Latest Sightings
Connecting people to wildlife
We help people maximise their safari by helping app-users see more animals through members sharing their wildlife sightings in real-time
Latest Sightings was established in 2011 by schoolboy Nadav Ossendryver. As an obsessive Kruger Park visitor Nadav’s favourite pastime was asking his parents to flag down passing motorists and asking them what they had seen. Eventually they tired of this hobby and began to say no. Nadav looked to technology to solve his problem. He established Latest Sightings and from there it quite literally exploded!
Latest Sightings is a platform for visitors who are currently on a safari, be they rangers or tourists, to report the animals and events that they are seeing, in real-time. Users report their location, time and sighting to Latest Sightings, which in turn broadcasts these "tings" (a reported sighting) to other
app-users and also over various media (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, instagram etc…).
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These sightings allow users to maximize and enhance their safari experience as they get a heads-up on where sightings are taking place.
Thousands of people, that aren’t in the park, enjoy the entertainment value of the photos or videos and use the sightings to plan their holiday. Latest Sightings works directly with endangered wildlife research projects, run by various organizations, by providing them with valuable data on locations and movement of animals in the reserve. The researchers then extrapolate this information and make use of it in their projects.
Sightings of injured and poached animals also get reported through the app, these sightings are sent immediately to rangers and vets that are nearby. Through these reports, rangers and vets can now attend to injured animals that would have otherwise gone unnoticed like they did before the Latest Sightings community.​
Latest Sightings also strives to educate its followers about wildlife, nature and its behavior. We create online education courses based on sightings that were reported and share them with students in South Africa with a partner platform, TendoPro. Articles about extremely rare sightings are also written, with added commentary and explanations by professional rangers, and shared with the community.
Lastly, through the excitement of the viral sightings, viewers from around the world book their safari holiday with Latest Sightings. So we have made it a priority to promote tourism to the various game reserves where the community is sharing their sightings.
