survive has been interrupted – and Umoya Khulula’s reserves are running critically low. We must urgently import the specialized food she needs for her recovery.

The risk of deadly infection still looms.
Time is of the essence!

It is truly miraculous that Venus survived long enough to be rescued, and that both her eye and vision could be saved. But there is a long road ahead, So please make a donation right now so we can do everything we can to ensure Venus makes it back into the wild.