The living tapestry

Ecology of Jakkalsfontein

Between the dunes and the coastal thicket, Jakkalsfontein Nature Reserve holds a dense cross-section of West Coast fynbos and strandveld life — from burrowing aardvarks and hunting caracals, to fish eagles working the vlei, to rare bulbs that flower for a few weeks a year. This is a browsable rebuild of the reserve's species checklists, originally published as three static PDFs.

Mammals

From burrowing aardvarks to the reserve’s elusive resident caracals.

39 species · 30 photographed

Birds

Resident fynbos specials and migratory waders across wetland and coast.

176 species · 167 photographed

Plants

Sandveld and strandveld fynbos — restios, ericas, vygies and rare bulbs.

325 species · 23 photographed

Why rebuild this?

The original ecology page linked out to three PDF checklists — plain text dumps with no photos, no search, and no way to browse on a phone. This demo keeps every species from those lists, adds licensed photographs where a confident match exists, and makes the whole thing searchable. The source PDFs are still linked from each category page for reference.

A community-built demo reimagining the Jakkalsfontein Nature Reserve ecology page as a browsable, photographed species guide instead of static PDF lists. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the reserve.

Species checklists sourced from the reserve's published PDFs. Photographs from Wikimedia Commons / Wikipedia, credited individually with their license on each image.