Lex Hes
SAFARI LEADER & PHOTOGRAPHER
“When I began this career, I was a shy kid with nothing but a pair of binoculars and an enthusiasm for birds, plants and animals. What a difference a lifetime makes.”
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Lex began his career working at the then-unknown Sabi Sand Game Reserve bordering on Kruger National Park. There he would wander into the surrounding bush with his notebook and binoculars to record everything he saw, from flowers and trees to lions, elephants, and buffalo.
Lex began to develop a guiding style that revolved around having fun and connecting people to the wilderness – while also giving clients a great learning experience and showing them incredible wildlife. At this time he also volunteered for the Mammal Research Institute (MRI) at the University of Pretoria keeping track of radio-collared elephants that had been moved from Kruger National Park into the Sabi Sand Game Reserve.
He did stints on Marion Island and Amsterdam Island in the sub-Antarctic. where he studied population dynamics of the fur seal. There he also got his first real exposure to lousy weather, penguins, orcas, and albatrosses. He then returned to Sabi Sand to work as wildlife manager and safari guide.
In the years since, Lex has been a wildlife cameraman for documentaries, a renowned photographer of leopards, and a safari and tour leader in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. He’s published books on animals of southern Africa and became co-owner of a safari guide-training business that became the largest of its kind in the world. Lex’s long career in guiding hasn’t for one second dulled his love and enthusiasm for wildlife and wilderness.
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