Research shows that wild dog pups are granted exclusive access as soon as they arrive to feed on a carcass
One of the most endearing characteristics of the African wild dog (painted wolf) is the bond between pack members, particularly when they have pups in their midst. While typically only the dominant female will breed each year, every individual cooperates in raising the next generation, bringing food back to the den for both the mother and the youngsters. Recent research quantifies how this altruistic approach plays out when the pups leave the den, and the pack makes a kill: essentially, the pups get to eat first.
Researchers from the University of New South Wales, the Taronga Western Plains Zoo and Wild Entrust Africa (formerly known as the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust) analysed nearly three decades of observational data from the Okavango Delta and surrounding areas. Individual painted wolves were identified by the unique coat patterns, and the research focused on established breeding packs rather than newly established packs without pups. While previous studies have qualitatively and anecdotally described the exclusive access given to painted wolf pups at a kill, the authors of the current study were able to quantify (assign values that can be statistically analysed to) these feeding patterns.
African wild dogs are cursorial predators (they run through the vegetation and flush their prey), and pack members are often separated while hunting. The adults that catch the prey will start feeding (allowing them access to the most nutritious organs first) until the rest of the pack members catch up. If the pack has pups, they are granted exclusive access to the carcass as soon as they arrive. The adult dogs will sit back and wait “patiently” for their opportunity to feed. This is in stark contrast to most other social predators, where access to food is generally determined by rank and strength. For example, lion cubs that arrive at a carcass will have to fight for their place at the dinner table and often have to wait until the pride adults have sated their initial hunger.
Once the painted wolf puppies have eaten their fill, the dominant members of the pack will feed, followed by the next youngest in line. This confirms that painted wolves do follow an age-based feeding system. Consequently, older and less dominant members of the pack may find little meat remaining by the time they get the opportunity to feed. Despite this, the researchers observed little overt aggression around kills (again, in contrast to lion feeding behaviour), even from the dominant pair.
For any predator, hunting carries an inherent risk of injury. For the wild dog, high-speed chases ending in a struggle with prey can result in broken bones, torn ligaments, and myriad other potential injuries. So, if older pack members are unlikely to get priority access, what incentivises their participation given the potential risks involved? The authors postulate that older dogs are motivated to actively participate in kills to feed before the younger pack members arrive. However, there are occasions when the pack is separated during the hunt. If remaining pack members are unaware that prey has been caught, the painted wolves responsible for the kill will feed for a while then circle back to recruit the rest of the pack. This speedy arrival of the rest of the pack likely ensures more eyes and ears on alert for kleptoparasites and larger predators like lions, which are a significant cause of natural wild dog mortalities.
Researchers observed little overt aggression between wild dogs around kills
Of course, this system also ensures that the pups are provisioned while they cannot hunt for themselves. The dominant breeding female is also guaranteed access to valuable carcass parts once the pups have fed. In packs where intra-pack relatedness is high, the subdominant pack members gain by helping to raise litters of close kin.
Like wild dogs, human beings also developed a food sharing system at some point in our evolutionary history. Though it is difficult to fully contextualise, the authors suggest that “a detailed understanding of food sharing in African wild dogs may contribute to our understanding of the origins and implications of sharing more broadly.”
Africa Geographic would like to extend thanks to first author, Dr Neil Jordan, for allowing the use of his personal graphics of the study findings. Dr Jordan is affiliated with the Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES) of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney; the Taronga Institute of Science and Learning of the Taronga Western Plains Zoo; and Wild Entrust Africa.
Every protected space in Africa comes with its own story, with elements from every genre: drama, thriller, romance and tragedy. The fates and fortunes of these parks are irrevocably bound to those of the people around them, and no two chronicles are ever the same. Each visitor to an African wilderness experiences a snapshot in time, a chapter or two at most. But for those fortunate enough to visit Rwanda’s Akagera National Park, these may just be the best chapters in the entire saga. In the past decade, Akagera has established itself as a park on the rise – demonstrating an almost unbelievable transformation into Rwanda’s only Big 5 park and one of the premier African safari destinations on the continent.
Akagera National Park
The 1,122km2 (112,200 hectares) Akagera National Park is situated on the eastern edge of Rwanda, where the boundary with Tanzania is marked by the sinuous bends of the Akagera River (for which the park is named). Akagera safeguards Central Africa’s largest protected wetland, consisting of a complex system of lakes linked by papyrus-lined swamps. Away from the marshes, the jagged lines of animal pathways weave across vast plains and sweeping highlands like a network of veins, a testament to Akagera’s status as Rwanda’s last refuge for savannah-adapted wildlife.
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As clouds gather above the rolling sandstone hills and elephants feed peacefully in woodland valleys below, the breathtaking vistas are almost primaeval. The landscape, teeming with life at every level, seems so eternal that it is hard to imagine that its very existence was so recently threatened. Yet less than three decades ago, during the Rwandan Civil War and the years of recovery that followed, the park was invaded and denuded, its wildlife decimated by poaching and human-wildlife conflict.
Sizeable herds of buffalo, topi and zebra are everywhere in Akagera, taking advantage of bountiful grasses
Akagera’s rehabilitation can be attributed to the partnership between African Parks and the Rwanda Development Board. They entered into a joint management agreement in 2009 and began the day-to-day running of the park in 2010. Their progressive stewardship stayed the destruction and turned the narrative from looming catastrophe to one of long-term, sustainable conservation. Thanks to considerable investment in the park’s infrastructure and security, existing wildlife populations began to recover, bolstered by ambitious reintroduction programmes. Tourist numbers, both local and international, grew in leaps and bounds, and by 2019, Akagera was 90% self-financing.
Most importantly, community involvement has always been a fundamental tenant of African Park’s approach to managing all the parks under their guardianship, and Akagera is no different. Today, 300,000 people on the park boundary directly benefit from its existence, while educational programmes and support for community enterprises have reshaped local perceptions. Nearly half of the visitors to the park in 2019 were Rwandan citizens.
Maasai giraffe were among some of the first large mammals to be reintroduced after poaching in the latter half of the 20th century wiped out existing populations
The return of the animals
Under certain circumstances, nature’s remarkable innate resilience allows wildlife numbers to recover independently, and the only human intervention needed is to provide them with a safe space to do so. This is always the preferred approach, but more dramatic measures are necessary when population numbers are too low to recover, if genetic sustainability is compromised, or a species is locally extinct. In Akagera, the restoration to its natural state has necessitated several large-scale wildlife reintroductions that have effectively reversed several local extinctions.
Savannah elephants and Maasai giraffe were among some of the first large mammal species to be reintroduced after poaching in the latter half of the 20th century wiped out existing populations. A small herd of young elephants arrived in the park in 1975, with giraffes following some ten years later. Today the park’s growing elephant population is estimated to be around 100 individuals, while some 80 giraffes are wandering its confines.
White rhinos have also been reintroduced into the park
Akagera is also reclaiming its title as one of Africa’s rhino havens. In the 1970s, the park was estimated to be home to over 50 eastern black rhinos, but widescale poaching hit them particularly hard. The last sighting of a black rhino occurred in 2007 before they were considered locally extinct. Ten years later, the park was deemed to be sufficiently secure for their return, and 18 eastern black rhinos made the cross-continent journey from South Africa to their new home in Rwanda. They were joined two years later by a further five rhinos sourced from European zoos – the first such operation of its kind. Despite their somewhat different (definitely colder) start in life, the zoo rhinos seem to be adapting well to life in their ancestral homeland. At the end of 2021, the first white rhinos arrived from Phinda Private Game Reserve in South Africa in what was the single largest rhino translocation ever conducted.
The park’s lions suffered a similar fate during the 1990s – all 300 lions in the park were killed before the 21st century. A founder population of seven lions was sourced from South Africa in 2015, followed by two males in 2017 to increase genetic diversity. To suggest that the lions have taken to their new home would be something of an understatement – the population has quadrupled in seven years. Spotted hyenas and leopards are also found in healthy numbers in the park.
Lions once again can call the Akagera home
Akagera’s flourishing ecosystem
Though the reintroductions of specific iconic species were prodigious enterprises in their own right, the natural recovery of Akagera’s landscapes and existing wildlife populations has been equally impressive. At the start of 2010, wildlife numbers were estimated to be fewer than 5,000 and are now believed to be well over 13,000 and ever-increasing.
Savannah elephants now also call the park home
Sizeable herds of buffalo, topi and zebra are everywhere, taking advantage of the bountiful grasses, while defassa waterbuck are perfectly at home wading through the swamps and reeds past pods of hippo. The endangered roan antelope may be somewhat elusive, but the towering statuesque eland are unmistakable, dwarfing surrounding impala and duiker. Klipspringer show off tip-toe agility on the rocky crags of hilly slopes. The primates are represented by large olive baboon and vervet monkey troops, the consummate survivors. Sightings of blue monkey are less frequent, but they have been spotted over recent years, firmly disproving the belief that they are extinct in the park.
Sizeable herds of zebra are found in Akagera
Akagera National Park is also one of the best birding regions in Africa, if not the world, with over a whopping 480 species recorded in the park. The diversity of habitats on display means that fervid birders can apply their skills in several different ways, from peering through reeds and rushes for a papyrus gonalek to scanning the skies for the grasshopper buzzard, or listening out for the call of a red-faced barbet in a thicket. Other notable species include Tabora and Carruthers’ cicticolas, white-crested turaco and northern brown-throated weaver. Shoebills have been seen lurking in the swamps, and, most recently, a sighting of the somewhat unfairly named plain nightjar had the birding chatrooms all aflutter.
Birding in Akagera is prolific – keep an eye out for grey crowned cranes
Explore & stay
With the plans for Akagera’s continued upward trajectory firmly rooted in tourism, every effort has been made to make the park the perfect destination for visitors from every walk of life. Each of the activities on offer was carefully selected to show off the park’s many strengths and provide the ideal way to explore every inch of the many varied habitats on display. Naturally, game drives (including night drives) form the backbone of the park experience, but guided walks, specialised birding tours and boat cruises on forest-fringed Lake Ihema offer an entirely different perspective. Very unusually, travellers can even opt for the “behind the scenes” tour of the park headquarters, where they can talk to park officials and learn more about the strenuous business of keeping a national park operational. Cultural community experiences also provide the opportunity to learn more about Rwanda’s remarkable people while contributing to local enterprises.
Explore the park on foot or by boat
Though Akagera is accessible year-round, the best time to visit is during the dry season, from June until September, when the wildlife viewing is at its best and rain is less likely to be disruptive. For the budget traveller, there are four public campsites: Shakani on the shores of Lake Shakani (where fishing is permitted), Mutamba at the highest point in the park, Muyumbu overlooking Lake Ihema and Lake Shakani, and Mihindi, near the shores of Lake Mihindi. Karenge Bush Camp is a good mid-range option, offering furnished tented accommodation. There is also a few high-end accommodation options inside the park, including Ruzizi Tented Lodge, which is fully catered.
When it comes to safari stereotypes, Rwanda is invariably associated with gorilla trekking, but in truth, this tiny country offers the full African adventure. Akagera National Park is the ideal complement to a gorilla trekking mission into Volcanoes National Park or a canopy tour of Nyungwe National Park. For those wanting to learn more about the bird and mammal offerings in Rwanda, Christian Boix’s (Africa Geographic director and one of Africa’s top birding guides) book Wild Rwanda is the region’s most authoritative “where to find” birds and mammals guide.
DID YOU KNOW that African Parks offers safari camps (lodges and campsites) where 100% of tourism revenue goes to conservation and local communities? Find out more and book your African Parks safari.
Everybody loves a comeback story, but it is even more uplifting when the main character is a vital piece of African wilderness. Akagera National Park is already unrecognisably improved from the ravaged land of twenty years ago – proof that responsible tourism and sustainable conservation bring long-term security to both people and wildlife.
In May 2022, the news broke of the tragic death of leopard Hosana, one of the well-known leopards of the Sabi Sand Game Reserve in South Africa. The announcement inspired a social media furore (to the point that #Hosana trended on Twitter). It also reopened several complex conservation/tourism concerns for public dissection, analysis and, on occasion, misinterpretation. For the authors of this article, with deep personal connections to Hosana and Sabi Sand Game Reserve, his death inspired a desire to tackle some of these issues head-on.
Hosana’s end at the hands of a counter-poaching unit (CPU) may have lit the fire, but much of what follows comes from years of observing, questioning and researching conventional beliefs in old habits and established practices. The concerns raised extend beyond Hosana and deal with complex topics like guide, tracker and field-staff training, habituation, tourism ethics, and human-wildlife conflict. Given the intricacy of the issues at play, we have attempted to address each topic thoroughly to avoid misinterpretation and false conclusions.
When named and known leopards are killed in conflict with humans, the automatic assumption appears to be that habituation must be at fault – often with conflicting ideas of what that means. We set out to investigate the validity of this assumption as systematically and scientifically as possible to avoid questionable leaps of logic, speculation and hysteria. We approached scientific organisations, experienced guides, trackers and reserve managers and sifted through multiple research papers to examine the question from every angle.
We found that, unsurprisingly, human-wildlife conflict continues to be one of the leading causes of anthropogenic leopard mortalities (Viollaz 2016). However, there is no evidence that habituated leopards are disproportionately affected. Nor is there any indication that habituated leopards are more likely to be dangerous to people or livestock in South Africa. However, we did confirm that there is a dearth of appropriate training for wildlife encounters offered to most field operatives and counter-poaching units across the country. This is a danger to the humans working within wild spaces and the wildlife they are trying to protect.
The following article makes continuous reference to the Sabi Sand Game Reserve (hereafter the Sabi Sands) in South Africa. This is not an indictment of the reserve. The area has one of the highest densities of leopards on the continent and is the “home of leopard habituation” as we know it. It is an invaluable reference point for this discussion. Our conclusions are specific to South Africa, where national parks and reserves are fenced. While many of the issues raised could be applied to national parks, private reserves and private concessions in other parts of Africa, our research was region-specific.
Sabi Sands has one of the highest densities of leopards in Africa
Leopard habituation
Hosana’s death inspired considerable discussion on social media around habituation, rehashing a well-worn topic that is often debated with little appreciation of what precisely it entails. So what does habituation mean?
It is crucial to be pedantic here because, otherwise, far too much bad behaviour falls under the label of “habituation”. At its simplest definition in this context, we are referring to the habituation of leopards as the removal of the strongest feelings of fear and the desire to escape from safari vehicles (and their associated sounds, smells and so on). Repeated exposure teaches the animal not to be afraid.
Habituation should not be confused with either taming or attracting animals. We would argue that the regular feeding of wildlife by visitors (as often occurs in public campsites in national parks, resulting in aggressive “problem” animals) is taming or attraction, not habituation. When a wild animal begins associating humans or vehicles with a basic need (such as food) and loses all fear, that animal has been partially tamed. Similarly, driving too close to animals or interfering with their behaviour is not bad habituation; it is bad guiding.
When “done right”, habituation results in an animal that simply ignores the humans in vehicles around it and continues to behave naturally, allowing it to be viewed with minimal impact. From the animal’s perspective, it does not expend valuable time and energy getting away from people. The importance of this cannot be overstated because most wild animals are carefully balanced on a knife-edge of survival, and running and hiding to avoid vehicles only adds to this strain and distraction.
Leopard habituation was essentially pioneered during the late 1970s at Londolozi Private Game Reserve in what is now the Sabi Sands (Hess, 1991). Through the exceptional tracking skills and abundant patience of a few individuals, a kind of trust was established. It gave rise to generations of leopards comfortable with vehicles and established the reserve as one of Africa’s top leopard-viewing destinations (Hess, 1991; Hancock, 2000; Kure, 2003).
Young cubs learn by observing their habituated mothers’ reactions, so tourist-filled vehicles quickly become nothing to fear. Thus, over time, the habituation process in a reserve with a long history of leopard viewing gets easier and less intrusive. However, these are wild animals, so nuances and variations are inevitable. Leopards have distinct personalities, and specific individuals (even those from the same litter) may either prove impossible to habituate or be extremely confiding. Habituation can also be specific: a leopard that will lie in the shade of a green safari vehicle may be extremely unsettled by a white car following behind it.
Bad impressions or experiences are remembered, which is why habituation requires that each guide work respectfully with each animal to reinforce the message that humans in vehicles are not a threat. Detailed observation of their behaviour is essential: “listening” to the animal, watching their body language, switching off the vehicle while they are alert or hunting, keeping a comfortable following distance and so on. The aim is to be an impartial observer, and habituation makes that easier. However, months of careful habituation work can be undone very quickly by a few insensitive guides (which we address at a later stage).
When “done right”, habituation results in a leopard that simply ignores the humans in vehicles and continues to behave naturally, allowing it to be viewed with minimal impact
The benefits of leopard habituation
Of the many threats to the planet’s wild fauna and flora, habitat loss has perhaps the most profound and far-reaching effects on species and ecosystems (Purvis et al., 2000). In the face of inexorable human advancement, space for wild animals is ever-shrinking, and Africa is no exception. Ecotourism and photographic safaris have made an almost incalculable contribution towards mitigating this reality – providing a viable economic model to keep land in a (mostly) wild state and protecting wildlife in the process (Buckley, 2003; Buckley 2010, Balmford et al., 2015; Mossaz et al., 2015). There is no doubt that the presence of habituated leopards (and other predators) brings tourists to certain reserves to view them (Lindsey et al., 2005). How many visitors to the Sabi Sands travelled thousands of miles to see Hosana? There is an obvious relationship between tourism, the money generated from tourism and the ability to pay for conservation, buy and protect more land, maintain fences, provide jobs for desperately poor people and so on (Buckley 2003, Buckley, 2010).
The links between habituation and scientific knowledge are perhaps not as well known (except for the work done with the great apes). Yet the conservation of many secretive (and potentially dangerous) species hinges on this knowledge. Cryptic carnivores like leopards are challenging to study (Balme et al., 2009), and scientific work on these species primarily relies on camera trapping and collaring animals. Collaring poses many risks to the animals in question (Hayward et al., 2012), while camera trapping is far less intrusive (du Preez et al. 2014). Regardless, collaring and camera trapping are limited in terms of what they reveal about the behaviour of the studied species. Habituation of leopards has opened our eyes to much that was hidden before (Balme et al., 2013): grandmothers adopting and successfully raising their grandchildren (Balme et al. 2012), males tolerating adult cubs (Pirie et al. 2014) as well as sharing kills and mates with their independent male offspring. The philopatry of female leopards was revealed to guides by habituated leopards (Hess, 1991) years before being confirmed by telemetry studies (Balme et al. 2017; Fattebert et al., 2015; Fattebert et al., 2016). Through habituation we have been granted extraordinarily detailed insights into the secret lives of these beautiful cryptic cats. This knowledge is critical for conservation. Many assume that to conserve a species, we just need an understanding of population numbers and habitat and prey requirements. But behavioural science is crucial too.
A controversial example of how habituation can influence conservation decisions relates to recent leopard hunting regulations implemented in South Africa. These allow for male leopards of seven years or older to be legally hunted, provided you have the correct permits (DEA 2018). The justification is that at seven years old, they are mature males who have likely sired cubs and passed on their genes to the next generation (Balme et al. 2012) and are therefore expendable.
Every guide we have ever spoken to disagrees with the logic behind this. A seven-year-old male is only starting to establish himself as a dominant male with a territory. We know this because of years of habituating and following habituated males. Hosana was over six years old at the time of his death, and as far as we are aware, he has potentially only fathered three cubs that survive him. Two of these (the Nkuwa female’s cub and the Serengeti female’s cub) are still relatively young and very vulnerable to infanticide when a new male moves into his vacant territory. The other potential cub is a young male born of the Nkangala female. He is not entirely independent yet, and has a long road to travel before we can say for sure that he will survive and breed. Without the knowledge that comes from careful and long-term observations of habituated leopards, we would have to accept the suggestion of seven years being a reasonable age to hunt a male leopard. Habituation provides conservationists with crucial information to advise the government on the ethical management of leopards – management critical to the survival of the species.
Leopard habituation on foot
There is a fundamental distinction between habituating animals to people in vehicles and habituating them to people on foot. Truly wild animals are almost always human-averse. The only exceptions are wild animals on islands where human presence has been non-existent or infrequent over evolutionary time. Most unhabituated animals have an innate fear or wariness of people and will flee or hide (or, in rare circumstances, attack) when confronted by a person. Some of this response comes from recent persecution, but much of this wariness must have its roots in evolution. Humans are alpha predators and have been for thousands of years. Animals know to expect humans around manmade infrastructure (such as lodges) but respond differently to the sight of a person walking through the bushveld.
The upshot is that a wild animal comfortable around safari vehicles filled with tourists is not automatically relaxed with people on foot. However, in reserves in many parts of Africa, tracking is the only reliable way to locate leopards for the safari vehicles, so a slightly different desensitisation process is followed. Expert trackers follow tracks and find the animal. When the animal is sighted, the tracker and guide back away slowly to indicate that they are not a threat. The leopard may run initially but, given their curious natures, seldom moves far, allowing the tracker and guide team to return with the vehicle and drive to the spot where the animal was last seen.
As this process is repeated, some leopards gradually learn that people on foot come and go and do not represent a threat. This is not done with the intention of walking guests to these animals or fully habituating them on foot, far from it. Most reserves have strict policies against tracking cats with tourists in tow. Though young individuals may initially be curious and even approach or follow a tracking team, they invariably grow out of this behaviour. A wild adult leopard will move away from people approaching too closely on foot.
Hosana on foot
Jamie Paterson’s personal account:
During my time spent presenting live safaris for WildEarth on Djuma Private Game Reserve from 2015 to 2019, I believe that we as a film crew spent more time than was appropriate with Hosana on foot. I have spent months reflecting on this conclusion and seeking advice from those more expert than myself. We only started approaching him and his sister without the vehicle when they were just under a year old, but they would still have been at a highly impressionable age. It was not uncommon for us to spend extended periods sitting within their comfort zones.
Whether or not our actions contributed to his death is impossible to know and may even be unlikely. However, upon reflection, I do think spending so much time with him on foot had the potential to make him more vulnerable to anthropogenic conflict. This is my personal belief and one that is not necessarily shared by those who worked with me at the time. It is challenging to view objectively because Hosana’s death was, whatever the circumstances, a freak event. Like all adult leopards we had experience with, we know that he grew out of his youthful curiosity and began moving away from people on foot. Had he not encountered the counter-poaching unit (CPU) that day, he probably would have gone on to live a natural life with no harm done.
But in my opinion, the fact that Hosana began to behave differently as an adult does not mean that the lesson we instilled in him over the years (that people hanging around on foot do not represent a threat) was forgotten. To be clear, I do not for one second believe that this process would have made him more dangerous to people or even more likely to charge. But whatever the circumstances surrounding his death, the risk was always that if push came to shove (defending a kill, for instance), we had already shaped his natural instincts and responses to the sight of people moving into his personal space.
I raise this now not as a confession (a few thousand people watched us do it live) but because I feel there is a fundamental lesson to be learnt from this. I know that during my time at WildEarth, we as a guiding team strove to maintain a high standard of ethics and keep our impact to a minimum. We did not spend time with those cubs to exploit them for financial or narrative gain – the thought that we could be jeopardising their futures would have horrified us. We were exceedingly cautious about reading their behaviour, never frightening them and never venturing (or allowing them) too close. We experienced something magical with Hosana and wanted to share it with the world to build a connection between our audiences and a wild leopard. The circumstances all aligned – his mother was relaxed, he was young and male and curious, and so on. To my knowledge, no other leopard followed by WildEarth’s live safaris has been habituated to people on foot to the same extent.
We all have 20/20 hindsight, and I cannot speak for others, but I look back on my actions with regret. I know of guides who leave their trackers on foot with young leopards while at other sightings and those that spend their day off sitting with their favourite leopards. I am in no position to pass on instruction, but we (and the experts we have spoken to) cannot condone this. I hope future film crews and guides will remember this message when deciding how to view an individual animal on foot, particularly a relaxed predator. We must constantly remind ourselves that we are not the only people that an animal may encounter on foot and that the animal may move away to an area where they are unknown and where their accommodating nature could be misunderstood.
Famous Sabi Sands leopard Hosana
Human-wildlife conflict
Human-wildlife conflict is an enormous topic and one that is largely beyond the scope of this article. Nearly two-thirds of leopard distribution in South Africa fall outside protected areas (Jacobson et al., 2016). Leopards are highly adaptable, have a broad geographic range and readily adapt to human-dominated environments, making them a leading carnivore conflict species in South Africa (Seoraj-Pillai, 2016). Snaring and the poaching of leopards for their pelts are also significant threats to leopard safety.
Leopards have probably been lurking around human habitation, largely unseen, for as long as there have been humans and leopards in the same place. In South Africa, there is no evidence to suggest that habituated leopards from private reserves are more likely to endanger livestock or people. All the studies we accessed on leopard livestock killings and other types of conflict come from research conducted in areas where leopards are unhabituated (example: Constant, 2014; Pitman et al., 2017; Seoraj-Pillai, 2016; Viollaz et al., 2021). Leopard attacks on people, which are rare, seldom seem to involve habituated individuals (we know of two incidents involving habituated leopards during our respective careers). Our research into historic leopard attacks all involved unhabituated animals (a reminder that we consider animals around camps that have been fed or associate people with food as tamed, not habituated). Habituated leopards are still wild animals – they may go on to kill livestock or injure people – but they do not appear to be more likely to do so because they have grown up in private reserves around people.
The authors question whether young dispersal leopards who are more comfortable around humans and lodges may be more at risk of being robbed of instinctive wariness
But what of the reverse? Does habituation make these leopards more vulnerable? Young male leopards disperse in search of territory. Some may get lucky and find themselves a territorial vacuum down the road from their natal range, but others must seek further afield. The longest recorded dispersal was a subadult male that travelled a minimum distance of 353km (194.5km in a straight line) through three different countries: Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa (Fattebert et al. 2013). Thus the chances of a young habituated male leopard leaving the sanctuary of the reserve he was born in are higher than for a female.
Some young males simply disappear, never to be seen again. The majority will have died of natural causes – dispersal is a dangerous time in a young leopard’s life. However, the authors wondered if these young dispersal male leopards that have spent their lives near people and walking through lodges may be blithely walking into a far more dangerous world, robbed of an instinctive wariness that might have increased their survival odds.
Fortunately, neither expert opinion nor our research supports this conclusion. Balme et al. (2019) investigated the population dynamics of Sabi Sands and found that few leopards leave the reserve’s boundaries. According to their data, human factors have accounted for less than 2% of known leopard deaths in and around the Sabi Sands since 1975. By comparison, over half of all known leopard deaths in the Phinda-uMkhuze complex between 2002 and 2012 were anthropogenic, including legal destruction by farmers due to livestock depredation, snaring and poaching (Balme et al., 2009). (It should be noted that the leopard population in the Phinda-uMkhuze complex has since largely recovered due to policy changes.)
This may not be an apple-to-apple comparison, but these two protected areas share similar habitats, levels of prey abundance and natural leopard densities (Naude et al., 2020). As such, these are revealing statistics. They tell us that other more pressing factors are at play than habituation, such as fence quality, neighbouring-land use and even variations in local cultural perspectives of leopards. So, we can but conclude that habituated leopards – like Hukumuri and others – may still die in human-wildlife conflict because it is one of the significant threats facing leopards in South Africa today. But not because they are habituated to vehicles or people.
Another famous leopard, Hukumuri, was shot after killing livestock in a rural village near Sabi Sands
The importance of training
This is one of the most important conversations to come out of Hosana’s death and one that we believe to be far more pressing than the impact of habituation: the training of guides, counter-poaching units and field operatives for wildlife encounters. Guide, expert tracker and author Alex Van Den Heever recently informed us that over 90% of South Africa’s field rangers he has evaluated in tracking skills – those walking the bushveld daily – are not sufficiently skilled to manage wildlife encounters. This aligns with the authors’ personal experiences and is a deplorable state of affairs. It is incumbent upon reserve and park authorities to ensure that the teams employed to operate within their wild spaces are fully trained.
Approaching this topic without seeming to point fingers is nigh on impossible, and yet that is not the intention. This is not to say that every reserve and national park is employing poorly trained CPUs or field operatives. Those involved in counter-poaching operations put their lives on the line to keep our wilderness areas safe for the myriad species that inhabit them. We salute them and are forever indebted to them for being the soldiers in the war against poaching. However, if we as guides need to question our motives and ethics around habituation, and ask some tough questions, perhaps the CPUs and field rangers operating in these areas also need to question if they could do things differently.
Anyone (be they guides, trackers, CPUs, field rangers, security staff and even hospitality staff) working in a reserve or national park where wildlife will be encountered should be appropriately trained for such events. In places where animals are habituated, this training needs to consider that the wildlife may be more relaxed around people on foot and may not behave as expected or move off as readily if approached.
It is telling that over the many decades of living alongside habituated leopards in the Sabi Sands, incidents of conflict within the reserve are limited to a handful of isolated events. To the best of our knowledge (and that of those we questioned), no guide has ever had to shoot a leopard in self-defence, on foot or from a vehicle. That is as it should be. The number of leopard/human encounters on foot in the Sabi Sands is exceptionally high because, as mentioned above, they are tracked by guides and trackers for vehicle sightings. Tracking these cats often results in finding mothers and cubs and leopards with kills. In these circumstances, one would assume leopards might react defensively or aggressively, but this is rarely the case. This is due partly to the habituation process and partly to the skill of the guides and trackers at not provoking the animal, remaining neutral and appearing unthreatening.
Two vastly different forms of training are offered to those who walk in the bushveld. One approach is that of “sensitivity comes first”. Reputable guide-training facilities focus not only on rifle handling and shooting but also train guides not to provoke an animal to the point that it feels the need to charge. Through countless scenarios, training walks, shadowing experienced trackers, Big-5 pressure testing and unarmed walk experiences, guides are equipped with the experience, confidence and knowledge to approach animals on foot without threatening them. The overwhelming message in good training is that if an animal charges you, it is invariably your fault. You have to use your training to de-escalate the situation to ensure the safety of the animal, your guests, and yourself. Sensitive training emphasises that it is not the rifle that gets you out of a tricky situation but your calm assessment and reaction. The rifle is there for legal reasons, and we, as guides, must be appropriately trained to use it. But the focus is on respect for the animals and one’s ability to get out of encounters without provoking the animal to the point that it has no option but to attack.
Then there is the kind of training we will refer to as reactive training. The emphasis here is on rifle handling, speed and shot placement – how to react quickly with a rifle and put the target down as fast as possible. Unfortunately, reactive training is prevalent in the guiding industry and even more so for CPUs sent out into reserves to search for poachers. Maxine has trained guides in three African countries and has spoken to rangers in national parks and guides in Botswana and Zimbabwe – their training follows an almost identical approach. Some reserves and countries still require that you provoke an elephant or buffalo to charge and then shoot it as part of your training to be a guide (ZPGA 2022). During their careers as guides, both authors have attended “dangerous game” workshops and training sessions for rangers and guides that focus mainly on shot placement and rifle handling skills over reading an animal’s behaviour and making appropriate choices. The rifle instinctively becomes the first resort, the best defence against wild animals. There is a disconnect here, and we believe the ecotourism industry, particularly in Southern Africa, needs to evolve beyond this.
Naturally, CPUs need specialised training to face the very real threat of armed poachers. Walking with wildlife can be dangerous, and we acknowledge that there may be instances where there is no choice but to shoot an animal. There is an undeniable need for secrecy around how CPUs are trained. We are also aware that in many instances, CPUs are armed with low-caliber weapons intended for human encounters, and not for large animals (though this arguably increases the need for a sensitive approach to animal behaviour). There is no excuse for sending poorly trained (for wildlife encounters) teams out into the wild to endanger their own lives and those of the animals they encounter. We see no reason why the knowledge and experience of expert trackers, guides, field rangers and CPUs could not be shared to the benefit of all parties.
Van den Heever reports that Tracker Academy has started a new training programme aimed in part at addressing these concerns. The academy’s Rhino Guardians programme will equip field rangers with the skills necessary to improve tracking competence, dealing with potentially dangerous animals on foot, and bushcraft.
Ethics of the guides
This is a well-established topic, and we can add little new except to re-emphasise the importance of self-reflection as a guide. Many guides unfortunately lack the humility to understand that tourists come to Africa to see the animals, not the guide. Thus instead of making the wilderness the focus of the safari, they selfishly promote themselves at the expense of the wildlife. These are the “bad” guides – tip chasers and attention-seekers with little genuine respect for the wild – and this will only be exacerbated by the appeal of transient social media fame. Nothing we say is likely to change that. It is up to the reserve management and guiding teams to weed out these insensitive guides and either offer further training or dismiss them. In the best reserves, this does happen. In others, it does not, and the same mistakes are repeated again and again.
However, the truth is that even good, sensitive guides may find that certain boundaries can be hard to gauge because there is no one-size-fits-all instruction manual for ethical guiding. This is why regularly evaluating one’s choices and having open discussions is vital – ask questions of yourself and others. We spoke at the start of established practices – some are tried, tested and correct. But our knowledge of what is and is not appropriate is constantly evolving, and the best guiding teams adopt new ethical practices (like using spotlight filters, for example) when new evidence is presented. Trophy hunting may be rightly subject to considerable scrutiny, but there is no reason why the ecotourism industry – which also has a significant ecological impact – should be given a free pass.
Final thoughts
These questions and conversations are perhaps not new to those who have spent a lifetime discussing them around the fire in guiding and reserve management circles. However, they are important ones to continue addressing. They speak to the responsibilities of private reserves and “ecotourism”/photographic safaris and the role of the potentially lucrative tourism industry in conservation. Left unaddressed, deaths of animals such as Hosana leave room for misunderstanding and feed the growing cynicism directed at management teams of conservation areas.
We are gravely concerned by the apparent lack of training offered to guides, field operatives and CPUs that we expect to risk their lives to keep our wildlife safe. This is a recipe for future tragedies, human and animal alike.
Had we the time and tools to quantify the benefits and drawbacks of habituation (correctly understood and defined), there is no rational doubt that the benefits would outweigh any potential negatives by a substantial margin in the South African context. To reiterate, the Sabi Sands is home to one of the highest densities of leopards in Africa – higher than comparable habitats in neighbouring Kruger National Park (L Smythe, personal communication). Incidents of conflict within the reserve or in neighbouring villages (that we are aware of) are low compared to the neighbouring Kruger National Park and other regions with wild, unhabituated leopards.
Among the deluge of tributes to Hosana, we have seen a few scoff at the fuss made of this “named celebrity” leopard. We know the many arguments against naming wild animals – they have been debated to death and are largely moot in today’s world. But the impact of this one leopard, whose life was broadcast across the planet, cannot be overstated. He inspired a passion for wildlife across generations, cultures and continents. He brought people who otherwise might never have considered a safari, to Africa. He also brought Africa to those for whom travel was an impossibility. He taught us so much about leopard life. Human-wildlife conflict and habitat loss continue to be the two greatest threats to Africa’s wildlife and wild spaces. Hosana’s death should serve as a stark reminder of this. While questions around habituation and guiding practices will always be critical discussion points, we cannot lose sight of the fact that leopards (and Africa’s wild spaces) face other, far graver threats.
The authors would like to thank the following individuals for their invaluable assistance and guidance in compiling this article: Alex Van Den Heever, Dr Lucy Smythe, James Hendry, Dr Julien Fattebert and James Richard.
Purvis, A., Gittleman, J.L., Cowlishaw, G. and Mace, G.M., 2000. Predicting extinction risk in declining species. Proceedings of the royal society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 267 (1456), pp.1947-1952.
Stein, A.B., Athreya, V., Gerngross, P., Balme, G., Henschel, P., Karanth, U., Miquelle, D., Rostro, S., Kamler, J.F. and Laguardia, A., 2016. Panthera pardus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e. T15954A50659089. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.
Jamie Paterson, scientific editor at Africa Geographic, was born in South Africa and grew up exploring the country’s wild spaces at every available opportunity. On successfully completing her honours in law at the University of Cambridge, she returned home and dove headlong into the wilderness, working as both a research and trails guide. Jamie also spent several years as a wildlife television presenter for WildEarth, NatGeo Wild and SafariLIVE in the Lowveld of South Africa and the Maasai Mara in Kenya. A desire to tell Africa’s stories as they deserve to be told led her to Africa Geographic, where she now works as the scientific editor. Jamie is currently completing a degree in Veterinary Science at the University of Pretoria.
Maxine Gaines is a wildlife biologist, with a BSc Honours degree and over 12 years of experience observing and studying leopards in the wild. Her undergrad degree was a BSc with majors in Botany and Zoology from Wits University. Maxine then went on to study a BSc Honours in Environmental Management through UNISA which she achieved cum laude. She has more than 12 years of experience observing and studying leopards in the wild, 10 of these at Londolozi Game Reserve in the Sabi Sands, Greater Kruger National Park. There, leopards were a particular interest and Maxine was one of three Leopard Specialist Guides for many years. After leaving Londolozi, she was privileged to work as a guide and trainer of field guides for &Beyond (then CCAfrica) in East Africa. She was able to add to her knowledge of leopard behaviour in this very different environment. She is currently a student again enrolled at UNISA for an MSc in Nature Conservation, with Predator Behaviour and Conservation being the focus of her studies.
This week we are celebrating African icons. In our first story, we celebrate a safari icon: the humble tent – a symbol of freedom for adventurers. From simple canvas stretched over poles to opulent villas in remote destinations, tents enable their inhabitants to be fully immersed in their surroundings and experience the rawness of the wild. We’ve put together a selection of our favourite tented camps on the continent below.
In our second story, we are delving into the evolutionary wonders of another icon of the African safari: the giraffe. How does the world’s tallest animal cope with high blood pressure? Learn more below.
We’d also like to take a moment this week to honour the rangers who make conservation in Africa possible. 31 July is World Ranger Day. But we head into this year’s commemorations under a cloud. In the past few weeks we’ve learned of tragedies befalling rangers who are dedicated to protecting rhinos and other endangered species. Whether meeting poachers on the ground or being targeted by poaching syndicates for the good work they are doing, these rangers risk their lives and families to fight for our wildlife. This day is about more than taking a moment to acknowledge their work – it is to honour the sacrifices made by these wildlife warriors. What can you do to help? Keep backing conservation in Africa, and the ranger-support and anti-poaching projects that empower rangers to do their good work.
Happy celebrating Africa to you all!
Taryn van Jaarsveld – Editor
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
I have been fortunate to spend a significant portion of my life staring at wild animals, but, every now and again, I still have moments of existential wonder at their remarkable shapes and sizes. When you next find yourself with a minute or two to spare, have another look at the winners of this year’s Photographer of the Year and marvel at the diversity of forms, figures and colours on display.
Did you know that giraffe have a mean average blood pressure twice that of most mammals? Blood pressures that high could easily kill a human being (or at least substantially compromise the cardiovascular system). So, how do giraffe survive it? You’ll have to read our second story below to find out.
Meet monitor Christine Mwende and supertusker Konomoju2. Our CEO Simon spent time with them and Tsavo Trust in Tsavo East National Park in Kenya a few days ago. Simon is currently at the coastal paradise of Watamu tracking down the Sokoke scops owl, golden-rumped sengi and other wondrous creatures before heading to the Maasai Mara National Park for the Greatest Show on Earth.
WATCH: In their mission to protect Amboseli’s wildlife, Big Life Foundation has built a barrier against poachers. Now, people from local communities work to protect wildlife. Ranger by ranger, their force has grown bigger. More than 300 rangers now protect 647 000ha (02:20). Click here to watch
A tent is a marvellous thing: not just a safe, weatherproof cocoon but a symbol of freedom for avid explorers the world over. For the safari industry, tents have always played a pivotal role in countless journeys to Africa, sometimes evolving from simple canvas stretched over poles to opulent villas in remote destinations. Yet the one thing they all have in common is a sense of absolute immersion, with just a thin piece of material between their occupants and the wilderness (and creatures) on the other side… These are our some of our favourite tented camps from across Africa:
Everything but the Range Rover
Ultra-luxury in the middle of some of the remotest corners of Africa may sound like something of an oxymoron, but these tented camps prove that nothing is impossible.
Duba Plains Suite, Okavango Delta, Botswana
This exquisite private two-bedroom tented villa is tucked away in an exclusive section of the Okavango Delta, arguably the home of the luxury safari. The suite is raised on a wooden decking offering an unparalleled vantage point to observe the Delta’s famed wildlife viewing. Elegant features and attention to detail make this one of the most luxurious tented camp options.
Mara Plains Jahazi Suite, Olare Motorogi Conservancy
The intimate Mara Plains Jahazi Suite is so beautifully designed and appointed that were it not for the sweeping views and draped canvas overhead, it would be easy to forget that one was in a tent in Africa. Dine out to a lamplit dinner on the veranda before retreating to a night of sleep serenaded by Mara’s wild creatures.
Jack’s Camp, Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, Botswana
In the middle of a land of vast space and otherworldly vistas, Jack’s Camp is resplendent, swathed in muslin and canvas: an homage to a forgotten era of safaris. The rich colours and ornate décor make time spent in the camp almost as engaging as exploring the wilderness beyond.
Angama Mara, Mara Triangle, Kenya
There are few views as magnificent as the one from Angama Mara’s beautifully appointed tents, decorated in the dazzling colours of traditional Maa culture. The name “Angama Mara” was inspired by the Swahili word for “suspended in mid-air”, and each tent “floats” 300 metres above the plains of the Maasai Mara, with the dark green S-bends of the Mara River curving south as far as the eye can see.
Jack’s Camp in the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans pays homage to a forgotten era of safaris; Mara Plains Jahazi Suite is intimate and beautifully designed; iconic Angama Mara offers some of the continent’s best views; find luxury in the Okavango Delta at Duba Plains Suite
The definition of glamping
With the rise of the luxury tented safari experience came the increasing popularity of the term “glamping” – a portmanteau of “glamorous” and “camping”. These destinations take glamping to a whole new level.
Lemala Nanyukie Lodge, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
“Nanyukie” translates as “endless plains” in Maa, the perfect description of the celebrated Serengeti surroundings. Lemala Nanyukie Lodge is based in a region of the Serengeti known for its exceptional concentration of cats, so anticipate falling asleep to the sound of a lion’s roar rumbling through the canvas walls, at one of Africa’s most comfortable tented camps.
Saseka Tented Camp, Thornybush Private Game Reserve, Greater Kruger, South Africa
Each of the luxury tents in Saseka comes with its own private deck, outdoor shower, and pool with views over the riverbed of one of the most wildlife-dense reserves in South Africa.
Mara Nyika Camp, Naboisho Conservancy, Kenya
Mara Nyika is an intimate tented camp set in a valley of one of the Maasai Mara’s largest private conservancies. Privacy and pampering are the fundamental pillars of the Mara Nyika Camp experience, set against one of the most spectacular backdrops in Africa.
Chisa Busanga Camp, Kafue National Park, Zambia
On a beautiful island in the heart of Busanga Plains you’ll find extraordinary Chisa Busanga Camp – characterised by human-sized bird’s nests inspired by the design of a weaver’s nest. Built from sticks and lined with canvas, this architectural marvel offers a unique way to experience the seasonal Kafue National Park.
Stay in Chisa Busanga’s human-sized bird nests; enjoy river views in Greater Kruger at Saseka Tented Camp; Mara Nyika is based in one of Maasai Mara’s largest private conservancies; pampering is the order of the day at Lemale Nanyukie
The tent next door
Roughing it in the wild is all good and well, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting some creature comforts while doing so. Thankfully, you’ll find the perfect balance at these tented camps.
Ongava Tented Camp, bordering Etosha National Park, Namibia
A safari classic, the Meru-style tents of Ongava Tented Camp all have ensuite facilities, open-air showers and private verandas. Tucked in a hidden valley at the foot of a dolomite hill, the camp is a natural extension of the arid landscape surrounding it.
Explorer Camp, Shamwari Private Game Reserve, South Africa
Explorer Camp is the ideal destination for those looking to explore Shamwari Private Game Reserve on foot. Here, visitors will discover the natural bounty of diverse flora, abundant insects, and the region’s many large and small mammals. Rustic and intimate, Explorer Camp offers the perfect combination of simple amenities and natural immersion.
Lemala Ngorongoro, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania
Hidden in an ancient acacia forest a short distance from the rim of the world-famous Ngorongoro Crater, the spacious tents of Lemala Ngorongoro Tented Camp are carefully positioned to provide privacy to their guests while keeping the impact on the pristine forest to a minimum. And it’s just a short drive to the magnificent wildlife viewing on the Crater’s floor!
Hide out in an ancient acacia forest at Lemala Ngorongoro; Immerse yourself in the Etosha landscape at Ongava; Discover Shamwari on foot with Explorer Camp as your base
Back to basics
Escaping to the wild doesn’t have to be about enjoying every convenience, and sometimes simpler really is better. There are plenty of ways to camp out in comfort without breaking the bank!
Flatdogs Camp, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia
The safari tents at Flatdogs Camp encapsulate the essence of an authentic “Africa under canvas” experience, set in a prime position along a riverbank in the heart of the world-renowned South Luangwa National Park.
Ndutu Kati Kati Tented Camp, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
Ndutu Kati Kati is a seasonal mobile camp, strategically situated in southern Serengeti from December to March, just in time to take advantage of the excitement of the arrival of the Great Migration. This camp is all about wildlife viewing, and the simple tents are the perfect base to rest between adventures.
Sango Safari Camp, Khwai Community Concession, Botswana
Nestled in the shade of the riverine trees overlooking the remarkable Khwai River, the ensuite Meru-style tents of Sango Safari Camp offer the perfect base from which to explore this magnificent part of the Okavango Delta. As one of the continent’s most exceptional little tented camps, Sango Safari Camp provides a neat compromise between affordability and subtle comfort.
Flat Dogs is based in a prime position along the riverbank in South Luangwa; enjoy affordable comfort in Khwai at Sango Safari Camp; be up close to Migration action at Ndutu Kati Kati
Back of beyond
Get off the beaten track and explore, then curl up in bed and embrace the sounds of the African bushveld after dark.
Ivory Trail Adventure, Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe
This mobile camping experience allows exploration of the remotest corners of one of Zimbabwe’s greatest wilderness areas. The Ivory Trail Adventure is undeniably aptly named, with simple stretcher beds, bucket showers, and a long-drop toilet.
Ishasha Wilderness Camp, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda
Escape to the banks of the Ntungwe River at the Ishasha Wilderness Camp in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park, where you will share your space with resident troops of black-and-white colobus monkeys or a herd of passing elephants.
Mundulea Bush Camp and Walking Trails, Mundulea Nature Reserve, Namibia
The low-impact tents of Mundulea Bush Camp are hidden among woodland and dolomite outcrops in the unspoiled Karstveld. Each tent has its own private veranda area where guests can take a moment to soak in the absolute peace and quiet of this remote region of Namibia’s central highlands.
Mwaleshi Camp, North Luangwa National Park, Zambia
In the vast wilderness of Africa’s golden valley, North Luangwa National Park is often referred to as the home of the walking safari, and most of comfortable Mwaleshi Camp’s activities are conducted on foot. Here canvas has been replaced by thatching, but the effect is just as immersive. The simple camp perfectly matches the authentic, down-to-earth tone that epitomises the Zambian safari experience.
Mwaleshi is an iconic destination for walking safaris; experience colobus monkeys and elephants at Ishasha; explore remote wilderness on the Ivory Trail Adventure; enjoy the unspoiled Karstveld at Mundelea Bush Camp
Want to head out on your canvas safari? To find lodges, search for our ready-made packages or get in touch with our travel team to arrange your safari, scroll down to after this story.
Giraffe evolution has long fascinated biologists. Unique in the animal kingdom, their towering stature confers considerable advantages for access to out-of-the-way resources and vantage for spotting predators. Recent research delves into how giraffe genetics have shaped their ability to defy gravity. The giraffe’s great height comes with significant physiological challenges, including maintaining the necessary blood pressure and bone density to support it.
Giraffes need to pump blood up to two metres above the level of the heart to supply the brain with oxygenated blood. This, in turn, necessitates pumping blood at a pressure double that of most other mammals – pressure that would cause severe damage to the human cardiovascular system.
How the giraffe survives with such high blood pressure is a mystery slowly being unravelled by scientists
Factoring in growth
Research had previously isolated a gene known as FGFRL1 (the fibroblast growth factor receptor-like protein 1). In giraffes, this gene shows seven mutations not present in other ruminants. Given that different mutations in this gene are known to cause cardiovascular and skeletal defects in humans and mice, researchers hypothesised that the giraffe’s exceptional FGFRL1 must be responsible for some of its specialised adaptations.
To test this, the authors of the new study used cutting-edge technology to insert the giraffe gene into mice. The modified mice and a control group without the gene then received a drug to increase blood pressure. The results were pretty conclusive: the “giraffe-type FGFRL1 mice” suffered less cardiovascular and organ damage than the normal mice. In fact, after 28 days of exposure to the angiotensin II drug, the modified mice showed no indications of hypertension – their blood pressure remained at the average.
Though the mechanisms behind this gene action are still not understood, the authors tentatively speculate that this research may well contribute to future gene therapies for humans suffering the adverse effects of high blood pressure.
Giraffes have average bone mineral density, despite fast skeletal growth rates
Dem bones
Giraffes have one of the highest skeletal growth rates of any mammal – a calf will double its height during its first year. As a general rule, fast skeletal growth rates are associated with decreased bone strength, but adult giraffes have average bone mineral density. Interestingly, the “giraffe-type FGFRL1 mice” had significantly higher bone mineral densities, bone volume/total volume ratios and average trabeculae (essentially, the supportive “struts” in bone) thickness than the normal mice. Thus, it seems highly probable that the FGFRL1 gene in giraffes plays a role in maintaining compact and robust bones.
This particular finding goes to the heart of the basics of evolution and, in particular, evolutionary pleiotropy. Pleiotropy describes a situation where one gene impacts two or more seemingly unrelated physical traits. This may help explain how substantial phenotypic changes could have taken place over a relatively short evolutionary time.
Constant vigilance
In compiling the genome assembly, the study details how giraffes are adapted to have what is thought to be the best eyesight of any of the Artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates such as antelope and buffalo). This may be particularly important for giraffe because their reaction speeds are fractionally slower than most mammals because of a delay in neuron transmission caused by neuron length. Not only did the researchers identify several genes related to optical development, but they also showed that the giraffe has a reduced sense of smell. Compared to its closest relative, the okapi, the giraffe lacks at least 53 olfactory-related genes. This may well be a natural trade-off in sensory acuity seen in other animals (often arboreal species).
Unlike most other animals, a resting giraffe is not particularly well suited to rising quickly and gracefully, making them more vulnerable to predators. They also require high volumes of food. As a result, giraffe sleep durations are among the lowest recorded. The study outlines clear evidence of the rapid evolution of specific genes critical in maintaining circadian rhythms and sleep arousal systems. Thus, the giraffe’s genome allows for short and fragmented sleep.
A tall order
Though the mysteries of the giraffe’s great height are far from entirely revealed, this research goes a long way towards improving our understanding of evolution on a genetic level. In particular, it provides crucial insights into how pleiotropy and some “lucky” mutations produced one of the most fascinating creatures on the planet.
To learn about how you can contribute to the conservation of giraffes, read more about our project partner The Giraffe Conservation Foundation. Login to view – details below.
I have just arrived at Tsavo East National Park in Kenya – my first stop on an epic safari planned by teamAG
We head out soon to spend precious time with those giant dignified tuskers that define this area and perhaps even catch a glimpse of hirola – the world’s rarest antelope! I will be accompanying a biodiversity patrol for a few days – to appreciate the work that goes into keeping Tsavo safe. After that, I journey to the coastal forest of Arabuko Sokoke to learn about the work being done to preserve this precious place – and to track down Sokoke scops owl, golden-rumped sengi and other delights. And finally, my safari heads off to the Maasai Mara to join clients on a photographic safari. We will use a modified photography vehicle, and off-road driving permits only issued to approved guides who drive responsibly. That’s three stories you can look forward to 🙂
FOMO? Perhaps it’s time to contact us to start planning your next safari. You can do that by replying to this newsletter or emailing our team at travel@africageographic.com – let them know your wishlist. First, check out our packages here (website) and here (app). Safari njema!
Keep the passion
Simon Espley – CEO, Africa Geographic
From our Editor – Taryn van Jaarsveld
A few weeks ago, we ran a balanced and heartfelt reflection on famous Sabi Sands leopardHosana’s untimely death. The ensuing discussion on our story continued for weeks, as interested parties weighed in on our platforms. What became clear was that a slew of issues required consideration and investigation.
This week Jamie and co-author Maxine Gaines – who both hold deep connections to Hosana and Sabi Sand Game Reserve – have, after thorough research and enquiry, penned an exceptional and exhaustive analysis on leopard habituation and the ethics of tourism surrounding leopards. The story below is available exclusively on our app for the next few days, where you can join the discussion with the AG tribe. Get the app to view – it’s free.
Malawi’s Majete Wildlife Reserve has all the makings of a coveted safari destination. This realm of towering granite hills, grassy plains, abundant wildlife and the mighty Shire River has seen droves of tourists returning to experience a vibrant and thriving wilderness. Read our guide on this reserve, and on how to visit it, in our second story below.
Happy celebrating Africa to you all!
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
Almost exactly seven years ago, I first set foot in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, bursting with excitement and somewhat wide-eyed at the position I had found myself in. Would that I could travel back in time – what words of frail wisdom would I impart? (I have some ideas, though not all are relevant to the topic at hand.)
Did you know that the habituation of leopards (and many other species), has contributed enormously to our scientific knowledge of these beautiful, cryptic animals? Our first story of the week, written by myself and my friend Maxine Gaines, is the culmination of months of work and careful consideration. It tells the story of leopards we have known, their habituation to people and the ethos of the industry we both understand well. Its messages are borne from the heart, and we sincerely hope they are received in the spirit in which they were intended.
Conservation today is a tangled web of complex challenges, each strand convoluted and inextricably linked to several others. It is often much easier to villainise and rail against the “bad guys” (and tar others with the same brush) than to face the fact that silver bullet solutions are few and far between.
Somehow taking a middle ground has become the new extremism, attracting ire and condemnation. But I still believe in honesty and transparency and hope our story below reflects that.
Our CEO’S choice is one for the experienced safari-goer seeking the ultimate experience (and images) of raw Africa at her best. Join popular photographer guide Villiers Steyn and experienced local guides in Chitake, Mana Pools, Zimbabwe. Four places left.
JUST DO IT! For the pursuit of culinary delights and Big-5 safari heaven, there is this: Bush & beach, Pinotage to predators – South Africa – 12 days. You know you want to
Find other ready-made packages or even design your own safari. It’s easy: login to our app, tap/click the ‘Travel with us’ tab, and select either ‘packages’ or ‘lodges’. You can filter your choice by place and other important choices (such as lodges in non-malaria areas or packages that include the Big 5). You can add your selection of lodges and packages to your wishlist – which will remain saved until you choose to edit or delete.
You can help desert lions
Did you know that the AG app hosts a hand-picked selection of trusted conservation and community projects that are of real benefit to Africa’s people, ecosystems and wildlife? This empowers the AG tribe to offer support & donate to projects that make a difference.
We’ve just added Desert Lion Conservation Trust to our list of conservation projects. The trust has been collecting data on the desert-adapted lion population and studying their behaviour, biology and ability to adapt to the harsh desert environment. Their work is mitigating threats and providing much-needed help to these magnificent and resilient lions. See how you can help.
WATCH: Lemurs get high | We know many animals self-medicate. Check out these lemurs chewing on toxic millipedes and spreading them on their bodies – seemingly as an insect repellent – while becoming intoxicated in the process (02:40). Click here to watch
It’s been a long journey, and the guardians of the small crate and its precious cargo are exhausted. A pair of amber eyes gleam in the darkness, wary and burning with wildfire. The crate slides open, and in a blur of spots and tawny fur, the cheetah hurtles out into the wild of her new home – one of the first cheetahs to set foot in Malawi’s Majete Wildlife Reserve in decades. Her arrival is just one step in the delicate process of restoring this vital part of Africa to a vibrant, thriving wilderness.
Majete Wildlife Reserve has all the makings of a coveted safari destination, and it is now poised to live up to its considerable potential. And two years after cheetahs returned to Majete, the first cubs emerged from a secret den, marking the dawn of a new era for the reserve.
The reserve and Malawi’s wild spaces
In the Lower Shire River valley in Malawi’s southwestern corner, Majete Wildlife Reserve covers 700 km2 (70,000 hectares) of towering granite hills, grassy plains, and miombo woodlands. Bulbous star chestnuts have forced their way up through the rocky kopjes, and hulking baobabs dot the savanna, while the riparian forests of the river valley are lush with ilala palms and ancient mahoganies.
Every river in Africa has its own distinctive character, and these landscape lifelines tend to dominate and define the continent’s wild spaces. In Majete, the two main rivers are entirely different. The Mkulumadzi is gentle and charming, flowing through patches of boulders and along small open floodplains. The more famous Shire is mighty, fast, and deep (see this footage of the capricious river after heavy rains), forcing its resident hippos and crocodiles to endure its currents. The Shire subsumes the smaller Mkulumadzi in the heart of Majete and continues south to tumble over the picturesque Kapichira Falls. Nearly two hundred years ago, David Livingstone and his crew followed the course of this river, which would eventually (after a detour around the falls) lead them to the shores of Lake Malawi. The Shire is the only outlet of Lake Malawi in the north and flows through Malawi before joining the Zambezi River to the south.
Towering hills and miombo woodlands characterise the reserve; the might Shire River subsumes the smaller Mkulumadzi in the heart of Majete; towering baobabs dot the landscape; wildlife numbers are on the rise in the reserve; a small island in the Shire River
Second chances and new hopes
Majete Wildlife Reserve was the first protected area to come under African Parks’ management in 2003. Prior to that, the reserve was a reserve in name only. Charcoal burning and logging had divested vast patches of land of their woodlands, and poaching had claimed the lives of everything from elephants and rhinos to the once vast herds of buffalo and innumerable antelope species. Not one tourist had ventured to the reserve in three years.
DID YOU KNOW that African Parks offers safari camps (lodges and campsites) where 100% of tourism revenue goes to conservation and local communities? Find out more and book your African Parks safari.
After a lengthy negotiation, the non-profit organisation African Parks entered into a public-private partnership with the Malawi Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW). As part of their now well-established (but then trailblazing) approach, African Parks assumed responsibility for the rehabilitation and long-term management of the reserve while providing a sustainable income source for surrounding communities. They inherited a “wasteland with no perceived value, and little to no hope for a revival”.
African Parks has implemented programs to protect the reserve, with teams successfully securing the safety of wildlife populations in the reserve
But revive it they did, through a careful, painstaking process that took close to twenty years. Rather than rushing into a hasty restocking effort for Majete, management teams established the infrastructure and relationships needed to secure the reserve’s long-term future. As is fundamental to the African Parks’ approach, the first step was to institute community development and engagement programs to prove the importance of protecting the reserve. Fences sprang up around the perimeter, the road network was expanded tenfold, and lodges, camps, and a visitor centre were prepared for the inevitable return of tourists.
The early establishment of a smaller, more manageable fenced inner sanctuary (the fence since removed) provided a safe haven for both the remaining and translocated wildlife to flourish. Meanwhile, the reserve’s team of 12 grew to over 140 well-equipped, well-motivated and well-trained staff members. In a remarkable testament to their efforts, not one elephant or rhino has been lost to poaching since their return to the reserve.
Tourists have begun to reappear in their droves, with 11,000 visitors generating more than USD 500,000 in revenue in 2019. Aside from reserve operating costs, these funds are channelled into community education scholarships, social infrastructure such as clinics, malaria prevention, and beekeeping projects.
Back from the brink
With wildlife numbers on the rise and their safety ensured, it was time to reintroduce species lost to poaching. First came seven black rhinos in 2003, followed by elephants with the arrival of a herd of 70 in 2006 and additional herds in 2008 and 2009. Today, a healthy population of elephants roams Majete Wildlife Reserve, fulfilling their role as ecosystem engineers and helping reverse damage to the reserve’s habitats. Translocated giraffes, buffalo, and sable antelopes all joined the ranks of a burgeoning herbivore population. Since African Parks assumed management, more than 5,000 animals across 17 species have been introduced to Majete.
Today, the reserve is home to a multitude of antelope species, including waterbuck, eland, Lichtenstein’s hartebeest, common duiker, kudu, nyala, bushbuck, Sharpe’s grysbok and suni. With sufficient prey species on the menu, the large carnivores were next on the arrival list. Lions, leopards, cheetahs, and, most recently, wild dogs have all been transported from other countries (primarily South Africa) over distances of over 5,000km to restore Malawi’s predator populations. These animals fall under the umbrella of the Malawi Predator Metapopulation Management Plan, allowing for an overarching management approach. Along with elephants and rhinos, they and their offspring have aided rewilding and genetic supplementation in other reserves across Malawi, such as the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve in the north of the country.
The gradual rehabilitation of Majete has also been of tremendous benefit to its avian residents (and migrants). Over 300 bird species have been recorded in the reserve. From July to November, numerous migratory bird species pass through the reserves, including African skimmers and diminutive rock pratincoles. For enthusiasts, Arnot’s and boulder chats, racket-tailed rollers, Pel’s fishing owls, cuckoo hawks, and Boehm’s bee-eaters are all highlights.
Predators, including lions, have made the journey from other countries to restore Malawi’s predator populations; camps such as Thawale have become popular with tourists; the road network of Majete has grown tenfold; Majete has a burgeoning herbivore population; cheetahs have also been returned to the area and are thriving in the reserve
Explore & stay
Selecting an African safari destination is often a deeply personal decision, based on a range of factors and requirements, from budget to wildlife viewing. One such motivating factor not to be overlooked or dismissed is the story of a reserve and the vital contribution each visit makes to its survival. Every tourist who arrives at this nascent reserve to learn (and retell) its story is an essential cog in the tourism-conservation machine.
Find out about Majete for your next African safari. We offer ready-made safari ideas to choose from, or we can build one just for you.
They will also find themselves well rewarded by a piece of African paradise unspoilt by mass commercial tourism. This may not be the perfect destination for first-time safari-goers clutching a wildlife checklist, but seasoned travellers will appreciate the low-key atmosphere, unusual scenery, and the unexpected joy of encountering wildlife that was once locally extinct.
The reserve is open to day visitors, but there are campsite and lodge options for those looking for a longer stay. Thawale Lodge is one such destination in a prime location, offering a fully catered experience of Majete.
You can see more on Thawale Lodge here:
The Mkulumadzi River and its lawn-like flood plains are well-suited to guided walking safaris, with the bonus of enjoying a well-earned lunch and swimming at the reserve’s Heritage and Education Centre afterwards. Boat excursions on the Shire River are also on offer. The reserve is open year-round but arguably at its best during the dry months from April until October, when the wildlife concentrates around available water. Majete can become very warm, with midday temperatures often exceeding 40 degrees Celsius, and very humid when seasonal rains arrive.
Sundowners in the reserve; camps and lodges such as Game Capture Camp (top right) and Thawale Lodge (middle row) are becoming firm favourites with tourists; wild dogs have also returned to the reserve, and lions are now very much at home
Magical Majete
There could be no better description of the restoration of Majete Wildlife Reserve than a labour of love, born of twenty years’ worth of dedicated toil. In many ways, for African Parks, it set the stage for the future – a platform to trial new and innovative methods to protect the continent’s most vulnerable wild spaces and proof of just what can be accomplished. What’s more, Majete’s success became a springboard for Malawian conservation, with echoes evident across the country’s other parks and reserves.
African Parks entered into management agreements for Liwonde National Park and Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve, both in Malawi, in 2015.
Jackal alert! A startled ostrich takes evasive action. Photographer of the Year 2022 entrant.
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Cheetah first + self-medicating chimps + gorilla trekking
It’s time to take the management of national parks and reserves away from government and hand over to experts in the private sector. And I mean on a worldwide basis. Time and again, we see ‘protected areas’ neglected to the point that they are poached to a state of barren wasteland or government-sanctioned rape by extraction industries such as mining and logging. How often have we been told that there is no money for conservation or that other priorities are more important? Government ministers are usually political appointments – with precious little understanding of conservation, let alone the deep passion that is so necessary. Imagine if your retirement fund was run by a labour union steward or open-heart surgery performed by bookkeepers. It’s simply ludicrous that government-appointed stooges head up our precious protected areas with little to no experience or passion. And then there is the fraud and corruption that is now endemic amongst some of our ‘leaders’. That said, I need to make a loud shout-out to the rangers and others at ground level who keep the wheels turning, despite such huge odds.
Some African countries have seen the light and handed over protected area management duties to stellar organisations like African Parks. And the results speak for themselves. Well done to these far-sighted leaders. So let’s see more of that!
Keep the passion
Simon Espley – CEO, Africa Geographic
From our Editor – Taryn van Jaarsveld
A few months ago, researchers in the Kgalagadi were observing the cheetah they dubbed ‘Lizzie’ and her subadult cub Lokesh, wandering over the dunes. Behind Lokesh, small blurry bundles came into view. With the appearance of these four new cubs, our understanding of cheetah behaviour would change forever. Read our first story below to find out what is so fascinating about this occurrence, which is providing invaluable insight into our understanding of these precious cats. I can only imagine the childlike awe Lizzie’s observers experienced on this discovery – a reminder that despite the bad news, losses, and often thankless struggles faced by conservationists, there is still hope and new wonder to be uncovered.
So too are we discovering new behaviour in primates. Scientists have observed self-medicating behaviour in chimps. Read more about these and other innovative examples of animals self-medicating in our second story.
Happy celebrating Africa to you all!
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
With limited exceptions, we know very little about the lives of individual wild animals. No matter how extraordinary, a sighting offers but a snapshot in time. So is it any wonder these wild creatures, like the cheetah of our first story, continue to surprise?
I suspect that we are destined to learn a great deal more about the complex sociality of seemingly solitary cats. Indeed, the past few years have seen the experts frantically rewriting the books on cougar social behaviours. And did you know that wild leopard and cheetah mothers may adopt another’s cubs? Take Naserian, for instance – a cheetah I spent a few months following in the Maasai Mara. She adopted her nephew and raised him alongside her young son for several months.
Isn’t the wild’s endless capacity for the unexpected simply marvellous?
If you have safari FOMO because so many lucky travellers are currently out there enjoying their African adventures then consider these two epic opportunities to reboot and indulge yourself 🙂
• Or really push the boat out and indulge in this 19-day mega safari – a proper southern African sojourn. From Cape Town to Vic Falls and Chobe to Khwai, this is the ultimate gift to yourself and your loved ones
• Visit our app to see more epic packages or plan your own safari by selecting ‘lodges’ in the menu dropdown. It’s easy
Marvellous Madikwe
App subscriber Colin West writes:
“We have just returned from our first stay at Buffalo Ridge Safari Lodge in Madikwe Game Reserve. We have loved Madikwe ever since our first visit 11 years ago. It is a great location with extensive views, spacious lodges, and extremely experienced guides. The lodge is owned by a local community who are determined to make your stay memorable and enjoyable. Around the lodge we saw elephants feeding around the main deck, while klipspringers rested on the steps leading up to the game-drive vehicles. We had great close-up sightings of cheetah, elephant, lion, and so many other creatures. This was very much down to Godfrey, our guide, who looked after us so well. We thoroughly recommend Buffalo Ridge to anyone wanting a top-end experience without having to pay top-end prices.”
Want to write a review? Share tales of your travels as Colin did, on our forum.
WATCH: Here’s what happens after an elephant dies. As this film crew witnessed, elephant carcasses briefly become busy ecosystems of their own. (Viewer discretion advised.) (06:47). Click here to watch
Scientists have observed chimpanzees treating the injuries of their fellow troop mates (Photo courtesy @miller_wildlife_photography)
Cases of animals self-medicating have been widely recorded over the past few decades. Self medicating is a survival trait that chimpanzees, birds, orangutans and lemurs all share with humans. Now, scientists have observed chimpanzees treating peers for injuries – a first for the animal kingdom.
Scientists observed 19 different instances where the chimpanzees “medicated” themselves:
Members of the Rekambo chimpanzee troop in Gabon have recently been observed rubbing insects onto open wounds.
Even more astonishing, the chimpanzees not only treated their own wounds in this fashion but those of others as well.
No other animal (apart from humans, of course) has ever been observed treating the injuries of others.
Most interesting, is that this case was not just a once-off event.
One mother rubbed an insect onto her offspring’s wound, and the same behaviour was observed in two other adult chimpanzees.
It is still uncertain what kind of insects were used and whether the “insect ointment” the chimps created aided injury healing or prevented infection.
Was it the chimpanzees’ intention to treat the injuries? That remains unanswered for now but seems likely given that these celebrated primates targeted open wounds.
There are also many examples in nature of animals using the chemical properties of plants or insects for a specific purpose:
Chimpanzees have been seen swallowing bitter, unpalatable leaves of Aspilia plants, some of which are anti-helminthics (to rid their bodies of parasitic worms).
Hornbills have been observed using crushed millipedes to line the cavities and entrances of their nests, which may help to keep bacteria and fungi from flourishing in the confined place while the chicks fledge.
Lemurs have also been recorded chewing on millipedes, possibly to treat tummy troubles. The lemurs swallowed some of the unpleasant mixture and spread the remaining ointment on their genitals, anuses, and tails.
Many birds have been observed “anting” – rubbing ants over their bodies. The formic acid produced by some of these ants is thought to help soothe irritated skin and keep ectoparasites and microbes at bay.
While many cases of animals self-medicating – also known as zoopharmacognosy – are coming to light, there is still much for us to learn in this fascinating field. Have you observed these behaviours, or similar behaviours, in the wild? Let us know.
Millipedes are a popular ‘treatment’ for many animals, as they secrete noxious chemicals with antimicrobial properties
Somewhere far north in the Auob riverbed in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park of South Africa, a female cheetah wanders out of the dunes. Her eyes lock onto a springbok and she moves closer to her unsuspecting quarry. Moments later she is at full speed. The springbok sees her and runs – but it is too late. The cheetah sits on the side of the dune, panting heavily, successful in her mission to feed her family. So far, this is nothing unusual. A female cheetah hunting a springbok to provide for her growing cubs is a daily occurrence in the southern Kalahari Desert. On this occasion, however, everything is different.
Her sub-adult male cub, 15 months old, appears over the dunes. Behind him four small bundles of fur appear, hardly recognisable as cheetahs, emerging from the den to join their mother and older brother on the kill. The mother – dubbed “Lizzie” by researchers from the Kalahari Leopard Project, was born in 2016. Her mother is known to researchers as “Corinne” and is currently one of the oldest cheetahs in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.
Cheetahs are one of the most intensively studied large carnivores on the planet. But a female raising two of her own litters of different age classes at the same time is something scientists have never seen before. The first sighting of these cheetah cubs occurred in October 2021. After observing this cheetah family for some time, the Cheetahs of the Kalahari Project has been able to gain insight into this rare occurrence.
In the beginning
The story began in early 2016 when Lizzie was born. Her mother Corinne was one of the best-known cheetahs in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, and both Corinne and Lizzie had been monitored since birth by the Kalahari Leopard Project. Corinne was born in March 2011 and her mother was collared by cheetah researchers Gus and Margie Mills in 2006. Knowledge of the matrilineal bloodline of these cheetahs thus goes back four generations.
After dispersal from her mother, Lizzie became a prolific independent hunter and claimed a home range in the far north of her mother’s range. In June 2020 she had her first litter, of which one male cub – Lokesh – survived the denning phase. He grew up as a single cub and nothing out of the ordinary happened for almost a year.
Lizzie developed into a skilled hunter. Where other cheetahs have to get within 50–100m of their prey before launching an attack, it is not rare for her to start running from about 250m from her target
In May 2021 we noticed that Lizzie started marking, behaviour that is normally only displayed by females in oestrus. Multiple males ventured far out of their normal territories to visit Lizzie’s home range. When we received news of sightings of Lizzie accompanied by different males during May, we still did not expect her to get pregnant. Her 11-month-old male cub was still far from independence and cheetah females do not usually enter oestrus unless their current cubs have dispersed, are very close to dispersal age, or if all of their cubs die. But during the winter months we didn’t see or hear anything about Lizzie. We grew fearful that something had happened to her and her cub. Thankfully, they reappeared in September while hunting springbok in the riverbed. But we noticed something odd: Lizzie had suckling marks.
On 30 October 2021 our suspicions were confirmed when Lizzie finally showed her new litter of four cubs to the world. Cheetah females keep their litters hidden in a den for about eight weeks. Thereafter the mother will start to take them with her wherever she goes. Most cubs are fully weaned within three weeks after emerging from their den and they are introduced to fresh meat as soon as the denning phase is over.
From the moment her new litter emerged we monitored this special family on a daily basis and recorded their behaviour in detail. Lizzie and her extended family started moving around in their usual home range, allowing us to spend months in their presence.
Lizzie surprised observers by birthing another litter of four cubs while her older cub was still present
Navigating new relationships
This situation – an adult female with a new litter of eight-week-old cubs, accompanied by an older cub (a 15-month-old brother in this case), had never been documented by anyone in the wild before. The cubs’ relationship with their older sibling seemed fragile for the first days after their emergence from the den and Lokesh often played too rough with the little ones. We noticed the subadult male seemed caught between two worlds. He tried to hunt with his mother, but also couldn’t resist playing with his younger siblings.
The unusual family – mother, subadult Lokesh and four young siblings – kept a tight bond
Their behaviour in the next few weeks was remarkable. The subadult male started to take on the role of “surrogate mom”, and the young cubs spent more time with him. He played with them, washed them and called for them when they lagged behind. This gave Lizzie the opportunity to focus on hunting efficiently for her large family. He would still accompany his mother during hunts – spoiling quite a few of them! But whenever the two were out hunting, Lokesh would focus on the young cubs if danger emerged. On multiple occasions, jackals threatened the young cubs while Lizzie and Lokesh were hunting. She would often make a call and the subadult male would abandon the hunt and return to his younger siblings. Lizzie often left Lokesh with his younger siblings, seemingly to “babysit” them. The first month flew by and it seemed these young cubs were safe with two older cheetahs looking after them.
While older brother Lokesh took on responsibilities such as helping to hunt or “babysitting” the cubs while their mother was out hunting, he still maintained a playful relationship with the cubs. In the third image, Lizzie shares a moment of tenderness with her cubs
Disaster strikes
The young cubs were growing fast and discovering more of their mother’s home range. But moving larger distances meant more chance of running into danger. A shortage of prey and an unusually high density of cheetahs in Lizzie’s home range in January 2022 meant she had to walk up to 20km a day to find food. All four cubs made it into the new year – though one of the four was significantly smaller than the others. The first disaster struck on the night of 7 January.
Lizzie is a skilled hunter. Where other cheetahs usually need to get within 50–100m of their prey before launching a pursuit, she can hunt from wide distances. On occasion, she has even taken the chance to start running at a distance of about 250m from her prey, and been successful. But her determination to succeed in the hunt landed her in trouble that night.
Lizzie missed a hunting opportunity that afternoon and so followed a group of springbok into the twilight. After we followed her tracks the next day, it became evident that she had walked over 7km on a moonless night in pursuit of prey. I struggled to locate the family at first. But we soon spotted Lizzie coming down from the dunes, followed by a very nervous Lokesh and only three small cubs. Going back on their tracks, we found that one small set of tracks had gone missing. One of the cubs had likely been separated from the family. From tracking and circumstantial evidence we determined black-backed jackals had killed the cub after it was lost, and we later found seven jackals eating the cub’s remains.
Lizzie and her family later returned to the area where the tracks had indicated the cub had gone missing. They called for the cub incessantly for the next two days, staying in the area for some time – unusual for Lizzie. The entire family, including the subadult male, were calling for long periods of time during the days after the loss.
After that, prey became even more scarce and Lizzie would walk many kilometres a day to find the odd springbok in the riverbed. She went into the dunes to hunt steenbok on occasion but often returned unsuccessful.
On 18 January Lizzie and her family walked 10km to a waterhole to drink. Unaware of three lions sleeping nearby, Lizzie and her family walked dangerously close to them through the riverbed. A sudden thunderstorm created a dust devil of sand and visibility decreased. A lightning strike woke the lions, who then noticed the cheetah and cubs. The sandstorm created cover for the lioness and she charged the unsuspecting cheetahs. She killed one cub. Both Lizzie and Lokesh sprinted back to distract the other lions from killing more youngsters. Cheetahs are no match for any lion and the two males charged at the adult cheetahs. Lizzie and Lokesh made a narrow escape. One cub was left disoriented, calling for its mother and siblings from the riverbed. Lokesh came back from the dunes and managed to draw the cub away from danger.
In contrast to their actions when losing the first cub, the cheetah family did not remain in the area or call for the cub. They had seen the lions kill the cub and there was no doubt as to its fate.
When the cubs were a few months old, one cub was separated from the family, and observers later saw jackals eating its remains; a few weeks later the family (pictured here just before the incident) were surprised by lions; in the confusion of a sandstorm, the lioness managed to catch and kill one of the cubs
Greener pastures
After this the family’s fortune changed for the better. The two remaining cubs continued to grow, play and explore the home range. Lokesh’s bond with them stayed strong. He became a better hunter. By the end of May 2022, the family were still together. He would still play with his smaller siblings, but his behaviour towards the now older cubs became more sexual. The cubs responded with more defensive behaviour, less playful than before. The subadult male had remained with his mother for a total of 23 months.
The two young cubs are now big enough to outrun threats and are growing quickly. The Cheetahs of the Kalahari Project will keep monitoring these and other cheetahs within the southern Kalahari and hope to contribute to cheetah conservation in the wild with the knowledge we gain. One thing we know for sure is that cheetahs will never cease to amaze us!
Why is this case so special?
We at the Cheetahs of the Kalahari Project have a few years of experience working with or studying large carnivores in the wild, and we had never heard of a case in which a wild female cared simultaneously for her overlapping litters of different age groups. After consulting friends and colleagues we discovered how truly special this case was. Gus and Margie Mills who conducted the first extensive cheetah study in the southern Kalahari between 2006 and 2012, Vincent van der Merwe from the Endangered Wildlife Trust and Femke Broekhuis from the Serengeti Cheetah Project all have many years of field experience with wild cheetahs, and none of them had ever heard of a case like this. This (to our knowledge) is the first and most extensively studied case of a female cheetah with overlapping litters in natural history.
Citizen scientists contribute important data to the Cheetahs of the Kalahari Project. If you have been to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in the last ten years and have photographed cheetah there, share your pics and info with the Cheetahs of the Kalahari Project (cheetahsofkgalagadi@gmail.com). Include the location, date and any important additional info. Read more about the project here.
Chanan Weiss and his family connect with a mountain gorilla on Karisimbi Mountain, in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda.
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Trophy hunting lions + Madagascar + Mara Champagne safari
The butterfly effect is a simplistic explanation of how a tiny movement – like a butterfly flapping its wings – can later result in a far greater effect elsewhere – like a tornado. Your African safari is a bit like that. And the more remote and off-the-beaten-track your destination is, the larger the local effect. Your holiday creates employment and sustainable livelihoods, which promotes pride, long-term thinking and substantial conservation benefits. Convince a friend to join you or follow in your footsteps and your butterfly effect will amplify. This is no bunny-hugger wishy-washy namby-pamby fairytale – it’s proven fact. And I have seen it with my own eyes – many times. Be a butterfly for Africa – create a whirlwind of safari goodness. My team are standing by for your safari enquiry.
This is a good time to remind you about the Africa Geographic manifesto – what drives teamAG and makes us do what we do
Keep the passion
Simon Espley – CEO, Africa Geographic
From our Editor – Taryn van Jaarsveld
Lion numbers have decreased by 43% throughout Africa in the past 25 years, and their range has declined by more than 90%. Trophy hunting cannot be tagged as the primary culprit for declining lion numbers, but there is little evidence to prove the wildlife conservation benefits that many supporters claim.
This week we share one of the most comprehensive overviews of the relationship between lion trophy hunting, community development and lion conservation. In our second story below, Dr. Hans Bauer, an Oxford University research fellow who has been working in the African conservation space for the past 25 years, examines how trophy hunting has delivered (or, as his findings reflect, failed to deliver) for wildlife on the continent, and highlights how local communities benefit very little from this industry. This is an important article that highlights challenges to conservation in Africa, and questions trophy hunting’s true value in habitat and wildlife preservation.
On a brighter note, we shine a light on one of the richest biodiversity hotspots in Africa, featuring tropical rainforests, azure lagoons, and white beaches. Northern Madagascar offers a wide array of weird and wonderful fauna, flora and scenery. Not to mention the opportunity to see fossas and lemurs up close! The extensive guide below is the last in our four-part Madagascar series, offering in-depth insight into travelling this magical land.
Happy travelling Africa to you all!
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
In a tiny pocket of forest in northwest Madagascar lives a very unusual lemur. It is critically endangered, and there are believed to be fewer than 1,000 individuals remaining. They look almost identical to the closely-related black lemur (Eulemur macaco) but for one striking difference…
Did you know that the blue-eyed black lemur (Eulemur flavifrons) is one of the only primate species apart from humans to have consistently blue eyes? As far as scientists can tell, there is no shared genetic basis between the blue eyes of humans and those of lemurs. Instead, it is an example of the convergent evolution of a rare phenotype on the distant branches of the primate family tree.
Just a fun fact to keep in mind while reading our first story below!
App subscriber Chanan Weiss and family travelled to Rwanda, DRC and Tanzania’s Mafia Island with AG in June. Visiting Nyungwe Forest – one of Africa’s oldest rainforests – Chanan had the joy of coming across a troop of Angola colobus monkeys. Chanan captured this intimate moment between a colobus and its baby. The Weiss family also experienced straw-coloured fruit bats on Lake Kivu’s Napolean Island, Grauer’s gorilla in Kahuzi-Biéga National Park, and mountain gorillas in Volcanoes National Park.
“This was a long-anticipated adventure that was better than we could have imagined,” says Chanan.
Book with AG and you too can head out on an African adventure, and spend a few days on the mountainous edge of the Nyungwe Forest at dreamy forest retreat Nyungwe House.
WATCH: Why Africa needs community-led conservation: In this TED Talk, conservationist Resson Kantai Duff calls for a major shift in how conservation in Africa works, showing why the people closest to the land are the ones best fit to care for it (13:32). Click here to watch
This time, we adventure to northern Madagascar, in our four-part series on this wondrous island. See the resources section at the end of this story for the other three stories in the series.
For the last 88 million years, life on Madagascar has been on its own, creating an island of evolutionary oddities and myriad diverse travel experiences. Sometimes referred to as a “Noah’s Ark” or the “eighth continent” due to its geographic isolation and high levels of endemism, Madagascar is, simply put, enormous. It is approximately 587,000km2 (around two and a half times the size of the United Kingdom). A combination of ocean currents and dramatic topography has created a tapestry of different climates and habitats perfectly suited to the island’s peculiar inhabitants (or the other way round).
The island is home to over 300 recorded birds (60% of which are endemic) and 260 species of reptile – including two-thirds of the world’s chameleon species. There are over 110 species of lemurs spread throughout Madagascar’s protected areas, in a variety of shapes and sizes, but all possessing a shared, wide-eyed charisma. Six of the world’s eight baobab species occur only in Madagascar. All in all, the natural history is unique, shaped by the fascinating and beautiful, isolated island habitats.
In an ideal world, a trip to Madagascar would last weeks, giving the curious traveller every opportunity to explore the magnificent island. Realistically, however, time is usually limited and deciding where to invest one’s attention is guaranteed to create a significant traveller’s quandary. This four-part series is intended to help guide this decision.
Northern Madagascar
The island’s northernmost tip – the “tropical north” – is one of its richest biodiversity hotspots, with lush tropical rainforests and mangroves extending to azure lagoons and white, palm-fringed beaches. Here, visitors will find the perfect chance to explore some of Madagascar’s wacky fauna, flora, and scenery in the national parks, before stretching out on the sand to admire the Indian Ocean, cocktail in hand.
The Diana Region of northern Madagascar is home to about 20 protected areas, ranging from national parks to “New Protected Areas” and strict nature reserves. These are scattered among picturesque cacao, coffee, and ylang-ylang plantations, while the coastline and the archipelago offer a tropical paradise. From geographical wonders to endemic wildlife, northern Madagascar offers the best opportunity to experience the best of the Malagasy world, with the added advantage of being off the main tourist route (with perhaps the exception of Nosy Be).
Marojejy National Park
Amber Mountain National Park
Named for the copal deposits of amber resin from the forest’s trees, Amber Mountain National Park is Madagascar’s oldest national park. It is a small (182 km2) reserve that packs a significant punch in terms of biodiversity. This unique montane rainforest pocket is known for its spectacular waterfalls, green-lit forest paths and crater lakes – a verdant mountain surrounded by arid lands. The tropical oasis formed on an isolated volcanic massif that receives more than three times the annual rainfall of the low-altitude regions. The forests are decorated by liana-draped trees and orchids, while the floor is carpeted with ferns and lined with thick moss.
Like many of Madagascar’s protected areas, Amber Mountain is home to a treasure trove of unusual wildlife, including a multitude of mammals and an abundance of quirky reptiles. Naturally, the eight lemur species (including the newly discovered and endemic Montagne d’Ambre dwarf lemur) are the park’s flagship attraction, but the forest is also home to a number of Madagascar’s captivating predators. Visitors should keep an eye out for the russet ring-tailed vontsira (ring-tailed mongoose) and the genet-like Malagasy civet. For those with sharp eyes, chameleons such as the endemic Amber Mountain dwarf chameleon are hidden in plain sight on every surface, from the leaves and bark to the litter on the forest floor. Imagine the thrill of finding your own Brookesia (dwarf chameleon) in Amber Mountain’s leaf litter-strewn paths.
Like most tropical African forests, Amber Mountain offers exciting birdlife: the endemic Amber Mountain rock thrush, the white-throated rail, the Madagascar blue pigeon and even the odd sighting of the endangered Madagascar fish eagle.
Clockwise from top left: Spearpoint leaf-tailed gecko; Madagascar fish eagle; Madagascar day gecko; grey-headed love birds
Ankarana Special Reserve
and the “grey tsingy”
The Malagasy word “tsingy” is a perfect fit for the landscape of Ankarana Special Reserve, situated around 100km south of Diego Suarez. It translates roughly as “a land where you cannot walk barefoot” (or “to walk on tiptoes”). This, of course, could be applied to a significant portion of Madagascar, much of Africa and all public locker rooms, but is particularly well suited to the jagged forest of limestone rocks that create one of the most bizarre landscapes imaginable. Prehistoric (literally – the rocks were formed some 150-million years ago) razor-sharp rocks have kept human advancement at bay, and wildlife has flourished as a result. (A much vaster example of this geology is Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park in western Madagascar.)
The rock pinnacles in Ankarana rise from the plateau, and a network of well-maintained trails and rope bridges links vantage points, making exploration of the park strenuous but rewarding. Below, hidden within the rock crevices and canyons, are dense sections of dry forest home to one of the highest densities of primates anywhere in the world. Ankarana is a population stronghold of the endangered crowned lemur and Sanford’s brown lemur, both found only in northern Madagascar. It is also one of the few protected areas where sightings of Madagascar’s largest mammal predator – the fossa – are relatively common.
Clockwise from top left: Golden-brown mouse lemur; Sanford’s brown lemur; crowned lemur; ring-tailed mongoose
The geography is as fascinating below ground as it is above it. The foundations of the Ankarana Reserve are riddled with caves and tunnels – remnants of a time when the area was an underwater coral reef. The reserve is steeped in the history of the Antankarana people, who once sought refuge in these caves, undeterred by the presence of the enormous Madagascan free-tailed bats. Some caves remain sacred and are off-limits to visitors because of local beliefs and taboos. Even more bizarrely, some of these watery channels can only be explored at certain times of the year (November to April) because they are otherwise inhabited by Nile crocodiles! Though the chances of encountering a crocodile are slim, the fact that these creatures have adapted to life in the gloom of a cave for most of the year is astonishing. Though considerably smaller than the crocodiles, massive Oustalet’s, panther chameleons and superbly camouflaged leaf-tailed geckos abound in Ankarana.
Red Tsingy
Between Ankarana and the main city of Antsiranana (formerly Diego-Suarez), a much smaller tsingy-like region exists, known as the “Tsingy Rouge”. Here, the scarlet sands have eroded to make crimson spires of dried silt. Unlike the uncompromising solidity of the grey tsingy, the Red Tsingy is fragile, and visitors are now prohibited from standing on or among the stalagmites.
The Nosy Be Archipelago
After the rigours of enthralling but rough-and-ready exploration, the final stop in any tour of northern Madagascar must be a visit to one of the region’s pristine coastlines, where you can laze on the beach and maybe be lucky enough to revel in the sight of a white-tailed tropicbird gliding over the coastline. Visitors can choose to stop off at the region’s capital, Antsiranana, for a more affordable beach holiday, or retreat to the seclusion of one of the offshore islands.
Nosy Be, which translates to “big island,” is one of Madagascar’s most popular tourist destinations. Here, the luscious scents of cinnamon, vanilla, frangipani, and ylang-ylang plantations infuse the air, creating an olfactory extravaganza – hence the nickname “perfume island”. Nosy Be is a tropical paradise for beach lovers, with warm, clear waters, coral reefs, and water sports such as kiteboarding and scuba diving. The thrill of sighting a whale shark off the beaches is also a highlight. Away from the white sands, the Lokobe Strict Reserve is one of the best places in Madagascar to see the endangered, gremlin-like black lemurs.
Nosy Be is also the gateway to several smaller, often uninhabited islands. You might share a reef off Nosy Tanikly with a pod of dolphins, and enjoy a beach picnic on the isthmus of Nosy Iranja. Kayaking in the silent dawn around Nosy Sakatia might thrill you with the sound of a leatherback turtle breaking the surface to breathe. While a sunset from Tsara Komba, sun-kissed, salty-lipped and holding a Kumquat Rhum Arrangement cocktail in hand is the perfect way to celebrate a day well spent.
Stunning beaches, oceans and hospitality of northern Madagascar
The ins and outs of exploring Madagascar
Madagascar’s tropical climate is generally enjoyable year-round, though the wet season runs from November to March and is usually accompanied by minimal winds. February carries the highest risk of fierce tropical cyclones. The cooler, dry season from April to October alleviates the worst of the oppressive heat, particularly when hiking on the islands or through the Ankarana Special Reserve. The winds pick up at the beaches, making it the ideal time for kite surfing enthusiasts, but less pleasant for those who do not appreciate being stung by grains of sand.
There are plenty of budget-friendly and camping options in or near all the destinations mentioned above. It is advisable to travel in Madagascar with a reputable company, but it is also possible to hire a car to drive between attractions. However, the roads are poor, particularly during the wet season, and a 4×4 is essential. That said, road travel is fascinating and often accompanied by the glorious scent of roadside-roasted cashews.
Coquerel’s sifaka, native to northwest Madagascar
Final thoughts
Northern Madagascar is a fantastical land – a natural evolutionary playground and a human kaleidoscope of cultural influences. Remarkable, offbeat, and enticing, this magical island offers an intoxicating combination of unique wildlife viewing and magnificent scenery. There is far more to Madagascar than our four-part series could ever hope to convey, but there is no question that it offers something to everyone. Our travel consultants are always on standby to help you plan the Madagascan holiday of your dreams.
Want to go on safari to Northern Madagascar? To find lodges, search for our ready-made packages or get in touch with our travel team to arrange your safari, scroll down to after this story.
Ken Behrens is a birder, naturalist, consultant, guide, and photographer who is based in Madagascar. He is the co-author of several books, including Wildlife of Madagascar. His work can be seen at ken-behrens.com
By Hans Bauer, Research fellow: Northern Lion Conservation, University of Oxford. Originally published by The Conversation
Trophy hunting will not save Africa’s lions – so the UK ban on imports is a positive step for wildlife conservation. Over the past 25 years, I have spent a lot of time counting lions as part of my job. Only last month, I spent three hours with two males – possibly brothers – right next to my car in Maze National Park, Ethiopia. Lions come in the night, very quietly. Despite weighing well over 150kg, you do not hear their footsteps. What you hear is their breathing, the turbo of the killing machine.
Had I turned on a light immediately, they would have run away. These lions are skittish, even if they face no threat from trophy hunters in Africa’s national parks. So we spend half an hour in the pitch dark before I finally switch on a small red light to count the eye reflections. Another pause, then a bigger red light enables us to see their sex and age.
We get lucky: with the big spotlight they move to a discrete distance, but we still get to watch them for an hour before retiring to our tents a few hundred metres away. The lions have long lost interest in us but the ranger makes a campfire which smoulders all night, just to be safe. This park has no outposts, no visitors and no emergency services, so we need to stay out of trouble.
Maybe you have counted lions in a zoo or wildlife park: “I see three – no wait, there’s a tip of another tail and a flickering ear, so four, or five?” People on safari in popular destinations where lions are habituated to cars may have had the same experience. In the wilderness, however, lions are hard to spot – across much of their range you don’t see them very often at all, especially during the day.
I have spent countless nights sitting on top of my vehicle, playing buffalo or warthog cries with a megaphone, trying to catch a glimpse of lions attracted by these sounds. I have walked for days to find footprints or put up automated camera traps. For every day of fieldwork there is a day of grant writing before and a day of reporting afterwards – but yes, it is a wonderful job.
I once found lions in a part of Ethiopia where they had not been documented and added a blob on the distribution map. Unfortunately, over the last 25 years, it has been much more common to reduce or delete entries from our African Lion Database.
My research shows that during this time, lion numbers have decreased by 43% throughout Africa, and that their range has declined by more than 90%. There are now roughly 25,000 lions in 60 separate population groups, half of which consist of less than 100 lions. Their existence is particularly threatened across West, Central and East Africa.
Lion range throughout Africa has declined by more than 90%
I first went to Cameroon in 1992 to do my Master’s project in Waza National Park, and have worked in various parts of Africa ever since (I currently live in Mali). My main research focus with WildCRU – Europe’s first university-based conservation research unit – is the mitigation of human-lion conflicts. I study the difficult balance between people’s livelihoods and the conservation of biodiversity, working close-up at village level but also at national and international perspectives.
This led to me being asked to give evidence to the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Banning Trophy Hunting, which on 29 June 2022 presented its report on the impacts of trophy hunting to the environment secretary, George Eustice. This follows the UK government’s announcement in December 2021 that it would ban the importing of body parts of 7,000 species* including lions, rhinos, elephants and polar bears. On average, roughly ten lion “trophies” are imported into the UK each year, among many other threatened species.
There are many ways to look at this issue, and the debate usually ends up in a deadlock between utilitarians and moralists. I won’t hide my sympathy for the latter – I work with organisations such as the Born Free Foundation. But after a week in the field living on pasta and tinned tomato sauce, I will eat bushmeat in a village with no alternatives if it has been harvested legally and sustainably.
The future of trophy hunting in Africa was not on the table during the APPG’s discussions about a UK import ban – and if it was, it would be for African scientists to advise their governments of the pros and cons. In my view, however, the evidence is clear that trophy hunting has not delivered for wildlife in most parts of Africa, and that local communities benefit next to nothing from its continued practice.
How trophy hunting works
Trophy hunting is a controversial topic in conservation circles. In some cases, the fact that lions are doing better in parts of southern Africa has – wrongly, in my view – been attributed to it. But in itself, trophy hunting is not the lions’ biggest threat either; my research shows that more are killed when they attack livestock, or perish when their habitat and prey is diminished by agricultural encroachment or poaching.
In Africa, trophy hunting’s popularity grew during colonial times when all sorts of slain animals were sent back to Europe. Nowadays, antelopes are this industry’s most hunted animals – but the most prestigious targets remain the “big five”: lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo.
Hunting clients may pay up to £100,000 to hunt a lion
A client might pay a local entrepreneur or hunting guide anywhere between £10,000 and £100,000 for a “bag” that includes a lion – and the super-rich may pay (or donate) even more. It’s a lot of money for a holiday, and trophy hunting mostly attracts rich, white, middle-aged men from western countries.
Hunting guides are businessmen (almost all are male). They generally lease government land that has been designated for conservation through “sustainable use”. Known as trophy hunting “blocks”, these areas vary widely (anywhere between 500km² and 5,000km²) and each has annual quotas for the amounts of different species that may be shot by trophy hunters.
In theory, this restricts the killings to a level the population can sustain. Hunting guides then manage their blocks to maintain these wildlife numbers, including organising anti-poaching patrols. The guides employ staff, pay the land lease, trophy fees and a bunch of other costs – including to a taxidermist and export company to deliver the skin and skull to their client after the kill. It is a big industry that claims to be good for both wildlife and local people, but these guides are not charity workers; they maximise their benefits and minimise their costs.
Trophy hunting also does not focus (as is sometimes suggested) on killing off the older, weaker animals in any block. Wildlife populations grow fastest when their densities are low, so that food and aggression are not limiting factors. In order to minimise any such competition – and to offer the biggest trophies – trophy hunts will target healthy animals, not just the old and infirm.
Lions, lion hunting and livestock
The methodology used for setting trophy hunting quotas varies from country to country. Cameroon, for example, has traditionally had very high quotas for lions, but these were not based on scientific rigour. In 2015 we published our first survey results based on observations done by three teams tracking lions over a vast range.
Each team drove for thousands of kilometres across Cameroon, very slowly, always with two trackers stationed on the bonnet of each 4×4 looking for footprints. We got stuck, camped, waited for trophy hunters to depart before being allowed into a particular area, struggled to get diesel, tolerated the heat and the tsetse flies – it was all part of our daily routine following the lions.
Ultimately, we counted 250 lions, 316 leopards and 1,376 spotted hyenas. Cameroon does not offer a trophy hunting quota for leopards, and hyenas are not popular with hunters – but as a result of our count, the country’s annual lion quota was reduced from 30 to ten. Today this quota is still applied throughout northern Cameroon’s Bénoué ecosystem, which has 32 trophy hunting blocks in between its three national parks.
Of these 32 blocks, however, more than ten no longer have any resident lions. And when the blocks lose their lions, this also threatens those living in the national parks – as there is a big difference between having 250 lions spread across 30,000km² of contiguous habitat, or three isolated populations of 50 in parks of 3,000km² each.
When I visited Cameroon again in 2021, I observed cattle everywhere – which is not a good combination with lions. Many of these herds had come from neighbouring countries – pastoralists running from the threat of terrorists in Mali and Niger. As a result, the pressure on these areas, and those who manage them, is intense. It is hard enough to integrate local communities in conservation work, much harder with nomadic people.
Whenever livestock grazes in an area with lions, you inevitably get some depredation. Lions will kill some livestock and, in retaliation, people will kill some lions. This is perhaps the biggest challenge in lion conservation, and all the programmes I know are working to mitigate it. There are tools available to reduce the damage, from flashlights and watchdogs to mobile enclosures and more. But this only works if you know the people living there and can collaborate towards a common goal – not if you have different people passing through every time.
In fact, the pastoralists I have met are usually quite tolerant – they like lions. A herder in Cameroon once told me: “If a lion attacks one cow this year, I will know that God has not forgotten me.” Another in Ethiopia said: “We do not think lions take our livestock to hurt us. As a result, we do not refer to it as an ‘attack’ or ‘killing’ – they are taking what they need.”
Nonetheless, some people – pastoralists and others – inevitably pay a high price for co-existing with lions, and they would prefer them in someone else’s backyard.
I have collared lions in several countries. I know the thrill of a hunt, but a dart gun does not kill – and the information you get from a lion’s collar is amazing. In Waza National Park, I followed lions this way and some behaved very well – but the worst offender killed a hundred-thousand dollars’ worth of cattle in our time there. The park’s warden asked me: “How long do you think the local people will pay this price for lion conservation?”
Almost all lion trophy hunting zones in Africa are part of larger ecosystems that include national parks, and in most cases the hunt quotas are based on the entire population of lions, including those living in the parks. An argument used by trophy hunters is that they are protecting extra land with extra lions – but it’s not that simple.
Declines in lion populations have been observed in some countries in East, Central and West Africa where lion hunting is legal
While trophy hunting blocks do add lions and extra habitat, they can still become a drain on the overall population when lions move out of the parks into emptied territories within the blocks. These so-called “source-sink dynamics” became a global news story in July 2015 because of Cecil, the black-maned lion that my WildCRU colleagues were satellite-tracking when he was killed by an American trophy hunter.
Cecil had been lured from Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe and was shot by Walter Palmer, a dentist from the Minneapolis area. It was actually quite a routine occurrence, but the death of Cecil the Lion created a worldwide media storm – feeding into the UK’s proposal for a ban on trophy hunt imports.
The lion hunting model starts to unravel
Throughout most of Africa, lion numbers are declining. While trophy hunting is far from the only reason for this, the evidence clearly shows it has failed in its promise to provide a significant boost to wildlife conservation. I once thought it might offer benefits too, but studying its impacts and costs has taught me otherwise.
Trophy hunting is allowed in countries throughout East, Central and West Africa including Burkina Faso, Benin, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Sudan and the Congo – and in all these countries, lion declines have been particularly steep. The Central African Republic is the most extreme example: almost half the country was designated as hunting blocks, yet wildlife there has all but disappeared. In 2012, the late researcher and conservationist Philippe Bouchépublished Game Over! – the title said it all.
Trophy hunting has proved increasingly vulnerable to, on one hand, rising management costs due to the increased threats of agricultural encroachment and poaching (of both lions and their prey), and on the other, reduced income from smaller wildlife populations.
Two rules-of-thumb are widely used: a sustainable annual “harvest” is one lion per 2,000km², and the annual management of a trophy hunt block costs around US$1,000 per km². Together, they suggest it costs around two million dollars to “produce a lion”. These numbers vary hugely between areas and, of course, trophy hunters shoot other species at the same time, but exceptional conditions are needed for the hunt companies to break even. At the same time, local communities living with wildlife are, understandably, demanding their fair share. The model starts to unravel and fall apart.
In Zambia and Tanzania, for example, 40% and 72% respectively of trophy hunting areas have been abandoned. Management costs are rising and private operators do not find it profitable anymore, except in a handful of the best areas. This is not due to any outright ban but rather, the inability to balance costs and benefits.
Across Africa, in the vast majority of cases, trophy hunting has not delivered more lions – whether because of financial imbalances, increased terrorism, land mismanagement or increased livestock mobility (or a combination of these factors). This failure to deliver undermines the already contested justification for the continued killing of lions by trophy hunters. And as the decline continues, many communities stand to lose a wildlife heritage that could, under a different approach to conservation, provide them with employment and stability.
Success stories?
Namibia and Botswana in southern Africa are often cited as models for conservation, which implies their experience could be replicated elsewhere. Trophy hunting has been presented as a success factor in these countries. But in reality, how instructive are the experiences of two large countries with a combined population of less than 5 million people for the other billion-plus Africans living in more densely populated areas?
Certainly, these two countries have a lot of wildlife – but is this due to the effects of trophy hunting, or to very low human population densities, diversified tourism industries and well-resourced wildlife institutions? In Botswana, trophy hunting was banned from 2014 to 2020, but despite abundant polemicising from both pro- and anti-hunting advocacy groups, I’m not aware of any evidence of a significant impact on its national lion and elephant numbers. In short, Botswana’s conservation efforts will succeed with or without trophy hunting.
While southern Africa has, in general, been quite successful in keeping its wildlife species stable, this is also not always through natural processes. There has been a lot of habitat engineering and captive breeding, so that many of the animals you find in confined nature reserves are, in fact, bred and auctioned.
In South Africa, for example, around 8,000 lions live in captivity for the benefit of a small number of rich owners, having been bred like livestock. This model does nothing to improve habitat or biodiversity levels, nor does it support rural socio-economic development. The country’s overall trophy hunting quota is around five wild lions and 500 captive lions each year, and while the US banned trophy imports from South Africa in 2016, most imported lion trophies into the UK have been killed there.
An estimated 8,000 lions are kept in captivity in South Africa
Another issue for Africa as a whole is that biologists have flocked to southern Africa’s conservation hotspots such as the Okavango Delta in Botswana and Kruger National Park in South Africa, which possess good infrastructure and lots of wildlife. As a result, there is an over-representation of people who have worked there among Africa’s community of conservation science, advocacy and practice. Many may never have worked outside southern Africa, and may not be aware of what is happening in the rest of the continent.
I’m not denying that some countries have been successful in their conservation efforts, and that trophy hunting has, in isolated cases, been part of that success. But the “if it pays, it stays” approach which seems to underpin many arguments in favour of trophy hunting has much more often led to the loss of natural ecosystems. This decay affects the vast majority of lion ranges, and an even greater majority of African citizens.
The banning of trophy hunt imports in the UK and elsewhere can, I believe, help to reduce or even reverse this decline. The UK ban is supported by a large majority of British voters. France, the Netherlands and Australia have already banned lion trophy imports, and the EU and US have restricted their imports. Since most clients want their trophy, that means significantly fewer potential clients overall, indirectly affecting Africa’s policy options.
The way forward
Throughout the continent, most policymakers stick to the prevailing narrative that trophy hunting supports conservation. In this way, a small white elite continues to have exclusive access to conservation areas that are off-limits for the average citizen to visit, or for public agencies to invest in. Trophy hunting is getting in the way of much-needed innovation and investment.
I agree with trophy hunters that the land they use is important habitat for lions and their prey. No one wants these areas to spiral down. However, the current situation feels like that famous frog in boiling water story – countries in Africa are afraid to jump out until they no longer can.
The largest and most important conservation area in West Africa is the 25,000km² W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) region, on the boundary between Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. With around 400 lions, it is the only three-digit lion population in West Africa, and it also possesses the largest West African populations of elephant and buffalo.
Half of WAP’s land is managed for trophy hunting. Yet over 20 years, these blocks have contributed less than 1% of the region’s total conservation budget. Much of the area is now increasingly threatened by terrorist incursions and large parts have been abandoned, including the hunting blocks.
In Benin, however, the situation is changing. Lion trophy hunting has been ditched and a trust fund established that promises to fund the country’s conservation activities in perpetuity. While mainly funded by Benin and German government agencies, the fund has an independent international structure and several other donors have contributed. The park’s management, now delegated to a non-profit organisation, is striving to improve local livelihoods by generating employment and offering support for community initiatives that do not harm the local wildlife.
Of course, we should not expect wildlife to fix poverty and instability where 50 years of development work have been unsuccessful. But I visit Benin every year and where I used to find a dozen friendly but unorganised staff, I now see hundreds of local people trained, employed and proud. In the past, some children might have gone to school reluctant to learn things they would not need as subsistence farmers. After visiting the park, however, I see signs that they want to learn skills and compete for career options their parents did not have.
Another glimpse of a better future can be seen in Akagera National Park, Rwanda, which was completely depleted in the 1980s and 1990s. Rwanda is the only country in Africa with a population density higher than India’s. It is a country facing a huge number of challenges, yet Akagera is a conservation success story. Following an initial investment in the area’s recovery, it is now breaking even through ecotourism with primarily Rwandan visitors. While this cannot be expected to work everywhere, it has worked in this most unlikely of places.
The true cost of saving African lions, and their prey and habitats, is estimated to be around US$ 1 billion per year. With such funding, Africa could quadruple its lion numbers up to 100,000 without creating any new protected areas. At the moment, lions exist at only about a quarter of their ranges’ full capacities. Funding and community engagement are both critical to increasing this figure.
Ultimately, international solidarity is a much more substantial, and sustainable, source of funding than trophy hunting. Our approach to the extinction crisis should be similar to the one for climate: biodiversity justice as well as climate justice. The 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow discussed the proposed annual fund of US$100 billion to help less wealthy nations adapt to climate change and mitigate further rises in temperature. A similar fund for supporting global biodiversity will be proposed at the COP15 summit in Montreal in December 2023. A billion dollars for Africa’s lions and other wildlife may sound unrealistic, but in the arena of international policy, it should not really be a problem.
African nations are sovereign, and hold the key to the future of the lion. Some may be keen to retain trophy hunting – but they know that demand is shrinking as UK politicians are the latest to respond to the concerns of their constituents.
Above all, the trophy hunting debate is divisive, draining energy from conservationists in Africa and around the world who agree on most other issues. Now is surely the time to focus our efforts on far better alternatives for the conservation of lions and other endangered species.
Lions currently exist at only about a quarter of their ranges’ full capacities
Remember those two lions in Maze National Park? They are part of a small population which has the park as its core area, but which roam the entire landscape in that part of southern Ethiopia. Sometimes a few lions make it across to the next park for some welcome genetic exchange. Maze’s head warden has lots of rangers to assist in monitoring them, but only one motorbike. There is no hotel for hours around, no fuel station, no media. He does not need trophy hunters, he needs a car.
* Ed’s note: While this figure has been retrieved from the official announcement by the UK government, the validity of the number “7,000” has been brought into question by researchers, who claim only 73 different species have been imported into Britain in the past 40 years.
Resources
Lion hunting sustainability in Africa has been extensively investigated by pragmatic experts desperate to conserve our remaining wild lions – read more here.
Dr Craig Packer, known for his research on lions in Tanzania, has been calling on the lion hunting industry and government departments to adopt a transparent, scientifically-based strategy to ensure the sustainability of lion populations. Read our interview with Dr Packer here.
There is much debate about the impact of Kruger’s increasing elephant population on trees – especially knobthorn and marula. Often the discussions degenerate to hardliners calling for elephants to be culled in large numbers to protect trees.
Did you know that impalas destroy countless tree saplings? And that there is a growing body of evidence relating to a complex relationship between elephants, fire and climate change regarding treefall rates and bush encroachment?
Decision-makers have realised that the provision of artificial dams and waterholes is a significant reason for the ‘elephant problem’. You see, elephants remain near these water sources during the dry months and denude the nearby trees – instead of roaming far and wide as they would usually do. The removal of these manmade water sources is ongoing in the Kruger National Park. However, this same strategy is not being pursued in the contiguous private game reserves (the Greater Kruger) – probably because the negative impact on the tourism experience would be significant. I have seen some dams in the private reserves being renovated and, in the process, made larger. Hmmmmm …
Keep the passion
Simon Espley – CEO, Africa Geographic
From our Editor – Taryn van Jaarsveld
Think of the quintessential African safari and your mind will surely conjure images of the baobab-dotted savannahs of Kenya. You’ll picture wildebeest herds spread across the Maasai Mara, and elephants trundling the plains below Mt Kilimanjaro. But there is a resilient protected area in the country that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. Meru National Park is a vital wilderness area in Kenya. As home to arguably one of the most famous lions in history – Elsa of Born Free fame – Meru captures the nostalgia of the true African safari. Check out our first story below for all the insights you need to visit this magnificent piece of the continent.
This week we’re also delving into a complex wildlife management issue. Pongola Game Reserve (PGR) in northern KwaZulu-Natal recently announced it would no longer be keeping elephants on its property. We have given PGR General Manager Malcolm Thomson the platform to explain the reserve’s decision. Faced with rapidly growing elephant populations and many restrictions on the management of these numbers, Malcolm explains it is no longer practical, viable or economically sustainable for PGR to host elephants. This is an important story in highlighting the management challenges elephants pose for landowners. Read about these challenges below.
Happy celebrating Africa to you all!
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
Did you know that in a secret valley in the Maasai Mara (the Mara Triangle, to be exact), there is a forsaken Volkswagen bus? It has been there for over thirty years, abandoned after a breakdown and reclaimed by nature to be used as a jackal den. Hidden within is a geocache (for those not in the know, geocaching is a global, GPS-based treasure hunt).
Have you ever seen the Mara Triangle VW? What are some of the best-kept historical secrets of Africa’s wild spaces? Download our app and share your comments below!
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Photo: Cape vultures feeding on bone fragments, photographed by KRC’s camera traps (left), and a Cape vulture pictured in flight (right).
WATCH: The warthogs and mongooses of Mweya, Uganda, have developed a very interesting symbiotic relationship. Watch to see a warthog take a trip to the mongoose spa (01:53). Click here to watch
With unearthly stands of gaunt doum palms, sprawling grasslands, twisting riverine forests, and swamps populated by abundant wildlife, Meru National Park is perhaps Kenya’s best-kept (or maybe forgotten) safari secret. Exploring this national park is less about ticking off a checklist or rushing to the next sighting, and more about marvelling at the scale of this unspoilt wilderness free from the crowds of the more popular Kenyan safari circuits.
There is no doubt that had Joy Adamson still been alive today to witness the miraculous recovery of Meru National Park, she would have been delighted. Today, the park has been restored to its former glory – a magnificent chunk of wilderness central to one of Kenya’s largest protected areas.
Meru National Park and the Meru Conservation Area
Meru National Park occupies 870km² (870,000 hectares) of central Kenya, some 300km from the capital city Nairobi and offering views of snow-capped Mount Kenya on the distant western horizon. The park forms a vital part of the much larger Meru Conservation Area, which centres around the Tana River system and protects nearly 5,000km² (five million hectares). It covers habitats that range from lush green vegetation on rich volcanic soils to semi-arid scrublands and open plains. In addition to the Meru National Park, the complex of protected areas includes Bisanadi, Rahole and Mwingi (formerly Kitui North) National Reserves and the massive Kora National Park. The result is one of Kenya’s most extensive protected spaces, second only to the Tsavo ecosystem in size.
Meru National Park
807km2 (87,000 hectares)
Kora National Park
1,787km2 (178,700 hectares)
Bisanadi National Reserve
606km2 (60,600 hectares)
Mwingi National Reserve
745 km2 (74,500 hectares)
Rahole National Reserve
870km2 (87,000 hectares)
The Tana River that marks Meru National Park’s southern boundary is Kenya’s longest river, flowing from the Aberdare Mountain Range and fed by springs from Mount Kenya, before winding a sinuous path to the Indian Ocean. The many permanent rivers that flow through Meru, including the major Rojerwero and Ura Rivers, are part of the Tana River basin and define the landscape of the park. These waterways are fed by springs on the Nyambeni Mountains and flow in parallel, creating the impression that the park is made up of a series of islands. Beneath a thick fringe of riverine forest, hippos and crocodiles lurk in the dark waters.
Many permanent rivers that flow through Meru form part of the Tana River basin
The wilderness that inspired Born Free
Like many of Africa’s protected areas, Meru’s story is one of triumphs and tragedies. The park gained international renown during the 1960s when the adventures of George and Joy Adamson and their hand-raised lioness Elsa made first literary and then cinematic history. The Adamsons raised Elsa from a cub, and Joy documented their experiences in a series of novels, the Born Free series. Elsa was eventually released into Meru National Park to live wild, and her final resting place is marked by a small gravesite on the park’s southern boundary. The park’s popularity skyrocketed when the eponymous film was produced, and visitors flocked to explore the famous setting.
Tragedy struck during the 1980s as poaching and unrest tore through much of Kenya. Both Joy and George were murdered in separate incidents, and the region’s wildlife was decimated. The park fell into disrepair, and the flood of tourists slowed to a trickle before drying up almost entirely. Hope came some 20 years later when concerted conservation work by the Kenyan Wildlife Service, the French Development Agency and the International Fund for Animal Welfare set in motion the painstaking process of returning the park to its former glory. The infrastructure was repaired with a substantial cash donation, and security and anti-poaching measures were put in place.
Meru’s vistas are characterised by lush green vegetation on rich volcanic soils, featuring semi-arid scrublands and open plains
For the birds, and the Big 5
Today, the park is one of the country’s best maintained, but, more importantly, the wildlife and ecosystem have bounced back. Relocations of various species bolstered remaining populations, and Big 5 sightings are increasingly common (though not guaranteed). Elephant numbers have grown from fewer than 210 at the height of the poaching to over 670 at present. The region is also considered a Lion Conservation Unit by the IUCN. Though the long grasses in some areas can make predator spotting challenging, lions, cheetahs, and leopards are all present in healthy numbers, and encounters are even more special because they are seldom shared with anyone else.
The park’s reintroduced rhinos – black and white – are restricted to a smaller, fenced sanctuary where they can be best protected. However, this does little to detract from the wildness of the experience – the 84km² (8,400 hectares) enclosure section is perfectly sized to ensure that eager tourists have to work for their sightings!
Iconic animals aside, the many varied habitats of Meru are made all the more unique by the disparate rainfall levels across the park. This ensures a spectacular variety of fauna and flora, from moist savanna to the more arid specialists. Large herds of buffalos, impalas and zebras trudge through the swamps and feed alongside the rivers, and the sharp whistles of alarmed Bohor reedbucks hint at their presence in the reeds. The stark geometric patterns of reticulated giraffes tower over the woodlands. Lesser kudus, gerenuks, common beisa oryx, Grévy’s zebras and Somali ostriches prefer the drier parts of the park, while the tiny Günther’s and Kirk’s dik-diks are ubiquitous throughout.
The same diversity of habitats supporting Meru’s assortment of mammal species makes the park exceptionally attractive to birding enthusiasts. Over 400 species have been recorded here, with everything from wetland birds to grass and woodland specials. Pel’s fishing owls lurk beneath the canopies of the dense river trees, and recent sightings of threatened Hinde’s babblers in the park had birders aflutter. Other birds of particular interest include African finfoots, red-necked falcons, three-banded coursers, Somali bee-eaters, golden palm weavers, Boran cisticolas and black-billed wood hoopoes.
Big 5 sightings are abundant; keep an eye out for regulars such as hyenas; the park is a birding haven featuring an abundance of species, including grey crowned cranes and white-throated bee-eaters; rhinos are protected in a safe sanctuary within the park (some photos courtesy Rudolf Hug)
Explore & Stay
Want to go on safari to Meru? To find lodges, search for our ready-made packages or get in touch with our travel team to arrange your safari, scroll down to after this story.
Though the safari experience in Meru matches, if not outstrips, that of many of Kenya’s more popular safari destinations, visitor numbers to the park have remained low. The result is an extraordinary sense of true wilderness that the Kenyan Wildlife Service describes as “brilliant on a magnificent scale”. From the vantage point of one of the many rocky outcrops, travellers can look out across the diverse scenery without another person in sight.
Experience true wilderness in Meru; for a luxury experience, many boutique lodges are perfectly positioned with views of scenic parts of the park; the Tana River is forced through a narrow rock valley at Adamson Falls; fly fishing and camping is offered just outside the national park
The park is easily accessible via the tar road from Nairobi or direct flight to an airstrip. There are several well-maintained public campsites for those looking to explore on a budget. The roads are generally in exceptional condition, and navigating the park is made simple by sign-posted junctions.
Though Meru is open throughout the year, the best wildlife viewing occurs during the long dry season from June until September. Like much of East Africa, the park experiences two rainy seasons: the long rains from March until May and the short rains in October and November. The long grasses during the rainy season can make it difficult to see animals, and elephants often move out of the park along ancient migratory paths to the north. Given its Equatorial position, daytime temperatures vary little throughout the year, and the days in Meru are usually hot and often dry.
Elsa’s Kopje offers panoramic views over the Meru plains
There are several other activities in and around the park for those with spare time (or for whom the excitement of daily game drives has palled). A trip to Adamson Falls, where the Tana River is forced through a narrow rock valley, is a popular attraction. Walking safaris offer the perfect opportunity to take in the scenery at a more sedate pace.
Further afield, outside the confines of the park, riverboat tours of the Tana River, fly camping, fishing and horse- and camelback safaris are all options for more intrepid tourists.
For those looking for a more luxurious experience, several tiny boutique lodges and camps in and around the park are perfectly positioned in some of the most scenic parts of Meru. The quiet and intimate arrangement makes Meru a perfect destination for families with children.
Several boutique lodges and camps in and around Meru offer scenic views, and comfortable accommodation from which to explore this wild safari destination
A land triumphantly reborn
It is common for travel articles on Meru (and many other parts of Africa) to describe the park as “unspoilt”. This is an understandably attractive representation – one which recreates the ‘blue chip’ documentary feeling of a vast wilderness untouched by human influence. But Meru is not untouched or unspoilt and to describe it as such is to understate the effort that has gone into undoing the damage of history.
Instead, Meru National Park is an extraordinary expanse of vital Kenyan wilderness, restored and resilient. And in the process, it has returned once again to a safe and immersive safari destination – a land reborn.
An elephant photographed in Pongola Game Reserve during a lengthy period of drought
EDITOR’S COMMENT: Pongola Game Reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal is home to an impressive array of wildlife, including four of the Big Five (excluding lion), hippopotamus and crocodile. The reserve (and in particular, one of its main landowners, the Karel Landman Trust) recently broke the news that it would no longer be keeping elephants on its property. In this opinion editorial, the general manager for Pongola Game Reserve, Malcolm Thomson, explains the management challenges that led the KLT to this decision. Africa Geographic has provided the reserve with the platform to lay these issues out on the table from the perspective of private landowners as a case study for how these practicalities play out on the ground. Views are the author’s own. One thing is clear: there are no easy answers when it comes to managing elephant populations in small reserves and finding humane and practical solutions to real problems.
Update 20 January 2023: There has been an increase in the number of human-wildlife conflict incidents on the eastern shores of Jozini Dam in recent months, with a reported 69 elephants roaming the dam’s shores after escaping Pongola Game Reserve East into Phongola Nature Reserve. According to the reports, at least 25 elephants have been killed in poaching incidents related to this conflict. In an incident on January 11th, tourists on a cruise boat on Jozini Dam were forced to take cover as poachers were firing shots nearby. Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife announced it will be engaging with the PGRE to translocate the elephants back onto the PGRE property or into a suitable protected area as early as March//April 2023. Ezemvelo said it had also engaged with the local community to discuss the recent incidents of human-wildlife conflict.
By Malcolm Thomson – General Manager: Pongola Game Reserve
The current situation regarding elephant management and maintenance of elephants on private property in South Africa has led to many private landowners who have elephants on their property having to rethink their positions on whether to keep them there. Many reserves are not dependent on the tourism value of these elephants. Current legislation, and the national norms and standards regarding their management, place so many restrictions on elephant management that, for many, it is no longer practical, viable or economically sustainable to host elephants.
Many years ago, when legislation in South Africa changed to allow private landowners to own the wildlife on their property, wildlife numbers increased substantially due to the establishment of many private game reserves and because wildlife had value. It became viable to maintain and manage wildlife on a sustainable-use basis (through both consumptive and non-consumptive utilisation). This benefited wildlife to such an extent that more land is conserved on private property in South Africa today than in state-owned reserves. Conservation can be defined as “the wise, sustainable utilisation of our natural resources”. Elephants are just one species of many that private landowners manage towards the goal of wise, sustainable utilisation.
The current restrictions on elephant management are set to reverse the above gains made in private wildlife management. Elephants will soon begin to disappear off private property as they no longer have any benefit to the private landowners, who are prevented from maintaining a viable and productive conservation business. If the current situation continues, one will probably only find elephants in state parks and a small number of private game reserves in the future.
Pongola’s position
Pongola Game Reserve has been in operation for nearly 50 years. The PGR’s (namely the Karel Landman Trust’s) revenue streams come from various sources. These include accommodation, ecotourism activities as well as consumptive utilisation (editor’s note: ‘consumptive wildlife utilisation’ in the wildlife industry refers to hunting, harvesting for the commercial sale of meat, local consumption, and the capturing and selling of live wildlife). We are dependent on our wildlife business to survive financially.
We can’t afford to subsidise species with utilisation restrictions, especially if they also destroy habitats that other species depend on. Elephants are major habitat changers and, if not managed in balance with the other species in a reserve, may degrade that habitat. This is happening in many of the habitats where elephants are present.
It is hard to argue that elephant populations in South Africa are in crisis, as many try to. Most elephant populations in South Africa substantially exceed the carrying capacities of the properties on which they occur. This is directly due to the legislative management restriction imposed by the government. The only crisis is that there are far too many elephants and nowhere for them to go.
Elephants at the water’s edge in Pongola Game Reserve
In our case, Pongola Game Reserve was sold the vision of creating a transfrontier park (across South Africa and Eswatini) by the state. This has never materialised. We introduced elephants in 1997 as part of the transfrontier park vision. At the time, there were no restrictions placed on elephant management and they were managed in the same way as we manage all our other species, which is as it should be. Restrictions were only placed on their management in 2008 when the government issued National Norms and Standards for the Management of Elephants in South Africa. This was when our problems began.
Income through sustainable utilisation
Before detailing our challenges, it needs to be made clear that we own the elephants by definition of the law, and they are our assets. We carry 100% of their management costs. The government does not contribute financially to their management. Despite this fact, the state dictates how we are permitted to manage them. Our business is sustainable-utilisation based, and this is how we successfully manage all our other species, yet we are restricted on the management of our elephant.
Pongola Game Reserve cannot continue to run a business with the current unrealistic restrictions on the sustainable use of certain species. The associated red tape results in loss of potential income for the private wildlife industry. Landowners will resort to commercial farming due to their wildlife business becoming unviable – undoing the excellent progress made on land under conservation and reversing the increases made in wildlife numbers in South Africa.
Desperate times
One practical example of how this plays out is right on our doorstep, where one landowner, whose property previously formed part of the Pongola Game Reserve, changed his land use back to agriculture. This was due to the impracticalities associated with the excessive elephant numbers on the reserve and the financial implications. Once habitat for black rhinos, elephants and other wildlife, that area is now cleared of vegetation and planted with sugarcane.
Another example demonstrates the unmoving stance taken by the state. Pongola experienced a devastating drought between 2014 and 2020, which resulted in the reserve needing to cull a large number of zebra, blue wildebeest and impala to enable other species to have a better chance of survival. We also applied for the culling of 86 elephants as the population was already way above the reserve’s carrying capacity of 30 elephants. Our pleas were ignored with no sympathy or understanding for our situation.
Pongola Game Reserve is unable to balance tourism income with the costs of keeping elephants
Restrictions on elephant management
Several conditions need to be met before managers can be permitted to implement any lethal management solutions for elephants. While our previous management plan included approval for the hunting of a certain number of elephant bulls, the management plan for the next 10 years is currently under review. Until the plan is approved, we cannot hunt any bulls.
Among the conditions that need to be met before lethal management is approved, our most significant challenges are:
Range manipulation – provide proof that management is unable to expand the land available to the elephant:
There is only so much one can do to achieve “land expansion”, so this option is mainly unrealistic and is a temporary solution. All this does is delay the inevitable need to decrease numbers, as the population will become too large for an expanded property.
Translocation – provide proof that management is unable to find alternative properties to which excess elephants can be moved (involving capture and relocation): The fact is that new properties to which elephants can be moved are scarce. For property owners with suitable habitats, many already have too many elephants themselves or don’t want to take elephants due to the current unrealistic management restrictions.
Contraception – implement contraception program on the females: Contraception has no practical population management benefits. All it does is create an ageing population over a period of time. We do not believe that contraception is an ethical solution. Furthermore, it is a costly exercise.
The above conditions need to be met before one can revert to lethal management through culling and hunting. It takes years to reach this point, and in the time being, the elephant population continues to grow unchecked, with all the negative ramifications to the surrounding environment that go along with it. Properties need to monetise the population somehow to spend money on the population sustainably. For us, the only positive income balance to come from elephants is through controlled hunting.
While up until recently we were allowed to hunt bulls, we have not had access to these bulls for hunting. Elephants previously roamed the section of the Pongola Game Reserve northeast of the (N2) highway – within a total area of 8,497 ha in size (including Dubula and the PGRE property – see map below). During the drought when Pongolapoort Dam levels were low, and due to overpopulation, the elephants moved around the boundary fences at the dam onto the Royal Jozini Big 6 Private Estate in Eswatini. After that, a large portion of the population moved around the northern side of the dam back into South Africa onto the eastern shores of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s Phongolo Nature Reserve. There is a standard game fence (with electric strands) between Dubula and the Phongolo Nature Reserve, but the low water levels enabled elephants to move to Phongolo.
While water levels have now risen, elephants can still, and do, cross on occasion. The elephants are still in Royal Jozini Big 6 Private Estate and Phongolo Nature Reserve, with the occasional movement of some elephants into Pongola Game Reserve. Neither Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife nor the Royal Jozini Big 6 Private Estate will permit any lethal management (in the form of hunting or culling) while the elephants are still on their properties. Due to the high numbers of elephant they will continue to occupy these new areas. Without culling and hunting, the elephant population will continue to reach high numbers.
Furthermore, the 2022 hunting and export quota for elephant, black rhino and leopard has been suspended, due to a court application by The Humane Society International – Africa against the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, for not following due process in the allocation of these quota. As such Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife will not be issuing any hunting or export permits for these species.
The property lines between Pongola Game Reserve, Phongolo Nature Reserve and Royal Jozini Big 6 Private Estate show how elephants were able to move between properties when water levels were low during times of drought.
Legislation states that, when culling, managers need to cull an entire herd at once (and not just a portion of the herd or selectively cull individuals over time). This brings challenges of its own. Practically speaking, how would one dispose of 85 carcasses simultaneously? In a country where poverty and hunger are all around us, you cannot waste a valuable protein source.
We should be permitted to manage our elephants the same way we do all our other species. The argument that elephants are more “special” than other species is not valid: all species should be managed under similar principles.
Due to all of the above, it is not practical, beneficial or economically viable for Pongola Game Reserve to continue maintaining elephants.
Our decision to remove elephants in the near future has resulted in the engagement and the attention of the National Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife. Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife indicated that they are currently drafting a proposal (for the bigger picture and Pongola area) which is awaiting approval from their head office before being submitted to us for discussion. It became clear through our engagement that we are not unique regarding our concerns, as there are many other private properties currently in the same position. DFFE has undertaken to investigate improvements in this regard.
Our decision to remove elephants will stand unless the ‘bigger picture proposal’ being developed by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife is beneficial to the goals of our elephant management. Similarly, if the new National Norms and Standards for the Management of Elephants in South Africa being drafted by the government are not beneficial to the management of elephant on private property and our goals of sustainable utilisation, then there is no point in keeping the elephant and a decision will need to made on how to achieve their removal. This will take some time to implement, as this on its own brings several logistical issues.
Rethinking the future of elephant management
The reality for the private wildlife industry and the business of conservation is that the adage of “if it pays, it stays” holds. The state will have to rethink current legislation if elephant populations are to remain on private properties and reserves in the future.
We in the private wildlife industry are professionals in what we do. Let us do what we do best to benefit wildlife in South Africa, which can thrive through sustainable use management, as we have proved in the past and continue to do.
Note: On 4 May 2022, Pongola Game Reserve received feedback from Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, commenting on Examvelo KZN Wildlife’s commitment to developing a joint management agreement with private sector stakeholders. The letter states there is a “need for innovative and balanced partnership arrangements between state protected areas and adjacent private wildlife areas.” These, Creecy states in the letter, “result in win-win sustainable arrangements, with strong conservation outcomes, and which stimulate the local economy through biodiversity-based enterprises.” The letter further reads, “reaching such agreements in Pongola can provide an important model for success, and I encourage all stakeholder [sic] to work collaboratively, with meaningful participation, to quickly craft the joint management plan [for elephants], and give momentum to economic growth of the area.”
Is there a direct link between elephants and the ongoing loss of large trees? A recent study suggests elephants benefit ecosystems (in open systems) by improving plant diversity. Read more about this here.
Researchers suggest adapting conservaton strategies to the sentience of elephants. Read more here.
Some 23 years ago, I learnt a lesson about context that defines me today.
Lizz and I had endured a particularly gruelling few years at work, so we packed the Landy and headed north for a 3-month sabbatical. Meandering south through the Luangwa Valley in Zambia after spending time in a bush camp on the Mwaleshi River in North Luangwa National Park, we had reached the Nsefu sector of South Luangwa NP. Earlier, we had been delayed for a few hours by a herd of browsing elephants surrounding us. I was concerned that we would not reach the town of Mfuwe before darkness descended. Seeing a dignified old man strolling his shamba (agricultural plot), I decided to ask his advice in case we needed to spend the night nearby.
After the usual pleasantries that so define discussions with rural African folk, I explained our situation. He provided the requested advice, and then, after a long pause, he politely questioned my state of mind at such a trivial roadblock to our plans. “Do you see these cans?” he asked, holding two flatted Coke cans. “These are all that stand between my family and starvation.” Every day and night, I must keep elephants and other animals away from our fields, or we will lose everything. If I see elephants, I run at them and bang the cans together to scare them away. I never know when they will arrive or whether I will succeed in keeping our food safe. For you, the cans mean whether your food is fresh or not. Either way, you are ok. For me, they are everything.”
Postscript: We made it to Mfuwe before nightfall. We gave the gent what remained of our tinned supplies. I still drive the same Landy 🙂
Keep the passion
Simon Espley – CEO, Africa Geographic
From our Editor – Taryn van Jaarsveld
There is much to celebrate in the post-pandemic world: travel has opened up across Africa, and the AG tribe is making up for lost time by embarking on safari adventures. But the devastating socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 linger in communities dependent on tourism. In Zimbabwe, 1 in 3 people employed in the tourism industry lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Dianne Tipping-Wood travelled to Zim to meet some of the men and women who are picking up the pieces in the post-COVID reality. See our first story below.
This week, we shine a light on one of the leading gorilla trekking destinations in Africa: Volcanoes National Park. Visitors to this piece of paradise will also be blown away by the breathtaking scenery and astonishing biodiversity of this volcanic landscape.
In the past few weeks, we’ve also been looking into the science surrounding the hunting of large-tusked elephant bulls. Our in-depth look into the science of elephant population genetics is now available on our public website for easy access – see below.
Instead of linking you to some of our safari packages, today we show you how to find them on our app.
It’s easy: Login to our app, tap/click the ‘Travel with us’ tab, select ‘Packages’ and off you go. You can filter the packages by place and experience and even select only non-malaria packages. Once decided you can add that package to your wishlist.
Or, to plan your own safari, select ‘Lodges’ from the same tab and follow the same logic.
Both options enable you to see the prices in a variety of currencies. This is a new app feature, so we are still busy loading up our packages.
Safari njema!
Our Kenyan safari with AG
App subscriber Richard Rolfe says:
“My wife Anne and I go away every January to soak up some sun. As January 2022 approached, prospects looked doubtful as COVID restrictions were slow to lift. I sent a query to AG in November. I got a reply the next day, from Christian – who had led a trip I’d been on to Cameroon in 2010. During the booking process, we were fortunate (thanks to Christian pushing us to make decisions) to be in a position to hit the “Go” button & make firm bookings ahead of many others.
Having studied AG’s article on Samburu, we decided this should be part of the trip, along with other Kenya highlights like the Maasai Mara.. With wild dogs being a key objective, Christian suggested Laikipia Wilderness Camp. We added beach time in Watamu, nearby Arabuko Sokoke Forest for endemic birds, then three days at Satao Camp in Tsavo East. Samburu had the best overall wildlife viewing and some unusual bushveld birds. All in all it was an exceptional safari!”
WATCH: Camera trap footage from Côte d’Ivoire’s Comoé National Park reveals chimpanzees making “tools” out of sticks, to capture water from trees during the dry season. The findings support research that suggests chimp behaviour is influenced by their direct environment. As these primates face a rapidly shrinking habitat, this research can contribute toward essential conservation efforts (02:04). Click here to watch
Rose Tshuma is fishing from the eastern bank of the Zambezi River, just in front of the Sidinda Fishing Camp in Zimbabwe, where she works as a housekeeper. “Look across at that crocodile. We’re all hungry,” she says as her eyes follow the stealthy hunter patrolling the opposite shore. The 52-year-old has a wry sense of humour and a keen awareness of the realities of rural life in this part of Zimbabwe. She knows from experience that hunger is no joke.
About eighty kilometres upstream, the mighty Zambezi River plunges more than one hundred meters down the famous Mosi-Oa-Tunya (The Smoke that Thunders), the Lozi name for Victoria Falls, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It pushes on through constricting gorges offering some of the world’s best white-water rafting to this calmer stretch of river: prime game fishing territory for species like feisty tigerfish and vundu, the largest freshwater species in southern Africa. The river then winds its way towards Kariba Dam, Mozambique, and the Indian Ocean.
When tourism suffers
Tourism has always been vital to Zimbabwe’s economy, and in 2019, it contributed a total of 5.8% to the country’s GDP and 8.6% of the total employment. The town of Victoria Falls is an international tourism hub surrounded by national parks and game management areas, including Zambezi National Park and the vast Hwange National Park.
But as Tshuma notes, even here, things are hard. So, working with local partners, the African Nature-Based Tourism Platform gathered data on the effects of the pandemic on tourism businesses in 11 African countries, including Zimbabwe, to identify the hardest-hit communities and enterprises and their most pressing needs. The platform was launched in April 2021 with $1.9 million from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and is working with local partners in 11 countries, including Zimbabwe, to mobilise at least US$15 million to benefit the most vulnerable.
The eighty enterprises surveyed in Zimbabwe indicated almost 1 in 3 people employed in the tourism value chain had lost their job due to the pandemic. Tshuma’s colleague, tracker Sylvester Ndlovu, has been out of work for nearly two years, while others are on reduced pay as tourism businesses in the area haven’t been able to pay their employees a full salary, given the lack of bookings. Ndlovu sold some of his goats for about US$30 each and used the remaining herd for meat and milk. Others have sold hard-earned vehicles and assets to put food on the table.
Rose Tshuma with a chessa she caught; portrait of Rose; Rose fishing from the eastern bank of the Zambezi River near Sidinda Fishing Camp
As in Zimbabwe, tourism workers all around southern Africa are facing similar challenges, as COVID-19-related bans have strangled international travel, leaving tourism-reliant communities searching for new opportunities. And without the salaries, service fees, tips, and gratuities that supplement rural tourism-dependent livelihoods, the hardest hit people are harvesting wild fruits or snaring animals to survive.
As one of few still employed in the sector, Tshuma will get a modest salary and rations like maize meal, rice, oil, and salt at the end of the month, plus the fish she catches. “I know what it’s like to live off wild fruits,” she says, pointing to the hard, fibrous ilala palm nuts that grow close to the river. “I have eaten those in drought years.” She anticipates challenging months ahead, as many villages in Zimbabwe’s Hwange District already rely on food aid from The World Food Programme.
In 2020 The Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) estimated that 7.7 million Zimbabweans (5.5 million in rural areas) would experience food insecurity at the peak of the lean season, exacerbated by drought, economic uncertainty, and the COVID-19 pandemic. 2022 doesn’t look much better. A prolonged dry spell followed the early rains, and showers in March and April have come too late for the wilting crops in nearby fields.
Sharing space and resources
The storms have also turned the river brown overnight, and Tshuma isn’t optimistic about her chances today, as the local fish she likes to catch to eat – bream and chessa – favour clear water. When a herd of buffalo comes down to drink late afternoon, she reels in one last time. There are no guests in camp, but she still has chores. The property needs to be maintained for when travel resumes. “I am optimistic people will come back. We must survive until then,” she says.
Tracker Sylvester Ndlovu has had little work for nearly two years as the Zimbabwe tourism industry was hard hit; Chessa are a popular river fish that can be eaten fresh or dried
Without tourism-related jobs, income, and meat from hunting, conservation isn’t an easy sell to villagers living in this important wildlife corridor in the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area.
The web of interdependence between people and wildlife can be as muddy as the river after the rain. Years of drought, overgrazing, livestock diseases, and human-wildlife conflict have put pressure on natural resources in an area that includes Hwange National Park, Zambezi National Park, Victoria Falls National Park, and dozens of lesser-known but ecologically important areas where people and animals live together.
Sharing space and resources like freshwater often leads to conflict between people, crocodiles, elephants, baboons, leopards and hyenas, which raid fields and kill livestock. Safari hunting, fishing, and photographic tourism are an integral part of the economic model for these areas. These income streams make losses of crops and livestock easier for communities to bear.
“These communities find themselves very desperate,” says Charles Jonga, CEO of the Community Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE), Zimbabwe’s community-based natural resource management forum administered through Zimbabwe’s rural district councils. They are the African Nature-Based Tourism Platform’s country partner for Zimbabwe. Designed to create an economic value from wildlife resources for people living with wildlife “and suffering the associated opportunity costs,” the organisation has had its ups and downs. Navigating the vagaries of Zimbabwe’s land reform process and associated political uncertainties since its inception in the 1980s, people report mixed feelings about its impact in recent years. And without tourism revenues, the last two years have been some of its most challenging, says Jonga.
Progress postponed
The lodge Tshuma works for is in a conservancy formed in 2018 through CAMPFIRE, with the help of a local safari operator, supported by the Global Environment Facility and the World Bank, and coordinated by WWF Zimbabwe. They had aimed to help address food security issues in the area, but “the pandemic has halted everything,” says conservancy manager Lindon Stanton. Projects, including solar-powered irrigation and livestock breeding programs, were postponed due to a lack of tourism-related income.
The business plan developed with CAMPFIRE and the community showed how the villagers would benefit from future live animal sales and meat production from legal wildlife harvesting; the conservancy would employ game scouts and support various small enterprises. Instead, they are barely covering costs and are likely to have to procure feed for their recently established population of buffalo [previously illegally hunted out of the area], as the expansion of the conservancy to 20,000 hectares is on hold until more funding comes through. Still, Stanton suggests, they’re doing their best with the resources they have to protect the wildlife that they hope will one day revitalise rural economies.
“We clear dozens of illegal snares [from the conservancy] and fishing nets from the river,” says conservancy game scout Emmanuel Mapeta. He believes people are mainly poaching small game because they are “trying to survive.”
Game scout Emmanuel Mapeta with snares collected around the Sidinda Conservancy.
There is still hope that promised jobs and projects will materialise, as “the only way to take the pressure off natural resources is to create the food security and job opportunities for people,” says Stanton. But he also repeats the refrain from everyone in the tourism supply chain: “if the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that we can’t rely on one thing. We must all do something else.”
In rural areas, though, there aren’t many options. “2020 introduced a far worse scenario [than we have faced before] when balancing the needs for conservation and the expectations of communities,” said Jonga. Speaking of CAMPFIRE’s aims, he says, “we’re looking at initiatives within this and other communities that have the potential to create incomes linked to markets. This hasn’t been sufficiently pursued because we need extra resources to get these projects going. Given the lack of tourism, the gestation period for these projects becomes too long. They cannot evolve independently from the very minimal income currently being generated.”
Hunger looming
In Zimbabwe, nearly every survey respondent reiterated the dire need for financial assistance for staff salaries, anti-poaching units, and infrastructure rehabilitation for enterprises and communities. The most urgently requested support was equipment, from uniforms for game scouts to solar boreholes and irrigation infrastructure to improve water access. This information has been captured in a summary report, shared publicly via the platform. The African Nature Based Tourism platform’s next step is to match resilience-building activities with funding options. In some cases, funders may want to use the platform’s data; in other cases, the platform team might work from beginning to end with beneficiaries to develop proposals and get them funded.
In Sidinda, with hunger looming, people focus on surviving the dry season, meaning irrigation schemes for crops are top of mind for many. According to the United Nations, agricultural activities provide food and income for 60-70% of the population of Zimbabwe (UN, 2021), making it ideal as a business that complements tourism. However, most African Nature-Based Tourism Platform surveyed enterprises are found in Zimbabwe’s arid and semi-arid regions and need irrigation to grow crops successfully. Despite one of Africa’s mightiest rivers running through its heart, the Sidinda area is dry for months of the year, even when the rains are good.
A few kilometres from the conservancy gate, the Shoko family lives adjacent to a shared field. A borehole sunk by the conservancy with a solar-powered pump briefly changed their lives. Villagers were able to grow vegetables like butternut, tomatoes, and onions. Some produce was sold to a business in Victoria Falls that processed sun-dried tomatoes, some were sold in the community to supplement diets, some were sold to the fishing lodge to feed guests, and some were consumed directly by the growers.
The pump broke, though, and the community is desperate to fix it, but neither they nor the conservancy has the money. Meanwhile, the field is overgrown, and the crops wilted. “We’ve failed to grow anything this season because there is no water. We are worried about food,” says Jeremiah Shoko, the 73-year-old pump keeper. He has some goats and a few chickens, which he can sell, but “we’re looking for projects to help us get money to feed our babies.”
Unlike the Shokos, farming cousins Mungala Ncube (49) and Makani Tshuma (57) have had a good growing season. They planted early and swapped drought-sensitive maize for more resilient sorghum and millet. Their husbands worked in the Zimbabwe tourism industry, and their crops represented crucial income for the last two years, but elephants have just raided one of their fields.
Game scout Emmanuel Mapeta with his colleagues; farmer Jeremiah Shoko with a cob of maize from his field; Jeremiah Shoko; Jeremiah Shoko stands at the broken borehole pump
They are philosophical about the incident – “it could have been worse” – but believe that training and employing wildlife scouts from and in the community would help mitigate human-wildlife conflict and create much-needed jobs. “Next, we need money to grind what we have harvested,” said Ncube, adding that she hopes they will have enough to feed themselves and their families, plus a small surplus of nine or ten buckets to sell for school fees. They get US$5 for a twenty kilograms bucket of millet or sorghum. School fees cost US$45 per year per child.
“We need to promote rural development to make communities self-dependent,” says Hwange Rural District Council CEO Phindile Ncube. He says having strategies that provide some resilience, like nature-compatible activities that can be sustainably managed locally, is critical to people’s wellbeing. And while currently, COVID-19 is a huge stressor on an already stressed system, calamities can come in the guise of climate change, another pandemic, or political instability.
Building from the ground up
Small projects can have a significant impact in areas like this one in Zimbabwe, which is why the African Nature-Based Tourism Platform is looking for funding to help communities and small and medium enterprises recover from the pandemic and become more resilient to future shocks and stressors, says WWF’s Nikhil Advani, the project manager. The idea is not to replace tourism in Zimbabwe but to complement it because despite the hardships so many are facing, people are still optimistic about its potential.
Farmers Mungala Ncube and Makani Tshuma show game scouts where the elephants raided their fields; Mungala Ncube in her field; Mungala and Makani harvested their sorghum and millet earlier than other farmers
“There have been some new investments in tourism, even during the pandemic, especially in and around Victoria Falls,” notes Jonga. Just upstream from the Victoria Falls, in the Zambezi National Park, one such new development, Mpala Jena Zambezi River Camp, opened in December 2021. Head guide Blessed Mpofu is from Chisuma, fifteen kilometres below the falls, on the road to Sidinda. Camp Manager at Mpala Jena Rabbon Nyoni was raised in Victoria Falls, where many of his childhood role models worked in the safari industry. They explained how the money they earn at the lodge filters through to the villages where they grew up.
During the worst months of the pandemic, Mpofu was on half-pay and had to sell his Landcruiser to meet his financial obligations to his family. “From a rural boy, I had gotten somewhere in my life, so this was a huge step back. My dream has always been to start a guide school, and I’ve had to put that on hold. But I used the money from the sale of my Landcruiser to drill a borehole in Chisuma and start doing some farming,” he explains. He’s also gone ahead with a business plan and getting permission from the Hwange Rural District Council for his guide school. Like Tshuma, he has faith in better days to come. Until then, their cash flow is as vital a lifeline as the river itself.
This is a true story – that always earns me a few wry smiles in the telling. Years ago I was with a group of American safari clients on game drive, and one of them asked me where I am from. “I am African,” I replied. “No,” she said, “where are you originally from?” “I am African, born and bred,” I repeated, and they looked confused. So I asked them a question: “If I was to move to America and become a citizen, would you refer to me as African-American?” There was a thoughtful silence before the smiles broke out.
What’s this got to do with safari & conservation? Everything, because if we are to keep Africa’s biodiversity safe from abusive exploitation we need to step away from the social constructs that divide us and embrace our differences. teamAFRICA!
Keep the passion
Simon Espley – CEO, Africa Geographic
From our Editor – Taryn van Jaarsveld
Does the hunting of large-tusked elephant bulls lead to the decline of tuskers, and what is the impact on elephant population genetics? Since we released the news that two of Africa’s largest elephants were trophy hunted in Botswana, the debate over the hunting of Africa’s tuskers has been flowing in the stories section of our app (check out the comments on the original story, and the debate on our retrospective of the matter). In our first story below we take a deep look into the science surrounding the matter, and the effects of hunting older elephant bulls. This story is available exclusively on our app for the next few days. Get the app to view – it’s free.
On a brighter and lighter note: who needs 5 stars when you can have a gazillion? Could you imagine anything better than spending a night under the African sky, stargazing while tucked into a warm and luxurious bed? We’ve put our heads together to find the continent’s best destinations for sleeping out under the stars. You can find unbeatable prices on these destinations and more by checking out our collection of lodges. See our second story below.
Happy indulging in Africa to you all!
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
The vast majority of those reading this are right-handed because that describes approximately 90% of the human population. There is an astonishing amount of research into human “handedness” and its relationship with everything from sports to health.
But did you know that elephants also favour their left or right side? In their case, however, it’s called “tuskedness“. Almost all elephants (>95%) favour one or the other tusk, with an almost even split between right and left tuskedness. The dominant tusk is used more frequently and thus wears down more than its subordinate. There is also evidence that they have a preference for rightward or leftward use of their trunks, though it is still not yet known how this relates to tusk use.
Behavioural lateralisation (the asymmetrical expression of cognitive functions) is observed across multiple animal families and makes for fascinating reading for those looking to fall down a rabbit hole. (After reading our stories, of course.)
App subscriber Angela Key travelled to Uganda with AG. ? Navigating Mabamba Swamp with expert bird guide Harriet Kemigisha, Angela got up close with a shoebill, and was finally able to photograph the dinosaur bird in person. Check out Nkima Forest Lodge, within walking distance of Mabamba Swamp for excellent rates – and you could soon be in Angela’s shoes ?
WATCH: Why is this spot in the Congo Basin attracting so much attention? Scientists have discovered a massive peatland in the area – the most extensive tropical peatland on earth, holding 20 times as much carbon as the USA releases from burning fossil fuels in a year. See why conservationists are seeking protection for this area (06:34). Click here to watch
Trophy hunting is a controversial and multifaceted subject. One aspect of this debate concerns the targeting of elephant bulls with large tusks in hunting, and whether or not this is an acceptable loss to elephant population genetics. With large-tusked elephants in decline, what does the science say on the subject?
Proponents of the trophy hunting of these elephant bulls generally either argue that the individuals selected are at an age where they have already had time to contribute to the gene pool or are no longer reproducing. Those against the practice argue that hunting these “genetically gifted” elephants amounts to the “surgical removal of Africa’s remaining large-tusked elephants”.
Summary
Populations across Africa may differ in terms of the effect of ageing on reproductive potential. Extrapolations from one area may not apply with absolute certainty to another.
Bull elephants exhibit indeterminate growth, and their tusk growth rate increases exponentially throughout their lifetime.
Bulls can and do sire offspring from around 25 years of age, but their reproductive success increases until they reach a peak roughly between 45 and 49 years of age.
On average, their reproductive success decreases slightly from the age of 50 to 54 and more significantly from 55 to 61 years of age.
Individuals have been recorded in musth (suggesting they can reproduce) at the age of 63.
Senescence may result in breeding cessation when a bull can no longer maintain the necessary physical condition to compete and mate – the age when this occurs is likely to be highly variable.
Factors other than age play a role in reproductive success, including the timing of musth cycles.
Given the difficulty of accurately ageing an elephant by sight and their capacity for reproduction into old age, the margin for error is relatively narrow.
We do not fully understand the genetic mechanisms of tusk size, which impact its heritability. This will play a role in determining whether a large-tusked elephant can be considered to have contributed “sufficiently” to elephant genetics before his death.
This article focuses on summarising the available science on growth, tusk size and breeding as a function of age in adult male African savannah elephants. However, at the outset, it is essential to clarify that there will always be individual physiological differences within any population. The ageing process (and its effects on reproductive potential) will never be the same for two individual male elephants. This is also true of populations of elephants living in different parts of the continent, exposed to various environmental factors and, most importantly, consuming slightly different diets.
How do elephants age?
Elephants feed almost constantly throughout the day to meet the metabolic requirements needed to sustain their massive frames. Elephants are equipped with four enormous molars (two on the top jaw and two on the bottom) that wear down due to continuous chewing. These molars are replaced five times during their lifetime (equating to six sets of teeth). When the final set wears down entirely, the elephant can no longer chew properly and will eventually die of malnutrition or related complications.
Bull elephants have a maximum life expectancy of around 60-65 years, and they continue to grow throughout their lives (indiscriminate growth). However, experts estimate that only around half of all male elephants survive to peak competitive age, and relatively few (approximately 10%) live longer than around 50 years old (Moss 2001, Poole et al. 2013).
Tusk growth in African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) is sexually dimorphic, with the tusks of the males growing thicker and longer than those of the females. Research suggests that not only do these tusks grow throughout the elephant’s life, but the growth pattern appears to be exponential rather than linear. In other words, their tusks grow at an accelerating rate as they get older – particularly in terms of increasing mass and circumference (Spinage 1994, White and Hall-Martin 2014).
Longevity, indeterminate growth, and increasing tusk size point towards sexual competition favouring larger and older male elephants. As dominance between bulls is determined by body size (Poole 1989b), the natural conclusion is that older elephants will have increased mating success, borne out by the available research.
Musth and the reproductive lifespan of a bull elephant
Bulls reach sexual maturity (are physically capable of mating and producing offspring) at around the age of 15, but under natural conditions, it may be several years before they can secure the opportunity to mate. Around the age of 25 to 30 years, male elephants start entering into musth cycles characterised by a substantial increase in testosterone concentrations and several behavioural, physiological and physical changes.
The importance of musth in elephants cannot be understated. Males in musth are more aggressive towards competitors, engage in mate guarding and reduce foraging time to prioritise the search for oestrus females (Rasmussen et al. 2008, Taylor et al. 2019). Females receptive to mating (in oestrus) also show a preference for musth bulls (Poole 1989). However, this does not mean that elephant bulls not in musth do not sire offspring. Opportunistic mating does occur, and non-musth bulls are responsible for a constant, low percentage of the paternity of calves (Hollister-Smith 2007, Rasmussen 2008). However, musth bulls will dominate mating opportunities, even those smaller than non-musth competitors and most conceptions will result from a bull in musth (Hollister-Smith 2007, Poole et al. 2013). When two musth bulls compete for access to females, body size generally determines dominance – tusk size does not seem to play a role (Poole 1989b). This suggests that large-tusked elephants are no more likely to be successful in sexual competition than a counterpart of similar age.
Thus, elephant bulls over the age of 30 rely on musth as their primary reproductive strategy. Older bulls with longer musth cycles will inevitably have more mating opportunities than younger individuals. Research indicates that the “median duration of musth increases from two days for males aged 16–25 years, to 13 days for males aged 26–35 years, to 52 days for males aged 36–40 years, to 69 days for males aged 41–45, to 81 days for males aged 46–50 years, and then declines again to 54 days for males aged 51–60 years of age” (Rasmussen 2008, Poole et al. 2013). Males over the age of 35 are generally only in musth once a year (Poole 2013). Elephant bulls up to 63 years old have been observed exhibiting musth, suggesting that for some individuals, at least, almost lifelong reproduction is possible.
To summarise: “The longer a male survives and the older he becomes, the more ‘successful’ he has the opportunity to be. Thus, a strong relationship exists between the number of years that a male has been seen to be in musth and the total number of conceptions that occurred during his musth periods” (Poole 2013).
An elephant bull in musth. Bulls over the age of 30 rely on musth as their primary reproductive strategy
Peaks, declines, and the contribution of younger males
In keeping with the above conclusion, research from Amboseli shows increasing reproductive success with increasing age (Hollister-Smith 2007). Genetic samples were taken from 89 adult male elephants and 279 calves and their mothers. Their analysis shows a gradual increase in reproductive success (measured by calves sired) from around 30 to a peak from 45 and 53 and then decline to around the same level of a male in his early 40s. The oldest elephant that sired a calf was 59 years old, and four males sired 14 calves between them in their 50s. The three oldest males (aged 48, 53 and 58) were responsible for 30% of the paternity in question.
In the study, males in their mid-20s sired calves, but this was an uncommon occurrence. However, males under the age of 35 fathered 29% of the calves. So, while males do produce more offspring in their later years, they have likely contributed to the genetics of a population before that. However, whether this contribution is sufficient to ensure the continuity of the large-tusked phenotype is scientifically uncertain and depends at least in part on the heredity of the trait (more on this below).
How old is that elephant?
Outside of known and extensively studied individuals, the most accurate way to age an elephant is to examine the condition of its molars. Naturally, this is difficult in the field and ageing an elephant by sight (particularly on foot) is inherently challenging. Experts rely on several physical features, including body condition (very old elephants have a gaunt appearance), posture and head shape.
A recent study from Kenya (Taylor et al. 2019) emphasised the importance of the effects of musth on elephant energy expenditure. Elephants in musth were found to walk faster and further than those not in an active reproductive state. This results in decreased feeding time, and in older bulls that maintain these musth cycles for months, the increased energy expenditure manifests as a significant loss of body condition (Poole 1989). As a result, when hunting an elephant, hunters could mistake a bull in musth for an older individual during a hunt.
Ageing an elephant by looking at the tusk size is also considered by experts to be problematic due to the considerable variation within individuals (Whyte and Hall-Martin 2014). While it is safe to assume that an elephant sporting large tusks is likely to be an older individual, whether or not they are within the “prime breeding” age bracket of between 45-49 is difficult to determine. Individual subjects of long-term studies whose ages are known, such as well-known tuskers Tim, Tolstoy and Satao (from Kenya) and Isilo (from South Africa), had substantial tusks well before their 50s. Given that tusk growth increases as the elephant ages, hunting young elephants before they exhibit signs of being a “tusker” may also result in the loss of large-tusk genetics.
A 100-pounder elephant bull felled by hunting in the CH8 concession in Botswana in July 2021
Heritability – the next big question?
It is apparent that tusk size is a heritable trait, but the extent of this heritability and its genetic basis are still not understood and likely to be complex. Recent genetic research on the elephants of Gorongosa identified some of the genes involved in tusk growth, including one linked to the X chromosome and one autosomal chromosome (Campbell-Staton et al., 2021). This research was based on exploring the phenomenon of tuskless elephants, and tusk size is probably determined by the effects of additional genes (and likely environmental factors). The dominant or recessive nature of the alleles (a variant form of a gene) will also affect physical manifestation of this trait.
The significance of this goes to the heart of the argument about whether or not large-tusked elephants killed over the age of fifty have contributed “sufficiently” to the genetics of a herd to preserve the large-tusk phenotype. Simply put, the more genes involved in producing large tusks, the smaller the chances of passing them along during one breeding event. Conversely, the more mating opportunities, the higher the chances of securing the future of large-tusk genetics in one or more offspring. (Of course, a corollary to this is that bulls with small tusks could still carry some alleles related to large tusk growth.)
Final thoughts
The vast majority of the available research on the reproductive lives of male savannah elephants comes from long-term research conducted in Kenya, in the greater Amboseli ecosystem in particular. Exactly how this applies to elephant populations in other ecosystems is a matter for further study.
However, it is clear from existing research that claims of elephants over the age of 50 being “past their prime” are demonstrably false. These animals are still capable of mating and producing calves with greater success than when they were in their 20s and 30s. Furthermore, hunting a bull elephant between the ages of 45 and 49 under the mistaken impression that he was older will result in the loss of his most reproductively successful years. The margin for error here is a narrow one and emphasises the need for caution in aging prospective trophy bulls.
The significance of an elephant’s prior contribution to the tusk sizes of future elephant generations depends at least in part on the genetic basis of tusk size – a factor that has not yet been scientifically clarified. Without this knowledge, it is difficult to know with any certainty whether or not a trophy hunted bull has been given “sufficient” opportunity to pass on his large-tusked legacy before he is killed. Statistically, the more conceptions he contributes to, the greater the chance of genetic perpetuation. Thus the ethical question at hand becomes one of risk – are we willing to take that chance with large-tusked elephants?
Further reading
Researchers say the large-tusked elephant is in decline, and should be protected from trophy hunting. Read more here.
Poole J. H., Mate guarding, reproductive success and female choice in African elephants, Animal Behaviour, 37 (1989b), 842-849
Poole J. H., Lee, P. C. & Moss, C. (2013) Longevity, competition and musth: a long-term perspective on male reproduction. Amboseli Elephants: a Long-term Perspective on a Long-lived Mammal (Ed. by C. Moss & H. Croze). Chicago: University of Chicago Press
There is little in the world that can match the atmosphere of the African wilderness at night. As the dark comes alive with the sound of nocturnal stirrings and the blaze of the Milky Way burns its way across the sky, there is nothing quite like spending a night in the open, stargazing. Of course, for some, the stony ground and clinging sleeping bag are part of the experience, but, for the rest, luxury sleepout options abound.
These days, most lodges are equipped with every modern convenience. This is not a bad thing, but it can undermine the allure of an escape into the wild. A night under the stars is the perfect remedy: a way to reset, unplug and connect with Africa in the most authentic way possible.
So, lie back, put your feet up and immerse yourself in the magic of the African night with our top 13 sleepout spots.
There is no better way to soak up the wildness of the African night, than with a night spent stargazing in the open, sounds of nocturnal activity echoing close by.
Skybeds,Khwai Private Reserve, Botswana: Northern Botswana is one of Africa’s most prolifically productive safari destinations, so a night spent in Skybeds overlooking the only permanent water source for miles around is guaranteed to be an adventure. Fall asleep to the sound of rumbling elephants, whooping hyenas and roaring lions, awakening to the savannah dawn’s crisp beauty.
Kanana Deck,Okavango Delta, Botswana: In the heart of the Okavango Delta, the Kanana Deck is what dreams are made of – quite literally. Unadorned yet comfortable, the Kanana Deck offers a safe way to experience the electrifying nightlife in one of the wildest spots in Africa.
Elephant Hide Star Bed at Kaingo Camp, Shenton Safaris, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia: The Luangwa River is the core of the entire Luangwa Valley ecosystem. The Elephant Hide Star Bed nestled in a jackalberry tree on its banks is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the action. With nothing separating you from the African night but the thin gauze of a mosquito net, the experience is vividly wild and soul-refreshing.
Skybeds in Khwai Private Reserve, the Elephant Hide Star Bed at Kaingo Camp in South Luangwa National Park, and the Kanana Deck in the Okavango Delta all make for a wild night in the open
For the purest desert stargazing experience
Southern African stargazing is legendary, and there is nowhere better to experience it than in a desert, where the night sky is bright, clear, and unobscured by city lights or tall trees.
Namib Dune Star Camp, Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia: Some of the best star bathing can be done in the austere Namib Desert. Namib Dune, an adventure camp, is perched on the top of ancient ochre dunes overlooking the majesty of the desert. Enjoy a sundowner on the deck and take in the view before wheeling the bed out onto the deck and snuggling into its warmth. Although the desert nights may be chilly, the cold only makes the blanket of stars more spectacular.
The Malori, Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa: Arrive as the setting sun begins to paint the Kalahari sands in shades of red, and choose your Nepenthe nectar of choice to drink in the arrival of the darkness. Then retire to sink into soft linens and drift off to sleep serenaded by barking geckos.
Namib Dune Star Camp in the Namib Desert, and The Malori in Tswalu Kalahari Reserve offer the best of desert nights
For extreme solitude and respite
Far from the madding crowd in the quiet of night is where pure peace can be found. For soaking up the vastness of space and the universe beyond, uncomplicated elegance and seclusion are best.
Meno a Kwena,Makgadikgadi Pans, Botswana: A comfy mattress, a lamp, and the vast expanse of the Makgadikgadi Pans stretching out in every direction without another soul for miles around? This is a sleepout at its purest – a no-frills embrace of the essence of this extraordinary piece of wilderness.
Uninterrupted contemplation awaits at Meno a Kwena in Makgadikgadi Pans
Africa on Foot Treehouse, Klaserie Private Nature Reserve, South Africa: How better to celebrate an already adventurous day on foot amongst the continent’s most iconic animals than with a well-earned night spent stargazing in the open air of the bushveld? Africa on Foot is removed from the crowds, and offers tranquillity and comfort to counterpoint days out exploring.
Meno a Kwena in Makgadikgadi Pans and Africa on Foot’s Treehouse in Klaserie Private Game Reserve are ideal destinations for solitude and seclusion under the night sky
For open-air luxury
Sleeping roofless does not mean compromising on quality and opulence. Comfort and leisure can still take priority when spending a night out in the open.
Tuludi Sky Suite, Khwai Private Reserve, Botswana: Simple, elegant, and tasteful, the Tuludi Sky Suite provides its visitors with every luxury while blending perfectly into its wild environment. Enjoy sitting next to the cosy fire as the creatures of the Okavango night come alive and embrace the dawn the following day with a refreshing open-air shower.
Starbed Treehouse at Victoria Falls River Lodge, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe: Rising on stilts above the mighty Zambezi River and nestled in the treeline of Kandahar Island, the Starbed Treehouses offer expansive views of magnificent surroundings. The double story treehouse provides all the comfort of a five-star luxury lodge, complete with a plunge pool, but it is the king-sized bed on the open upper deck that makes this stargazing experience truly extraordinary.
Starbed Treehouse at Victoria Falls River Lodge and the Tuludi Sky Suite in Khwai Private Reserve are luxurious alternatives for open-air sleeping.
For waking up to incredible views
Nothing beats the satisfaction of waking up to the first rays of the sun stretching out across the plains below, straight onto your duvet. Breathtaking night skies and even better morning views make for overwhelming magic.
Star bed, Samara Karoo Reserve, Karoo, South Africa: Samara’s star bed, perched on the Milk River, will take your breath away. From the comfort of your bed, you can watch as wildlife descends to the water to drink. Soak up views over the mountainous landscape, free of light and noise pollution, while marvelling at the Milky Way. Drift off to sleep in the warm bed, and wake up to the birdsong of the Karoo.
Samara’s star bed offers views over the spectacular Karoo
Loisaba Star Beds, Loisaba Conservancy, Laikipia, Kenya: Generally, the Milky Way steals the show on most African sleepouts, but, at Loisaba, it is the sunrise that is the showstopper. Even the latest habitual sleeper will be inspired to rise before dawn breaks to sip on a hot beverage and watch the sun slowly drench the rolling plains below in gold.
Star Bed, Busanga Plains Camp, Kafue National Park, Zambia: Not many can say they have spent the night in the open amidst the wetlands of Kafue National Park, where palm groves, papyrus-choked reed beds and lily-covered lagoons support an abundance of life. The jewel of Kafue, Busanga Plains hosts a lush mosaic of grassy seasonal floodplains stretching to the horizon. The Star Bed at Busanga Plains Camp is on a four-meter platform amidst the palms, overlooking the floodplains below. Wake up to a cacophony of magical sounds in this birding and wildlife paradise.
Ol Donyo Lodge, Chyulu Hills, Kenya: Hewn into the ancient lava rock that dominates the dramatically beautiful Chyulu Hills, the Ol Donyo Lodge is every bit at one with nature as it appears. Here, sleeping under the stars is simply viewed as an essential part of the safari experience, and every suite is equipped with a starbed on the upper level so that its visitors can use it at will. Unsurprisingly, many visitors spend every night of their visit embracing this stargazing opportunity.
Wake up to overwhelming views at Loisaba Star Beds in Loisaba Conservancy, Ol Donyo Lodge in Chyulu Hills and Busanga Plains Camp Star Bed in Kafue National Park
Want to plan your safari? Get in touch with our travel team to start the discussion.
Kruger is known to many as ‘the greatest place on earth’, and I’m delighted I’ll be getting my own fix in the north of the park in just two weeks’ time. (And you can too – check out our discounted rates on some epic Kruger lodges here).
As one of the most robust conservation areas in South Africa, the land encompassing Kruger National Park and Greater Kruger is home to South Africa’s greatest wildlife populations. The APNR, a collection of reserves in Greater Kruger, provides an essential tract of land for Kruger’s animals to roam. Monitoring these populations helps preserve the integrity of this important ecosystem. We delve into the latest APNR census results to highlight the fascinating ebb and flow of nature – see our first story below.
This week we also celebrate the most hardy and entertaining of animals: the magnificent hippopotamus. Jamie shares some personal encounters with the powerful and speedy beasts, and some intriguing facts shedding light on these mysterious semi-aquatic creatures. These pics and insights are guaranteed to bring lightness to your being. Check out our second story.
Happy indulging in Africa to you all!
Taryn van Jaarsveld — Editor
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
The phrase “illegal wildlife trade” immediately brings to mind things like rhino horn, ivory, pangolin scales and lion bones. But did you know that parrots are one of the most trafficked animal families in the world? Their popularity in the pet trade (along with extensive habitat loss) has meant that 60% of Earth’s Psittaciformes (parrot) species are in decline.
Take the African grey parrot, for example. They are currently listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List and, prior to their inclusion on Appendix I of CITES in 2017, were trapped in their thousands to supply the pet trade. Fortunately, there are those dedicated to protecting remaining wild populations. Dr Rowan Martin has shared updates on the work of the World Parrot Trust on our forum. To check out the post, download our app (details below). You can also seamlessly donate to the project to support their significant contribution to parrot conservation!
Desert & delta This iconic and ever-popular 11-day safari is about water – or the lack thereof. We visit Victoria Falls, Okavango Delta, Chobe and the desolate Botswana salt pans in our quest to understand how water defines southern Africa’s wild places. Options for all budgets. And we can tailor the duration to suit you – drop this, add that …
And now for something completely different
Look away if your ideal safari is in the comfort zone because this is not your average vanilla-flavoured outing! Search for lowland gorillas, bongos, dwarf crocodiles, forest elephants and flocks of grey parrots in the dense forests of Congo in this one-of-a-kind, life-changing adventure.
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It was just before the arrival of the rains in the South African Lowveld, when the heat seems relentless. We had come across a solitary bull hippopotamus, squeezed into a tiny patch of remaining mud, the skin on his back cracked and dry. I parked the safari vehicle at a comfortable distance, observing his body language for any signs of upset, as hippos are understandably grumpy at the height of the dry season. But he could have been dead for all the movement he showed – only the slight twitches of his ears gave him away as he snoozed.
We sat for a while, contemplating the harshness of nature before I did something unfortunate. It was blazing hot, and there was not a single patch of shade. And so, I pulled out a spray-on sunscreen. Without thinking, I depressed the nozzle, and all hell broke loose…
With a sound akin to the unblocking of the world’s largest toilet, the bull extracted himself from the mud wallow and launched himself at us, mouth agape and enormous tusks front and centre. In the time it took me to start the car and throw it into reverse, he had covered the significant distance between us and was almost level with my door. I had a brief but unfortunate view of the back of his throat before I hurtled backwards up a steep slope. The bull pulled up short and shot me a rightfully affronted look. I suspect, had he been able to talk, he would have muttered some very unflattering words. To say I was decidedly rattled, deeply regretful and suitably chastened would be an understatement.
That night, the heat broke, the heavens opened, and summer rolled in on thick cumulus clouds. The bull hippo was gone the next day.
Quick introduction
I have had many other hippopotamus sightings, which have been more interesting or even more dangerous than the sunscreen incident (we were, after all, in a car and able to move away). Yet that moment still stands out in my mind as the most spectacular display of power from a hippopotamus I have witnessed – for the sheer speed with which the two-tonne bull went from dozing to full-on gallop.
As one of the largest land mammals in the world and distributed across most of sub-Saharan Africa’s waterways, the hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) probably needs little in the way of introduction. These semiaquatic behemoths prefer to spend the vast majority of their days (sometimes 16 hours or more) in the water, emerging at night or on cloudy days to graze. Despite this hydrophilic existence, hippos are surprisingly poor swimmers. They prefer to wallow in the shallows where they can stand on the river floor and move through the water by trotting or leaping along the bottom. Their dense bones confer a high specific gravity which allows them to counteract the buoyancy of the water – but this also means they cannot float.
Their specially designed skulls align the ears, eyes and nostrils on the top of the head, so these sensory organs can protrude above the surface while the hippo remains otherwise submerged. When submerged entirely, the muscles around the ears and nostrils constrict and fold to seal off to keep the water out. A hippo can hold its breath for around five minutes due to a slowed metabolism but must regularly emerge to replenish its oxygen supplies.
Though this aquatic existence confers several advantages, there is one significant trade-off: a hippo’s skin is extremely sensitive to the sun. Most people by now are familiar with the hippo’s “blood sweat” – a pinkish substance secreted onto the skin that is not blood at all but rather a specialised sunscreen. The two pigments – hipposudoric acid and norhipposudoric acid – also have antimicrobial properties to help guard the skin against infection.
Hippos’ specially designed skulls allow for sensory organs to protrude above the surface; hippos spend time grazing in the evenings or in overcast weather; male territoriality does not extend to foraging beyond the water; their dense bones allow them to counteract the buoyancy of the water; hippopotamus’s skin is extremely sensitive to the sun
Quick facts
Mass:
Males: average 1, 500kg (up to over 3,000kg)
Females: average 1,300kg
Shoulder height:
1.30 – 1. 65m
Social structure:
Territorial males and pods of females and offspring
Gestation:
243 days (eight months)
Life expectancy:
Up to 40 years
Conservation status:
Vulnerable
Like a fish to water
The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibious) is one of two living members of the Hippopotamidae family. The second member is the endangered pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis), native to the forests and swamps of West Africa. Several extinct members of the Hippopotamidae, some almost identical to the present-day species, once dominated the river systems across Europe and Asia (including the River Thames!). There were also at least three species of Malagasy hippos, one of which only went extinct roughly 1,000 years ago, which coincides with the arrival of humans on the island.
Endangered pygmy hippos are native to West Africa
The hippopotamids’ closest relatives are the cetaceans – whales and dolphins. The two groups likely split from the other artiodactyls (like ruminants) around 60 million years ago and then diverged from a common semiaquatic ancestor some six million years later. The cetaceans eventually evolved to become fully aquatic, while the hippopotamids remained dependent on access to land.
Two (or more) hippos in a pod
Compared to other large land-dwelling mammals in Africa, the social interactions between hippos are challenging to study – even distinguishing young males from females is impossible when only their heads are visible. As a result, it is highly likely that there are nuances to their behaviours and social structures yet to be unravelled.
What we do know is that when water and space are plentiful, hippos form small associations of up to 15 or more individuals, known as schools, pods or, somewhat facetiously, bloats. These family groups typically consist of a territorial bull, cows, and their offspring, and mother-daughter bonds are deep-seated and may persist over a lifetime. Young males may be tolerated around the dominant bull, provided they behave submissively around him. They will often gather in small bachelor groups before eventually striking out on their own to claim a territory when they are around seven to eight years old.
Hippos do not adopt a social approach for nocturnal feeding forays, and most prefer a night of solitary snacking (where they may consume over 50kgs of grass in an evening). Interestingly, the territoriality of the bulls does not seem to extend to their land-based life, and researchers now believe that the middens are not territorial as previously thought. Male territoriality revolves around mating rights, so the region he defends in the water and along the riverbank may vary and does not extend to foraging beyond the river.
When space is at a premium (such as during the dry season when available water is limited), hippos may pack together in their hundreds. Still, they do so with seemingly great reluctance, and fights are a regular occurrence.
Frolicking hippos
Hippos may breed throughout the year, though there is usually a peak in calving during the wet season. Mating usually takes place in the water, and the female is forced to snatch quick gasps of air before the male dunks her back under the surface. Conception is followed by an eight-month gestation and the birth of a calf that may weigh up to 50kg. (It is worth considering how short this gestation period is compared to other mammals. In terms of size comparison, both rhino species give birth to calves of a similar size but their gestation period is almost double that of a hippopotamus. Even humans have a longer gestation.)
Social interactions between hippos are challenging to study; as the calf grows, it becomes more confident and playful; hippo mothers are highly protective of their young; hippos in their hundreds crowd into the last remaining waters during the dry season in Katavi National Park, Tanzania; hippos form small associations of up to 15 or more individuals. For more images from Danielle Carstens, follow @dcwildlifephotography
The hippo mother gives birth on her own in a quiet pool of water, and the calf instinctively strikes out for the surface immediately. The pair remain isolated until the enchanting little calf is old enough to be introduced to the rest of the pod at around a month old. As the calf grows, it becomes more confident and playful, often engaging in wrestling matches with other calves of a similar age.
Hippopotamus mothers are highly protective of their young, and hippo calves have few natural predators – generally, only lions and large spotted hyena clans attempt to hunt them. Even the massive crocodiles that share the rivers and pools are reluctant to attract maternal ire. However, one aspect of hippo behaviour that often shocks witnesses is the rare instances of infanticide. This is typically committed by the dominant bull during a territorial disruption or in times of stress, and the mother is seldom able to prevent it.
Speaking hippo
Naturally, visual communication between individuals is inevitably reasonably limited in the murky underwater environment. As a result, much hippo communication is vocal, with a laugh-like grunt being perhaps the most well-known of their vocal repertoire. However, few people realise that aside from the above surface grunts, roars, bellows and shrieks, hippos also communicate underwater. Studies show that up to 80% of hippo vocalisations are made below the surface. Some of these sub-aquatic songs are very similar to the high-pitched calls produced by whales.
A hippo can open its mouth to almost 180 degrees
Visually, the famously wide yawn is perhaps the hippo’s most notorious body language cue. The joint of the jaw is situated far back in the skull, and the orbicularis oris (the muscle we all have around our mouths) is folded in such a way in the hippo that, at full stretch, it can open its mouth almost 180 degrees. This serves to reveal an intimidating set of tusks, particularly in adult males, and should usually be interpreted as a threat display. The lower canine tusks curve upwards and can grow over 50cm in length, while the lower incisors present a forward-facing barrier of spears. The tusks are used as offensive weapons, predominantly when two bulls fight.
Fights between territorial males become more common when available water starts to shrink during the dry season. These clashes can be ferocious and fatal if one party does not back down. The vanished bull is sent packing, which, when water is scarce, can be a death sentence in the hot sun due to their sensitive skins.
The most dangerous animal in Africa?
These fearsome tusks are feared by all who encounter them, including people. The hippo is often touted as “Africa’s most dangerous animal” and the one that “kills the most people on the continent”. Both of these statements are distinctly unfair and demonstrably false. For a start (though admittedly somewhat pedantically), malaria-spreading Anopheles mosquitoes are also animals and indirectly kill up to half a million people every year. Furthermore, crocodiles likely kill just as many, if not more, people as hippos, but the bodies are frequently not found, and the victim disappears without a trace.
That said, hippos do earn their dangerous reputation. They can be aggressive and are massive, well-armed animals capable of doing significant harm. And unless you happen to be Usain Bolt, they can outrun you. Yet even this needs to be considered in context. Hippos are aquatic animals, and humans are dependent (and more populous) around water. Hippos feel safest in the water and are unlikely to bother people when fully submerged. It is when people come between them and their place of safety (or a calf) or, like my bull, during the dry season when space is at a premium, that they are most likely to attack. Staying out of their way is the best course of action. However, unfortunately, this is simply not possible for many people dependent on the river systems and living without running water.
Their speed has earned them a reputation for danger
Caught up in the tide
Of course, as dangerous as hippos can be to people, mankind too has wrought destruction on their species, and they now occupy just a fraction of their historical range. At present, the IUCN estimates there are somewhere between 115,000 and 130,000 Hippopotamus amphibius in Africa and lists their conservation status as “Vulnerable”. Though the assessors have listed the overall population trend as stable rather than decreasing, there are still many parts of Africa where hippo numbers have declined precipitously. Their close relative, the pygmy hippopotamus, is listed as “Endangered”, and there are believed to be fewer than 2,500 remaining.
The main threats facing the hippopotamids are habitat loss (as is the case for all large African mammals) and poaching for their tusks, valued in the ivory trade. They are also frequently victims of bushmeat poaching.
Yet, like other large mammals such as elephants and rhinos, hippos are important ecosystem engineers. The copious amounts of dung flung into the water by their swishing tails (much to tourist delight) provides nutrients to the many aquatic species that inhabit the waterways of Africa. Furthermore, their movement through channels and along the riverbed helps prevent a build-up of silt and moribund material, improving the river’s flow.
The greatest of beasts
When watched from a safe and comfortable distance, hippos are fascinating and delightful animals. They are also powerful, speedy and deserving of absolute respect. From the charming little calves and placid cows to playful adolescents and awe-inspiring bulls, there is something profoundly intriguing about the knowledge that we still have so much to learn…
Buffalo seen from the air in Timbavati Private Nature Reserve
Recently, five private reserves that form the Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR) in South Africa – a vital part of the Greater Kruger ecosystem – provided Africa Geographic with the data from their 2021 population censuses. We have sifted through this APNR census information to highlight the fascinating ebb and flow of nature and how reserve managers have to balance this against anthropogenic stressors to preserve the integrity of the ecosystem.
To do this, we start by looking at some of the key points from our analysis and provide important context for interpreting the results before breaking down the population trends for certain important species and families. [Editorial note: Due to security concerns, rhino trends and numbers have been omitted.]
INTERPRETING IN CONTEXT
Wildlife counts are invaluable for reserve management teams but cannot be viewed in isolation. CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING, and while each member of the APNR conducts their own census every year (resources allowing), it is a connected ecosystem. Ideally, these population censuses should be interpreted in combination with those of the Kruger National Park because they share an unfenced ecosystem. This is particularly true for animals with massive home ranges like elephants, buffalo, and wild dogs.
The counts have the potential to be meaningless without context and informed interpretation. Once the numbers are known, the real work begins for ecologists and managers – sorting through what is or isn’t important or relevant (or even natural) and finding explanations for anomalies.
Interpretation involves consideration of many different aspects, including climate (rainfall in particular), increased land area (the addition of Thornybush Game Reserve to the APNR in 2018, for example) and the impact of other species.
It is important to note specific correlations as the overabundance or scarcity of key species can significantly impact both the environment and other species.
No count is ever 100% accurate and only provides a snapshot in time, so analysing trends is essential.
This is not to say that individual results are insignificant. Local precipitous declines or overpopulations can indicate a serious problem that may not always have a natural or apparent cause.
THE ASSOCIATED PRIVATE NATURE RESERVES (APNR) – BACKGROUND
The 197,885 ha APNR is an association of privately owned reserves on the western edge of the Kruger National Park. Initially, the APNR consisted of just three reserves: Timbavati Private Nature Reserve (53,395 ha), Klaserie Private Nature Reserve (60,080 ha), and Umbabat Private Nature Reserve (17,910 ha). These three reserves removed their fences bordering the Kruger National Park in 1993. Balule Private Nature Reserve (55,000 ha) joined the association just over a decade later, and the fences between Balule and Klaserie dropped in 2005. Thornybush Game Reserve (13,866 ha) became the fifth reserve to join when the fences between Thornybush, Klaserie and Timbavati were removed in 2018.
The combined APNR comprises nearly two-thirds of the entire Greater Kruger – 344,000 hectares (860,000 acres) of protected land to the west of Kruger National Park that provides a more substantial area for wildlife to roam freely. Other members of the Greater Kruger include the Sabi Sand Reserve, Manyeleti Game Reserve, Letaba Ranch Game Reserve, and Makuya Nature Reserve. Land use varies from private leisure to photographic tourism and trophy hunting on some properties. For those reserves that conduct hunting, wildlife censuses are necessary to set appropriate quotas each year.
A WORD ON COUNTING
Counting wild animals is an enormous and costly exercise that requires that adaptive techniques for each species be balanced against the economic and logistical realities of each reserve. The APNR alone is roughly the size of Mauritius. The vast majority of the counts are conducted by air, with counters, spotters and data recorders spending days hanging out of a helicopter or plane. These are highly skilled individuals capable of not only spotting the animals but also often able to provide a breakdown of the demographics (males, females, and juveniles) of every animal seen. The counts are conducted towards the end of the dry season when vegetation cover is minimal, and the animals are more visible.
Larger animals like elephants and buffalo are generally easier to count (and fewer in number than, say, impala), so population estimates tend to be more accurate. Large herds (like breeding herds of buffalo) can be photographed, and these high-resolution images can then be used to count individuals. Though all animals spotted from the air are recorded in each census, common sense plays a role in interpretation. For example, a sighting of only one lion in Thornybush’s 2021 aerial count does not mean that there is only one lion on the reserve.
Furthermore, though predators are often spotted from the air, aerial counts do not provide accurate population estimates, particularly for cryptic animals like leopards and some smaller carnivore species. As a result, some reserves use camera traps and sightings information and conduct call-ups for their predator census. A call-up count involves placing bait and playing the sound of a prey species in distress over a speaker. The sound generally attracts the lions, spotted hyenas, and the occasional leopard and smaller carnivore. Wild dogs (painted wolves) and cheetahs are less likely to respond, even during the day and alternative methods have to be implemented if a population estimate is required. These predators also have large home ranges and regularly move in and out of reserves.
Predator populations are fluid and dynamic, fluctuating depending upon a variety of circumstances, including both inter- and intraspecific competition.
The majority of census counts are conducted by air, with counters, spotters and data recorders spending days in helicopters or planes
TRENDS AND THE 2016 DROUGHT IN GREATER KRUGER
The idea of a “stable” population is somewhat misleading, as there is no such thing in nature and, in reality, long-term wildlife populations fluctuate, ideally within a sustainable range. This range is determined by the carrying capacity of the reserve, dictated by geography, climate and flora of the landscape. Even when a once-off disaster (a disease outbreak or drought) causes a more dramatic decline in numbers, the species concerned often recover, provided their previous numbers were sufficiently robust.
The ebb and flow is evident throughout the data from all five reserves, especially concerning buffalo numbers during and after the 2015/2016 drought. Though the number of buffalo dropped substantially during the drought period, it is important to note that this is largely accounted for by the movement of buffalo herds to more favourable habitats to the east (in the Kruger National Park). Trends such as these emphasise the importance of large connected habitats. The 2016 drought was the first drought experienced since the removal of fences between the APNR and the Kruger National Park. This, in turn, allowed for greater ecological resilience in the face of extreme conditions.
Even as rainfall levels increased in later years, the return of the buffalo and the recovery of other ungulate numbers were by no means instantaneous, and lag effects were to be expected. What’s more, knock-on effects were experienced in other, less obvious ways. For example, deprived of buffalo, resident lions would have been forced to rely more heavily on other species for sustenance. There is also a seasonal change in prey species selection, with more wildebeest killed by lions during the wet season and weakened buffalo targeted during the dry season.
Entire APNR – Elephant numbers in the APNR have gradually increased since 2004, when the population stood at around 1,038. The population peaked in 2018 (3,297). In 2021, the total count from all five reserves was 3,144 elephants.
Balule – Balule has seen the most significant increase in elephants utilising the property over the past four years – 86%. 1,053 elephants were counted in 2021, representing the highest population (and density) of the five reserves. The demographics of the elephants entering Balule have also gradually changed since the reserve opened to the rest of the APNR in 2004. Initially, young males dominated, but today, breeding herds and calves are firmly in the majority.
Klaserie – 718 elephants were counted in 2021, increasing 62% since 2017.
Timbavati – 875 elephants were counted in 2021, compared to the 465 in 2017 (a nearly two-fold increase).
Thornybush – When Thornybush dropped its fences in 2018, the number of elephants in the reserve shot up from just over 50 individuals to 349. The population peaked at 770 before decreasing to 368 again in 2021. This increase and then decrease could be explained by the after-effects of the drought and the return of good rains in subsequent years. The dense, nutritious habitats that dominate much of Thornybush were more attractive to elephants until the flora in other regions recovered, resulting in some of the herds dispersing.
Umbabat – 130 elephants were counted in 2021. However, Umbabat elephant counts have varied considerably over the past four years, possibly explained by its relatively smaller size and close proximity to the Kruger National Park.
APNR’s elephant population peaked in 2018 at 3,297/ In 2021, the total count was 3,144 elephants
BUFFALO
Buffalo counts are highly variable due to the nature and movements of buffalo herds
Entire APNR – During (and almost exclusively due to) the 2015/2016 drought, the APNR buffalo population dropped from 7,291 to 2,251 in just two years. However, numbers have been slowly increasing with a couple of years’ worth of good rains, and the 2021 count stands at 3,725. Individual counts from the various APNR reserves are highly variable due to the nature of buffalo herds and the “snapshot” of the count. A breeding herd of over 500 may decide to leave the property the day before a count or arrive a day after. This is one area where an overall trend is more revealing.
With good rains over the past few years, buffalo numbers have been slowly increasing
PREDATORS
LION AND SPOTTED HYENA
Balule – Balule has experienced substantial growth in its lion population over the last decade. However, the verified numbers from the 2020 and 2021 censuses indicate a stabilisation and a minor decline, from 137 to 124 individuals. Curiously, Balule’s lion population has been nearly double that of neighbouring Klaserie and Timbavati in recent years. This could be partly explained by high prey biomass, but of particular interest is the high proportion of mature and young males in Balule compared to “normally” observed demographics. The managers theorise that may be due to the reserve’s geographical location. Young dispersal males may be pushed continually further west until they reach Balule, which marks the western boundary of this section of the Kruger ecosystem, where they can go no further without breaking out of the protection of the reserve. However, this leaves unanswered questions about Klaserie as the immediate neighbour to the east (see below).
Typically, high lion densities are associated with lower spotted hyena numbers, but this is not the case in Balule. 96 individual spotted hyenas were identified during the 2021 predator census, suggesting that spotted hyena densities in Balule are roughly on par with the surrounding reserves.
Klaserie – Klaserie’s call-up predator census in 2021 yielded a count of just 18 lions, compared to around 40 and 50 in 2020 and 2019, respectively. Naturally, this does not represent the reserve’s total lion population. However, this is a significant drop from previous years, and the call-up counts of 2021 were dominated by spotted hyena responses (80%). 141 spotted hyenas were counted in the 2021 census, compared to just under 80 the previous year. Lions and spotted hyenas are in direct competition, and a rise in hyena numbers could account for lower-than-expected lion populations.
Timbavati – According to the reserve ecologists, Timbavati has a population of between 55-60 lions which is in line with the long-term trend of the reserve.
Thornybush – The current resident lion population on Thornybush numbers 26 individuals. Reserve authorities estimate between 25 and 30 spotted hyenas.
Umbabat – The lion population was estimated at around 12 to 16 individuals, belonging to between two and three prides. The hyena numbers are believed to be approximately 50 to 60, and reports suggest that the population is growing.
Typically, high lion densities are associated with lower spotted hyena numbers, but the most recent census data in the private nature reserves around Kruger show surprising results
LEOPARDS
Entire APNR – Leopards are notoriously difficult animals to count, and those that do respond to call-ups are not representative of the total population. Klaserie and Umbabat anecdotally report healthy populations of leopards. The most robust data comes from Balule and Timbavati.
Balule – The Balule predator census combined call-up results with sightings data and camera trap images. The identification of individuals helped in this process, and Balule confidently estimates the number of leopards at around 76.
Timbavati – Timbavati has been conducting surveys of their leopard population since 2013 (except for 2020 due to COVID). In conjunction with the South African Leopard Monitoring Project (a cooperative effort between the NGO Panthera, SANBI and other partners), camera trap surveys have provided reliable long-term trends for the reserve. The reserve leopard monitoring reports note a significant drop in leopard densities in 2019. While the 2021 data records a slight increase, there has still been a concerning decline of 50% between 2018 to 2021. It is important to note that this decline refers to leopard densities, measured in the number of leopards per 100km2. Interestingly, the number of adult males and females has remained consistent between 2019 to 2021, but the number of young males appears to have decreased. The report offers a couple of suggested explanations for this, including lion movements, but emphasises the importance of long-term trend monitoring to inform management practices.
Leopards are difficult to count, and tallies are not necessarily representative of the total population
WILD DOGS
Entire APNR – Wild dogs utilise enormous home ranges except when packs are denning, before the pups can keep up. A pack counted on Balule one day could easily turn up on a neighbouring property the next day. As such, precision counting is next to impossible. Nevertheless, anecdotal evidence suggests that the APNR wild dog population is healthy and possibly even growing.
Balule – 22 wild dogs were recorded in Balule: three packs of five and one pack of seven individuals.
Klaserie – Reserve authorities report that wild dog populations have flourished in Klaserie in recent years, possibly due to water abundance, favouring impala population growth. The single largest pack size recorded on the reserve was 50 individuals!
Thornybush – At the time of writing, two packs regularly use Thornybush. One pack of six individuals is currently denning on the reserve.
Umbabat – Wild dog sightings are regularly reported in Umbabat, with pack sizes varying from eight to 30 individuals.
GIRAFFE
Entire APNR – Giraffe numbers in the APNR peaked at 1,127 in 2018 and have since remained stable when all five reserves are considered as a unit.
Giraffe numbers have remained stable
BLUE WILDEBEEST, KUDU, IMPALA, WATERBUCK AND WARTHOG
Entire APNR – Balule has recorded a significant decline in blue wildebeest (-57%), kudu (-44%), impala (-37%), waterbuck (-54%) and warthog (-63%) from 2018 until 2021. Population peaks and troughs have probably occurred naturally for millennia (especially before and after a drought). However, it is interesting that the same trend is not entirely mirrored in the counts from other APNR members. Where declines in the other reserves occurred over the same period, as was the case for impala, kudu and wildebeest numbers, the drop in populations was not nearly as substantial. The only comparable drop was seen in warthog numbers in Klaserie, which also decreased 61% (from 236 to 91) between 2018 and 2021. Waterbuck numbers increased in Klaserie and Thornybush, and kudu numbers nearly doubled in Umbabat.
Determining an exact explanation for this trend is just one example of the challenges that face those managing these wild spaces. Was it caused by increasing vegetation thickness making counting challenging? Could it be attributed to Balule’s comparatively high lion, hyena, and elephant densities? Is it just part of a natural cycle, or is there another, unseen explanation?
A summation of the entire APNR’s wildebeest, kudu, waterbuck and warthog numbers, and impala numbers
OTHER NOTEWORTHY POINTS
Balule’s census indicates a concerning drop in crocodiles counted, down from over 120 in some years to just 30 individuals. The authors of the census report suggest that this warrants further investigation. In addition, comparing counts in the Kruger National Park would be interesting, as the Olifants River flows west through Balule and into the Kruger. It may be a counting artefact but could also indicate a problem with the health of the river ecosystem.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Counting animals comes with challenges (and strained eyes), but analysing the data is a far more cerebral and long-term exercise. Wildlife counts are vital to understanding any wilderness and significantly impact management decisions. Accurate population estimates and trends aid short-term and long-term decisions (like waterholes or hunting quotes, for example) and identify potential problems while there is still a chance to remedy them. However, an overarching perspective is often invaluable in the case of connected ecosystems – be it the APNR, the Kruger ecosystem, conservancies in East Africa or Transfrontier conservation areas.
What do you think about the ebb and flow of various species numbers in the APNR? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Follow the instructions below to download our APP and share your comments – it’s free!
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And the winner is …
It’s early prime safari season and we have clients all over Africa enjoying this incredible place. Safari njema, folks!
Exciting news is that our app now empowers you to play a bigger role in planning your own safari. You can now select lodges from the ‘Travel with us’ tab by place (country, reserve name) and add them to your ‘wishlist‘. Our team are on stand by to mould your wishlist into a life-changing safari – when you are ready. You can also toggle between map view and list view, select non-malaria options and see prices in the currency of your choice.
We are now loading ready-made safari packages to the mix – which you can also add to your wishlist. Again you can filter by place – and also by your preferred experience. Expect more packages in the coming weeks as we populate that app feature.
Another great improvement to the app is that you can filter our stories and forum posts by topic – simply tap/click the red topic labels and voila!
Exciting times 🙂
Keep the passion
Simon Espley – CEO, Africa Geographic
From our Editor – Taryn van Jaarsveld
?? We have a winner! ??
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums – see the conquering heroes come! This week, we reveal the winner, runners-up and highly commended images from Photographer of the Year 2022. We’ve celebrated epic Africa through impeccable images from some of the world’s most talented photographers.
Thank you to every photographer who courageously shared your valuable art with us, so that we may all experience Africa as you have. Your skill and creativity have brought this magic right to us – and for that, we thank every one of you.
Happy celebrating Africa to you all!
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
Evolution is one of those things that happens so slowly that we can’t really see the changes, right? Well, not entirely, as it turns out. Did you know that in certain animals, adaptive evolution may be occurring up to four times faster than previously believed?
Scientists looked at 19 different wild populations of birds and mammals studied over several decades to figure this out. The data utilised represent around 2.6 million hours of fieldwork and a quarter of a million study subjects! They then applied some somewhat complicated genetic models and statistics to quantify the rate of evolution.
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“Earlier this year, I went on an epic 17-day Kenya safari with AG. We searched for and found super tuskers and endangered hirola in Tsavo and Amboseli. In Mara we had great leopard, lion, serval and cheetah sightings. I stayed at Satao Camp (Tsavo East), Satao Elerai Camp (Amboseli) & Sentinel Mara Camp (Maasai Mara) and, bookingwith AG, I received a great rate. So when it came down to it, I saved US$ 1,485 on my trip. Plus, I got some iconic shots of elephants against the backdrop of Kilimanjaro to boot.”
WATCH: One minute and 15 seconds of Botswana’s finest landscapes, waterways and wildlife, to inspire your next safari. Get the AG app to start planning your upcoming safaris now (01:15). Click here to watch
Announcing… ?? the winners of Photographer of the Year 2022 ??! We’ve waited on this moment with bated breath, and the results do not disappoint. The winner and two runners-up will share the princely sum of US$10,000 and join their partners and our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safari in Botswana, where they’ll take more wonderful snaps of our wildlife, landscapes and people.
What a feat – we have reached the summit of Photographer of the Year 2022 – after traversing 7,389 glorious entries, which rendered 344 images selected in our weekly galleries. We’ve narrowed these wondrous images down to 14 highly commended, two runners-up, and one ultimate winner.
Over the past few months, we’ve witnessed authentic Africa come to life. We’ve been granted rare otherworldly glimpses into the ocean’s depths and onto the peaks of the continent’s tallest mountains, into rare species, ethereal treescapes, and some uncanny creatures in compromising positions. We’ve witnessed wondrous wildlife caught in junctures between survival and demise and in moments of calm and affection. We’ve been transported by visceral images of intimate human rites and rituals, and our understanding of the natural world has been tested and enlightened, igniting introspection and inspiration. From victorious wins to desperate losses, from new life to untimely death, we’ve realised that the great continent will never cease to surprise us. All of our entrants found themselves in precisely the right place at the right time, and through their skill and creativity, they have brought this magic right to us – and for that, we thank every one of you.
I gush over these enlightening experiences as it bears repeating that the selection process was tough. But our chosen winners are right where they belong. They have evoked emotion, told explicit tales and captured true Africa with artistic and considerate skill. Thank you to everyone who fearlessly laid the wares of your efforts and skill bare so that we may experience Africa as you have.
Lastly, we offer thanks and gratitude to our sponsors, Hemmersbach Rhino Force and Natural Selection, whose epic prizes are the most fitting reward for the endeavours of these excellent photographers.
WINNER – PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2022
Last seconds of life. A mother zebra makes one final attempt to separate her foal from its pursuant – but fails. Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya.
Judges’ comment:
There is something about this dramatic capture of a split-second in the lives of this cheetah and zebras that transcends the many predation photos that we receive for consideration. The desperate battle for survival is etched on their faces, and a final goodbye between mother and child emphasises the raw emotional energy of the moment. This is the first predation photo to win Photographer of the Year.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“That morning, we decided to follow four cheetahs on the hunt. We followed them for hours. We passed herds of topis, gazelles, and zebras. We knew something was going to happen. When, five hours later, our Maasai guide whispered, ‘they are going for the zebras,’ I was convinced they would attack the topis or gazelles dotted across the valley. Seconds later, the cheetahs burst into a small group of zebras. One cheetah ran towards us, clinging onto a foal. In those seconds, I took this picture of the mother zebra launching a last attempt to push her foal away from the attacking cheetah. She failed. I will remember those last seconds for the rest of my life.”
About photographer Alex Brackx
Alex Brackx is a wildlife photographer who teaches languages in Belgium. He started to pursue nature photography in 2010 while travelling in South and Central America. Through further travels in Asia, Belarus, Finland, and again South America, he began to hone his craft, travelling to film and take photos of wildlife. For Alex, it is a thrill to photograph his observations of animals, birds, landscapes, jungles, deserts and oceans.
The explosion of colour against the restless energy of the waves, with backlighting courtesy of the sun, combine with the photographer’s patience and technical skills to create an exceptional capture. The ocean’s creatures are largely hidden from us, so otherworldly. This image helps us cross the divide; hopefully, enough of us will listen when we are told that our future depends on healthy oceans.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“Sandy anemones are native to the very shallow waters around the coasts of southern Africa. Those living in rock pools are greatly dependent on tidal and wave action for their survival. These actions bring nutrient and oxygen-rich water to these mostly stationary creatures. When there is not enough ‘fresh’ water, the anemones will close up, and the landscape will become rather barren-looking. But when these pools are full of water, a kaleidoscope of colours can be seen. It’s as if they celebrate life as they are so vividly reminded about the fragile line between feasting and starving with each tidal change.”
About photographer Geo Cloete
Geo Cloete is a multifaceted artist with a degree in architecture from Nelson Mandela Bay University. His photographic works have been recognised through various photographic competitions. Geo has completed award-winning works in architecture, jewellery, sculpture, and photography. As a life-long “aqua man” with an undying love for the ocean, it’s been his passion to share the beauty, splendour and exquisiteness of the underwater world through his photographic projects. Geo strongly believes in the notion that we only love that which we know, and we only protect that which we love. In 2016, in recognition of his contributions to ocean conservation, Geo was selected as a partner for Mission Blue, an organisation that inspires action to explore and protect the ocean.
The mystical impression that this sunbird is carrying a drop of precious liquid to some sacred place makes this a unique capture. Of course, split-second timing was required, and the photographer spent ten days working the scene.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“I am passionate about bird photos, and during my trip to Senegal, I sprained an ankle. I could not walk for days. But I noticed that sunbirds were regularly coming to drink water at a pipe that had a leak. It seemed as if these birds preferred to drink this ‘softer’ water, as the water of the Sine Saloum River is very salty. For ten days in a row, I photographed these birds at that spot. Finally, I could capture the perfect moment, as this sunbird took this water droplet into its mouth.”
About photographer Cecile Terrasse
Cecile Terrasse is a French wildlife photographer. Cecile enjoys spending time in nature, particularly observing and photographing birds. She strives to capture beautiful light and ambience in her photographs.
The explosion of colours immediately tags this capture worthy of a second look. What a wonderful celebration of a cryptic creature accessible to anybody in the right area with loads of patience. Note the flat (non-arched) posture and lack of dark colouration on the chameleon – it’s relaxed.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“A Knysna dwarf chameleon disappears into the vibrant colours of an erica shrub. These chameleons are surprisingly common in the Garden Route Botanical Gardens, although until you get your ‘eye in’, they can be quite tricky to spot.”
About photographer Brendon White
Originally from Francistown, Botswana, Brendon spent much of his childhood enjoying the outdoors. His father’s keen interest in birds and bird photography sparked Brendon’s passion for the same when he left school. This led him to pursue a degree in nature conservation. After working in a variety of southern Africa’s diverse habitats, including four years as a field guide at Phinda Private Game Reserve, he and his wife Zandri moved to the Isles of Scilly in the UK. They now spend their free time searching for rare birds and other interesting wildlife. Without large animals to distract him, Brendon is currently working on photographing the diverse moth species that the UK has to offer.
Both the fish and the fisherman are caught in a trap. Decreasing naturally functioning habitat means fewer fish and fewer sustainable protein sources and jobs. This is another of Africa’s stories – that vital bond between biodiversity and local people.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“Early morning at low tide, this Tsonga man speared a fish in his family’s fish kraal, which consists of a guide fence that curves towards a fish trap, allowing fish easy entry, but no escape. The Tsonga tribal authority granted his family this specific site for building the kraal. For centuries, the Tsonga people have fished the Kosi Bay lake system, using a skill passed down from generation to generation. Historically, these fish kraals provided a significant food source. In the 1990s, the numbers of these kraals trebled, leading to overfishing in the area. Today, fishermen in the area struggle to provide for their families because of the dwindling fish population.”
About photographer Hesté de Beer
Hesté de Beer hails from a family of skilled photographers, but it was not until 12 years ago that she became interested in the craft. At the time, she asked her father to introduce her to the world of photography. He is still her mentor and strictest critic. Hesté travels with her partner to distant locations around the globe to pursue the most endangered species of the animal kingdom. Through her travels, she has witnessed the adverse effects of the ever-growing human population and technology on the natural world and ancient tribes and cultures. Hesté aims to raise awareness of this plight through her photography.
This bee-eater stack had us all searching for signs of a composite image! What a celebration of these beautiful birds, movement and grace. Stunning!
Photographer and photo details – read more
“White-fronted bee-eaters are such busy birds and constantly look for insects to feed on. I arrived at the Aloe Farm’s nesting wall to find the bee-eaters flying in and out of their nests and settling on perches along the wall. There were ten bee-eaters perched next to each other: some were basking in the sun, others snacking on insects, and many were preening themselves. Suddenly, something startled them, and they took flight – allowing me to capture this image.”
About photographer Sean Davis
Sean Davis is an amateur nature photographer who has a passion for bird and wildlife photography. Working in the printing industry, he has always had a fascination with photography. In 2015, he accompanied a friend on an outing to photograph birds and the bug bit. Seven years on, Sean has travelled to many destinations in pursuit of honing his skill. He enjoys constantly learning from other inspiring photographers whilst photographing and experiencing the beauty of birds and nature across southern Africa.
The stuff of legends. This breathtaking image is for the countless numbers of wildlife enthusiasts that have tried in vain to see a black leopard, let alone photograph one, and with a kill! No further words are required.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“On the night I captured this shot of a young female leopard, I was hosting a safari with guests to spot her. This was the last of our six nights, and we had been hoping for a good view of her. She delivered spectacularly. We observed her for almost an hour, and she was clearly on the hunt. It is tough to follow a black leopard at night as they camouflage very well. We alternated spotlit scans of the area with periods of darkness in the hopes she would be successful on the hunt. And then we heard it: the unmistakable cry of an animal that had been caught. Silence followed. We scanned again. She appeared out of the shadows, carrying a dik-dik kicking helplessly. The leopard proceeded to carry the then lifeless animal toward a nearby riverbank through dense scrub. We moved to an opening where I captured her dragging the carcass over the rocks. Her eyes and the dik-dik lit up for the briefest moment against the pitch-black background before she disappeared and melted into the darkness. This encounter was beyond privileged, and I count myself extremely lucky to have been able to capture this moment.”
About photographer Nick Kleer
Nick is a wildlife guide who has been guiding for 13 years. Most of his guiding career has been spent in South Africa, where he has worked in public and private reserves. Nick has spent most of this time pursuing his greatest passion: big cats. In his spare time, he searches for big cats outside of the African continent, in destinations such as India and Brazil, searching for tigers and jaguars. For the past three years, Nick has stepped out of lodge-based guiding in favour of privately guided trips. He now travels with guests on safari trips to incredible destinations through Africa and beyond. He aims to inspire a love of wildlife through his photography and raise awareness of the importance of conservation of wild areas to make a positive impact on the world of the wild and all its inhabitants.
Excellent composition and creative post-production make for a striking portrait. The dramatic sky seems to radiate from this herder – to give him wings – and his intense stare adds to the energy of this capture.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“We left camp around 4.30am. Even in the excited anticipation of photographing the remote tribes of Ethiopia, I dozed on and off as we rocked back and forth along the long and dusty road. Our goal was to reach the tribal village before sunrise. We wanted to capture authentic images of the people going about their morning activities. I love photographing people – I have been a professional portrait photographer all my adult life. When we arrived, the men were busy with their cattle, and I saw this gentleman standing on a small sand mound, watching over his cattle. The sunrise was full of dramatic clouds and beautiful textures. The light was flat enough to maintain detail in the man and the sky. I knelt and placed the clouds in perfect alignment. The man glanced over his cows, and I made the exposure. This will always be one of my favourite photographic moments.”
About photographer Kevin Dooley
Kevin Dooley is an award-winning wildlife, portrait and wedding photographer who grew up in Placitas, New Mexico. His interest in photography began at an early age when at 14, he was gifted with a 35mm camera. Working as an assistant photographer and darkroom technician in his father’s portrait studio, Kevin began his life-long career in photography. After completing service in the US Navy, he returned to New Mexico and opened his photography studio in Albuquerque. During the 39 years the studio has been in operation, he has received numerous awards and been published in many publications. He has also released a photography book: Wild faces in wild places. Africa has always had a special place in Kevin’s heart. He thrives on sharing this amazing place with others.
This photo tells the story of one of Africa’s true conservationists – a man who has dedicated his life to saving mountain gorillas – one gorilla at a time. Unlike many in the greater wildlife industries space, Andre Bauma has realised that for some species, we are down to every individual being vital for population stability.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“Andre Bauma rescued the then two-month-old Ndakasi in Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo, in 2007. Poachers had killed her parents, and she was still clinging to her mother’s dead body when she was found. Carrying her to safety inside his shirt to keep her warm, Andre came to take on the role of both mother and father, sharing Ndakasi’s bed, feeding her, playing with her, and comforting her at her new home, the Senkwekwe Mountain Gorilla Sanctuary. Their bond grew stronger, with Andre often speaking of Ndakasi and the other orphaned gorillas as his children. In September 2021, despite access to specialist veterinarians, Ndakasi succumbed to illness and died in Andre’s arms, 14 years after he found her.”
About photographer Marcus Westberg
Marcus Westberg is an award-winning Swedish photographer and writer who focuses primarily on conservation topics in sub-Saharan Africa and Scandinavia. He is a photographer for African Parks, and his work is frequently found in publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, bioGraphic, Vagabond, GEO and Wanderlust.
This is not an image to gladden the heart. On the contrary, our judges agonised over this depiction of “cruelty”. Is this wanton violence; should we suppress it because of the poor baby monkey’s lot? Or should we stay the course we chose 31 years ago to also reflect harsh reality? And that, dear reader, is why we chose this image – because the emotional rollercoaster it sparks in our minds leads to a better understanding of how nature works.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“While following a pride of lions in Zimanga Private Game Reserve early one morning, I noticed something attracted the young male lion’s attention, and I followed his gaze. He had noticed that a young vervet monkey had wandered away from the troop, foraging on the ground in dense vegetation. The vervets were oblivious to the predator, and he made his move. The noise of his hastened approach alerted the mother, and she turned to rescue her baby. Lion and mother arrived together, and opportunistically the lion turned his attention to the desperate mother. In trying to save her baby, she paid the ultimate price for her maternal instinct.”
About photographer Hendri Venter
Hendri Venter is a photographic guide at Zimanga Private Game Reserve in South Africa. He has always been enchanted by wildlife and the natural world. Growing up on a farm, he enjoyed spending time with its seemingly endless expanse of wildlife. Exploring nature by horseback and by foot, he formed a strong sense of appreciation and amazement for all things natural. He enjoys taking images that capture the endless ebb and flow of nature.
The juxtaposition of these massive Grandidier’s baobabs and the playing children makes for a telling story. The kids belong to parents that sell their wares to tourists that come to wonder at the baobabs. Without tourism money, those trees will likely go the way of much of Madagascar’s natural vegetation, and the rural villagers would have fewer livelihood options. This is one of Africa’s most compelling stories – the bond between biodiversity, local people and tourists.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“The photo was taken in August 2018. The name ‘baobab’ is derived from an Arabic term meaning ‘seed-bearing fruit’. As it takes seven years for a small tree to grow only 50cm high, some of the oldest baobabs with thick trunks are regarded as holy trees. Many people come to the trees to pray for children, money, good fortune and illness. In Madagascar, locals regard the baobab tree as sacred, and it is known as the ‘tree of life’.”
About photographer Aimin Chen
Aimin Chen is an independent photographer who spends much of her time focusing on field photography. Aimin has always loved the life and culture of Africa and hopes to continue to record more wonders of the world with her camera.
You can wait for hours while the dinosaur of birds patiently monitors a lungfish breathing hole on a floating raft of papyrus reeds. And then, nothing. Or, your patience might be rewarded with a brief glimpse of a kill – and a blurry photographic memento. Rarely do you capture the perfect shot of predator and prey. That makes this an exceptional capture worth celebrating.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“The prehistoric-looking shoebill is an iconic bird in Uganda. My dream of photographing this bird in its natural environment led me to Entebbe. I travelled with the guide and boatman on a wooden dinghy to Mabamba Swamp, where we found one bird standing in the swamp vegetation. Our boatman was able to manoeuvre the dinghy into the ideal spot to capture the photo. But the hard work was yet to begin: we were waiting for the bird to hunt. This can take hours, as shoebills – too heavy to chase their prey – stand still for long periods, waiting for unsuspecting creatures to swim close by. But after a long wait, the bird suddenly made an attack, catching a large lungfish – grabbing a beak full of swampy vegetation in the process. It is magical to share this moment with others. What an extraordinary bird!”
About photographer Guenther Kieberger
Guenther Kieberger hails from Austria. He picked up his passion for wildlife photography ten years ago. Working as a cameraman on wildlife documentaries, he travels to many destinations on adventures around the world. His photos have been widely published in books and magazines. His photographic pursuits centre around identifying specific wildlife subjects to capture and focusing solely on the species in question throughout a photographic trip. Sharing these images with people who cannot experience these moments for themselves brings him joy.
If you have experienced the oppressive heat and enveloping, suffocating dust at the peak of the African dry season, you will live this capture with every cell in your body. The desperate search for water is written on every face as this pathfinder leads her herd to the natural spring.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“For the past ten years, I have spent a few months a year in northern Zimbabwe, where, in untouched wilderness, one can still watch nature’s dramas unfold. In 2021, at the end of the dry season, I spent a couple of weeks at Chitake Springs in the interior of Mana Pools National Park. With dwindling food sources, soaring temperatures up to 45°C, and the daily need to drink, the buffalo were drawn to whatever water remained. I was on foot when I captured this image as the herd of buffalo arrived at the spring. Given the dynamics and unpredictability of the encounters, there is always a lot to consider when in these situations!”
About photographer Jens Cullman
Jens Cullman was born in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1969. His introduction to photography was at age 13, when he received his first camera. As a teenager, he worked with black-and-white film and image developing until he was able to acquire more sophisticated equipment. During a trip to Namibia and Botswana in 2003, Jens’ passion for wildlife photography really ignited, and he has grown in stature since then. He has won several prestigious international awards. Jens was the winner of the Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year 2020 and a runner-up in the 2019 competition. He uses his photography to create awareness about conservation issues and preserving natural habitats.
A brilliant capture of the moment when a mere glance becomes a ponder, a calculation even. Our genetic similarities aside, this image forces us to recognise another great ape as sentient and thoughtful.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“After two unforgettable gorilla treks in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, the next step on the expedition was visiting Kibale National Park to see the chimpanzees. We found a large family group and stayed with them for some time. We were able to observe the many different personalities in the group. Some were shy and skittish, whilst others were bold. We came across this individual who was very comfortable in our presence. I felt privileged to be accepted in his presence. Some of the other family members in the group were still in the trees above, and, just like me, this chimp was regularly looking up, seemingly worried that he would be the target of fruit, urine and branches falling from the trees above.”
About photographer Johan Siggesson
Johan, an award-winning wildlife photographer, was born in Sweden. Since 2001 he has lived on the small Mediterranean island of Malta, where he recently published his first book, on the island’s wild orchids. He regularly guides photographic tours around the world. After his first safari to Kenya in 2012, he took up wildlife photography full-time. Since then, he has had great success in prestigious international photography competitions. More recently, he was appointed as a Fellow of the Malta Institute of Professional Photography and an elected member of the Swedish Association for Nature Photographers. In his new home country of Malta, a keen interest in nature is not woven into the island’s culture, nor is it a priority in politics. With both his local and international work, Johan hopes to raise awareness and appreciation for the natural world that we are all part of.
What goes where, and who owns what? A bit of fun as we are forced to concentrate for longer than the usual glance at our busy mobile phone feeds.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“I’ve always been struck by the sense of calm projected by giraffes, and there was something almost meditative about the concentration of these two, and the demure sweep of their lashes and slow grace of their long velvet noses as they nuzzled the soil – as if they were savouring the moment. I chose my angle and held my breath as their heads moved ever closer, and they continued to brush against the earth – until they finally attained a fleeting moment of symmetry.”
About photographer Julian Asher
Born in San Francisco and currently based in London, Julian Asher has lived in cities around the world, including New York, Zurich, Berlin, and Cape Town. Julian is an award-winning photographer who will go to great lengths in the name of the perfect shot, including being duct-taped into a doorless helicopter over the Okavango Delta in Botswana. The risks have paid off – his work has won multiple awards and has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. As a photographer, Julian focuses primarily on wildlife and wild places – with a particular interest in predators and their behaviour and in indigenous peoples and their traditions. He spends several months a year in the field in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He enjoys sharing his love of the natural world by leading photography workshops and planning safaris as the founder of Timeless Africa, a triple-bottom-line sustainable travel company. Julian serves on the boards of several Africa-focused NGOs centring on conservation and education.
This leopard sliding under the electric fence of a residential wildlife estate on the outskirts of a bushveld town is a sensational illustration of peri-urban leopard survival and cunning. It’s also a sad depiction of a wild creature “navigating between two prison cells”, as one Facebook observer commented.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“The leopardess captured in this image has been the primary subject of a peri-urban leopard identification project that I started over three years ago. Her territory includes a disturbed landscape with a large human presence. Despite this, she has found a way to survive while evading our detection almost entirely and has successfully raised at least three litters of cubs to independence. I was determined to capture an image which showcased her remarkable versatility, so I set out to look for her, day after day, night after night. After almost two years of failed attempts, fortuitous circumstances finally intervened. On a late afternoon game drive, my wife and I spotted the leopardess and one of her cubs outside the perimeter fence line. I reversed the vehicle to a respectful distance and cut the engine. Though these leopards are hypersensitive to human presence, I was certain they had a kill on the wildlife estate, so they would need to enter underneath the electric fence. I waited until the mother leopard emerged from the roadside thickets and effortlessly slid underneath the electric fence. I witnessed the leopard’s mellifluous motion through my camera’s viewfinder as the firing shutter captured her attention. Then the cub swiftly followed her mother. Now, this resilient peri-urban leopard’s story is known by many.”
About photographer Owen Gröbler
Owen is an aspiring conservation photographer based in South Africa, with a desire to highlight the challenges faced by tenacious peri-urban leopards in the Greater Kruger region. Owen has published a coffee table book, Searching for spots, about the leopards he has monitored through the duration of a leopard identification project he runs on Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate. His goal is to improve people’s mindsets toward human-predator co-existence and encourage the protection of the natural habitat. Although Owen has a deep love for leopards, he is a nature enthusiast who enjoys birding and the challenges that wildlife photography presents. Travelling to wild spaces and capturing unique moments is where he feels most at home.
Mom’s massive foot gently cradling her tiny baby seems to curve around that delicate ear. A touching, tender moment that so defines elephants and makes us want to spend time with them.
Photographer and photo details – read more
“This photo was taken during a visit to Kruger National Park in December 2021. It was a scorching day near Punda Maria when we spotted a large herd of elephants making their way down to the river to quench their thirst and cool off in the water. One female elephant was not interested in joining the fun and was just standing still. At first, I thought she was injured or sick, but as we drove closer, I noticed her tiny calf resting peacefully at her feet in the shade that she provided. An epitome of a mother’s love and protection of her little one.”
About photographer Ilna Booyens
Ilna Booyens is an award-winning wildlife photographer whose work has been featured in numerous publications. She has always been drawn to the bushveld’s sights, sounds, and smells. Her passion for wildlife photography started in 2015 when she was gifted with a camera. She enjoys the connection developed with the natural world when photographing its wonders. Ilna spends as much time as possible in the bushveld, testing her patience and perseverance by braving extreme weather conditions and driving for hours to find the perfect subject.
Announcing the finalists for Photographer of the Year! After much deliberation over the past few weeks, we’ve narrowed down 7,389 submissions to 44 truly exceptional images. Kick-start your weekend with an endorphin rush as you indulge in these marvellous images.
The scourge of rhino poaching has policymakers seeking creative solutions. In 2021, discussions on rhino-horn trade were floated by Barbara Creecy’s High-Level Panel – sparking highly polarised debate. Would the farming of rhinos prevent illegal trade in wild rhino horn? In our third story below, we examine the research into the preferences of the actual consumers of rhino horn – which has a significant bearing on the potential impact of legalising the trade in rhino horn.
Happy indulging in Africa to you all!
Taryn van Jaarsveld — Editor
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
Did you know that rhinos make squealing noises like cetaceans (dolphins and whales)? Rhinos of all ages use this whine to communicate, though it is especially adorable when the youngsters do it. If you don’t believe me, follow the link to enjoy an enchanting pair of rhino calves squealing for their lunch.
It’s cute, right?
Over 100 rhinos have been massacred in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in South Africa in just five months. We could debate the merits of trade (see our story below) in circles for eternity and would likely never reach a consensus, but we are running out of time to act. South Africa’s rhinos are vanishing in front of our eyes. Though if Minister Creecy is to be believed, it is simply increased anti-poaching measures in Kruger (and not dwindling rhino numbers) that has sent poachers scurrying to Kwa-Zulu Natal …
The BEST VALUE in the Maasai Mara right now?Our 6-day safari at the intimate Enkewa Camp in the southeastern Maasai Mara ecosystem. This eco-friendly camp is owner run, so expect attention to detail and a homely feel – ideal for singles, couples and groups seeking to recharge their batteries and enjoy traditional Kenyan hospitality.
MOUNTAIN GORILLA TREKKING is the ultimate bucket-list choice amongst our safari clients. We have our popular 3-day gorilla trekking safari in Rwanda for the time-pressured traveller. Prices are excellent, even more so for SADC tourists. It’s time to tick this one off your list …
WATCH: Five minutes of calm – explore South Africa’s forest beneath the waves. Many algal forests are in decline due to warming oceans. But along South Africa’s coastline, the 1,200km-long Great African Sea Forest still thrives (05:02). Click here to watch
Here are the finalists in our 2022 Photographer of the Year! We will announce the overall winner and two runners-up in the beginning of June. They will share US$10 000 in prize money and join their partners and our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safari in Botswana.
Here are the finalists in our 2022 Photographer of the Year! We will announce the overall winner and two runners-up in the beginning of June. They will share US$10 000 in prize money and join their partners and our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safari in Botswana.
As conservationists and rangers work around the clock to protect Africa’s rhinos, scientists on the other side of the globe are attempting to unravel different aspects of the trade: including the perspectives and market preferences from actual consumers of rhino horn. Do these consumers prefer the horn of a wild rhino over that of a “farmed” or captive rhino? The answer to this question has a significant bearing on the potential impact of legalising the trade in rhino horn.
Rhino populations in Africa continue their dizzying decline due to poaching. The Kruger National Park – a protected area in South Africa where populations were once thriving – for example, has experienced a 75% decline in population numbers in the past 10 years. Conservation circles are locked in a fierce debate on whether legalising the horn trade would save these iconic animals or be the instrument of their final destruction. (A complete summary of the nuances of this debate can be found here: Rhino horn trade – yes or no.) The success or failure of a controlled trade strategy will depend on several factors, including how the market develops if legal restrictions are removed. This is a complex question involving everything from economics to sociology, and it is almost impossible to predict accurately.
The history of wildlife trading has shown that wildlife farming can benefit species conservation under certain specific conditions. In particular, the end consumer would need to consider the farmed/sustainably harvested products to be equal in quality and status to wild products and to be a suitable substitute¹ ². If consumers who buy rhino products prefer horns from wild rhinos, this would constitute a threat to the remaining population of wild rhinos.
A concerned calf stays close to her mother’s side, as she is readied for a horn removal
What does the research say about the rhino horn debate?
The two largest rhino-horn markets are in China and Vietnam³, and much of the market research conducted in recent years has focussed on consumer surveys in these regions.
The most recent study⁴, published at the end of 2021, identified 345 rhino horn consumers in Vietnam, where the horn is used as a treatment for hangovers and fevers, and as a detoxifying agent. The researchers found that, on average, those surveyed were willing to pay more for horn from wild or semi-wild rhinos due to the belief that these have more potent medicinal properties. (A summary of their methods and conclusions can be accessed here.) Notably, wealthy respondents with a high “need” for rhino horn favoured wild rhino horn, while those with lower incomes and a lower “need” for rhino horn preferred semi-wild horns over wild horns.
A previous study⁵ by two of the authors of the above research found that 73% of survey respondents in Vietnam preferred wild horn to horn from farmed animals. One consumer stated, “I am willing to pay more for the wild ones, even double. Even though there was a legal trade rhino horn, I would only buy the wild ones [sic]”.
Another study conducted using similar methods that approached the question from a slightly different angle⁶ found that consumers preferred wild horn over semi-wild and farmed products. However, there was a definite preference for horns harvested in a sustainable, nonlethal manner: “the finding that [those surveyed] strongly prefer horn acquired from nonlethal harvesting has not been reported previously and suggests that horn sourced humanely from living rhinos would attract a premium in the market”.
A study that focussed on traditional Chinese-medicine practitioners in Hong Kong⁷ found a similar pattern. Though this research did not specifically address the distinction between wild and farmed horn, 50% of the practitioners interviewed expressed a preference for sustainably harvested horn should the trade be legalised. The remaining half suggested that they would not distinguish between sustainably harvested or lethally obtained horn.
Rhinos are dehorned as a protective measure against poachers
A word of caution?
It is important to note that there are inherent limitations in market surveys conducted in a “what if” scenario. It is challenging to expand these responses to predict the ultimate market behaviour should the trade in rhino horn be legalised. This applies to arguments both for and against the legalisation of rhino horn trade and is in large part responsible for the deadlock in making the call one way or another.
Critics of the research into wild/farmed horn consumer preferences suggest that “the wild versus farmed narrative is based on assumptions that over-simplify consumer behaviour and can lead to conclusions that do not recognise the complexity of real wildlife markets”⁸. Hinsley and t’Sas-Rolfe (2020) argue it is challenging to link preferences with real-world behaviour, as other confounding factors (such as legality or availability) may also play an influential role.
Naturally, the legal trade in rhino horn is both a scientific and ideological conundrum, and subconscious biases could impact scientific methodology and conclusions. Even the terminology used could potentially influence consumers. For example, rhinos in South Africa are generally not “farmed” in the way people might think of feedlot cattle, and most private rhino owners operate a semi-intensive system. Creating a distinction between “farmed”, “wild”, and “semi-wild” was a vital step in the research process.
When preference could kill
It is clear from available science that if given a choice between horns from wild rhino and farmed rhino, many consumers show an evident preference for wild horn. This tendency to associate increased potency or effectiveness with wild-sourced products is seen in traditional medicine involving other wild species such as tigers⁹. How this will translate in terms of behaviour is more challenging to predict.
Regardless, these preferences need to be taken seriously. Supposing legal rhino horn enters the market, the wealthiest users may still be willing to pay a premium for wild rhino horn. In that case, a preference for wild horn could drive wild rhino populations to extinction.
H. Cheung, L. Mazerolle, H.P. Possingham, D. Biggs, Medicinal use and legalized trade of rhinoceros horn from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners in Hong Kong, Tropical Conservation Science, 11 (2018), 1-8
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Of mammoths & tuskers + fantastical Madagascar + horny toads
Why is transparency SO DIFFICULT for some? The info-gathering journey for my follow-up below was an interesting one. Our usual network of information brokers performed well, as usual – thanks to every one of you. And also a SHOUT OUT to Nyambe Nyambe of KAZA who was courteous and professional in fielding teamAG questions about elephant trophy hunting. BUT
Our attempts to determine THE FACTS from the trophy hunting industry about this particular Botswana tusker hunt were met with petulance, insults, smoke and mirrors. We are used to this from a minority of loud individuals within the industry – water off a duck’s back – but from representative body officers? I won’t repeat what is included in the notes below my op-ed (or stoop to their levels of personal and brandAG attacks), but I will say that the LACK OF dignity, professional courtesy and foresight exhibited by the representative body for Botswana trophy hunters will come back to haunt them. Hopefully, the ethical members from within that body will one day exorcise the rot.
I will be enjoying a 4-day mountain biking sojourn deep in the northern Kruger National Park as you read this, with other bushveld junkies. SAFARI NJEMA my friends
Keep the passion
Simon Espley – CEO, Africa Geographic
From our Editor – Taryn van Jaarsveld
We will soon be revealing the finalists, and shortly thereafter, WINNERS of Photographer of the Year. Our team of judges is deeply immersed in a cauldron of contemplation, giving each pic in our Top 101 galleries due deliberation. Watch this space!
Will Africa’s great tuskers face the same fate as the now-extinct woolly mammoths? A few weeks ago we broke the news that two of Botswana’s largest tuskers were trophy hunted. This week, Simon delves into the great debate following this fallout, and spotlights the threat this brings to community wealth, an important wildlife corridor and tusker survival. See our first story below.
Madagascar – the fantastical land of plenty – is a natural evolutionary playground and a human kaleidoscope of cultural influences. For those seeking spiny forests, elegant sifakas, ring-tailed lemurs and desert canyons, south and central Madland is just the ticket. Read more in our second story.
Happy celebrating Africa to you all!
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
Science is a serious business. The business of publishing in scientific journals even more so. This is why I find brief glimpses of humour so profoundly refreshing. Along with fun taxonomic names, tongue-in-cheek article titles are right up my alley.
Take my most recent read, entitled “Finding love in a hopeless place”. It’s about frogs. More specifically, it is about desperate frogs. Did you know that during their chaotic breeding seasons, male frogs will grab almost anything in the hope that it’s a female? When this approach goes wrong, it is called misdirected amplexus (amplexus describing the Anuran mating position). These love-struck amphibians have been known to clasp boots, carcasses and pythons.
Given that the Bufonidae were well represented in this research, I can think of at least one alternative title that would have worked just as well. Though it probably wouldn’t have made it past the reviewers…If you think you know what I was thinking (or have a better idea), why not share it in our club comments section?
A rare find indeed – affordability in the birthplace of walking safaris. This well-priced safari is a must for those seeking true wilderness and expert walking guides. Expect excellent game viewing (did someone say LEOPARDS?) and tracking on foot, plus epic bush breakfasts and unforgettable sundowners. Unwind, detox and let 5 days in remote Africa recharge your batteries.
And then there is this – 19 days in paradise – Greater Kruger, Cape Town & the Winelands, Khwai, Chobe and Victoria Falls. From bush to beach, Pinotage to predators and the biggest curtain of falling water in the world, this epic safari showcases the best that southern Africa has to offer.
WATCH: Your feel good fix for the week! Watch two rangers rescue an exhausted honey badger, trapped in the base of a marula tree (04:01). Click here to watch
The debate after we broke the story on the trophy hunting of two of Africa’s largest tuskers in Botswana has focussed on the ethical issues surrounding trophy hunting, and rightfully so. Should humans be permitted to kill animals for fun? And then there is the potential threat to big-tusker genes of selectively removing these giants from the breeding pool.
But for this post, I focus on three other issues that go to the core of trophy hunting, and hunting elephants, as a conservation tool:
1. FAIR VALUE
The trophy hunter paid at least US$80,000 for the ‘pleasure’ of killing this giant elephant*. Is this ‘fair value’ for one of a diminishing population of large-tusked elephants (tuskers)?
The questioning of fair value is essential. For example, what would the modern-day trophy hunter pay TODAY to kill a woolly mammoth – how many millions of USD? Because in 20 years, that will be a relevant comparison – these giant elephants are the woolly mammoth of today, and their slide into oblivion is surely a concern.
2. ADEQUATE COMPENSATION – RURAL COMMUNITIES
We have been advised that the Tcheku Community Trust, on whose land (NG13) this tusker was killed, was paid BWP200,000 (about US$16,285) for this elephant hunt – by a company called Old Man’s Pan Propriety Limited.
The company is owned by professional hunter Leon Kachelhoffer and Derek Brink – one of Botswana’s wealthiest men. So let’s be clear about this. Two wealthy individuals generate a massive 500% return on this giant elephant – and an entire community has to survive on the scraps.
Obviously I do not speak for this community (based in an area where protein sources are likely scarce) – who may appreciate an estimated minimum 600kg of elephant meat that such a hunt could produce. However, of concern is that our request to BWPA (see below) and Kachelhoffer for evidence – photos – that the meat was given to community members was refused. Also, suggesting that the supposed meat provision is a substitute for the cash they should have earned is insulting – the ultimate slap in the face for these desperate people. Do they know what this elephant was really worth?
The community trust’s total elephant allocation for the year is five elephants – all purchased in advance by Kachelhoffer and Brink. Seeing how little the community benefited from the killing of one of Africa’s largest tuskers, I would imagine that their revenue expectations for the remainder of the year are pretty grim.
This is nothing more and nothing less than the syphoning off of rural community wealth by hardened wealthy businessmen.
Is this the true face of Botswana’s much-acclaimed ‘sustainable’ trophy hunting strategy? In May 2019, Botswana’s President Masisi justified the decision to recommence trophy hunting by emphasising that local communities will be guaranteed far more than just menial jobs and will enjoy the economic benefits of sustainable wildlife management. I have no conceptual issue with controlled, sustainable hunting in areas where photo tourism fears to tread – because Africa’s people HAVE to be incentivised to have wild animals in their midst. Otherwise, we will end up like much of the ‘developed’ world – devoid of free-roaming wildlife. But is this how President Masisi envisaged involving impoverished, marginalised communities in the wildlife industry? Is this particular scenario fair to the good people of Botswana, or even sustainable – surely not!
3. MIGRATING ELEPHANTS
And what about the rural people in neighbouring countries – how do they benefit from this once-off event?
After all, this giant elephant was an international wanderer who would undoubtedly have paid his way via many photographic appearances over the years in the nearby (in roaming bull elephant terms) popular tourist areas of the Okavango Delta, Chobe, Caprivi, Victoria Falls and Hwange – to name a few.
On the topic of international elephant migration routes, we approached Nyambe Nyambe, executive director of Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), for feedback about trophy hunting elephants in elephant migration routes and the possibility of this creating ‘fear zones’ which hinder migration away from human-elephant conflict areas. One of KAZA’s aims is to enable elephant migration away from human-elephant conflict zones.
Nyambe pointed out that KAZA partner states consider trophy hunting a component of the wildlife economy. But he also said, “Partner States have imposed moratoriums on trophy hunting in particular areas of KAZA for purposes of rebuilding the populations alongside strengthening other conservation measures…”
Why then does Botswana create a new controlled trophy hunting area out of NG13 – which is slap bang in the elephant-migration corridor? On the face of it, this seems contrary to the underlying KAZA strategy to create safe migration corridors and alleviate human-elephant conflict.
Nyambe pointed out that KAZA cannot prevent partner states from going against the spirit of the partnership: “Any potential negative effects that could arise from efforts towards sustainable use (not just from hunting) will be duly investigated to mitigate any unplanned or negative impacts,” but KAZA does not take up issues with partner states, and rather relies on partner states to “engage with other or a particular partner state in the event of a concern.”
On the subject of fear zones, Nyambe suggested that my concerns are noted but probably overstated because trophy hunting does not occur across the entire wildlife dispersal area.
PARTING THOUGHTS
Botswana, and any other country, has the sovereign right to decide their own way forward when it comes to conservation issues such as these. And their focus on local people as beneficiaries of the wildlife industries is justified and necessary.
But surely Botswana can do better than this? Permitting a few privileged individuals to benefit at the expense of desperate rural communities is going to end badly – for Batswana and for their wildlife and ecosystems.
The trophy hunting industry seems incapable of self-regulation and has never been transparent about its dealings. Claims of sustainability are not backed by science and claims of significant benefits for local people are not supported by evidence. The authorities must step in and enforce better scientific rigour, transparency and accountability. They need to ensure a better distribution of wealth for Botswana’s rural people, better mitigation of human-wildlife conflict and a more sustainable offtake of genetically gifted animals that are now so popular as mantelpiece adornments.
a) Three separate sources advised us that the minimum price for this sized elephant was US$80,000 to US$100,000
b) Our request to professional hunter Leon Kachelhoffer for information about the hunt proceeds, NG13 environmental management plan, license tender process and other specifics was initially met with assurances of cooperation, but he suspended discussions shortly after that. We were subsequently sent a letter by Kachelhoffer’s fellow Botswana Wildlife Producers Association committee members. The letter provided generic notes about elephant hunting and how the elephant was located in the vast NG13 but did not provide the requested information mentioned above. This lack of transparency is, unfortunately, par for the course. In a bitter, strongly worded follow-up letter, the BWPA advised us that they would not be responding to future requests for information.
This time, we adventure to southern and central Madagascar in our four-part series on this wondrous island. See the resources section at the end of this story for the other three stories in the series.
For the last 88 million years, life on Madagascar has been on its own, creating an island of evolutionary oddities and myriad diverse travel experiences. Sometimes referred to as a “Noah’s Ark” or the “eighth continent” due to its geographic isolation and high levels of endemism, Madagascar is, simply put, enormous. It is approximately 587,000km2 (around two and a half times the size of the United Kingdom). A combination of ocean currents and dramatic topography has created a tapestry of different climates and habitats perfectly suited to the island’s peculiar inhabitants (or the other way round).
The island is home to over 300 recorded birds (60% of which are endemic) and 260 species of reptile – including two-thirds of the world’s chameleon species. There are over 110 species of lemurs spread throughout Madagascar’s protected areas, in a variety of shapes and sizes, but all possessing a shared, wide-eyed charisma. Six of the world’s eight baobab species occur only in Madagascar. All in all, the natural history is unique, shaped by the fascinating and beautiful, isolated island habitats.
In an ideal world, a trip to Madagascar would last weeks, giving the curious traveller every opportunity to explore the magnificent island. Realistically, however, time is usually limited and deciding where to invest one’s attention is guaranteed to create a significant traveller’s quandary. This four-part series is intended to help guide this decision.
South and central Madagascar
Madagascar’s ancient geography – shaped by volcanic forces and tectonic tearing – consists of a relatively narrow coastline, a massive central plateau, and several massifs scattered across the island. The eastern section is lush and green, watered by Indian Ocean trade winds and with the forested escarpment descending in a series of steep steps to the rugged coastline. Further west, the arid highlands and grasslands of central Madagascar are riven by stark desert canyons. The weather becomes even drier as the land slopes gently to the island’s southern tip, giving way to the strange and formidable plants of the Tolkienesque spiny forests.
The southern circuit of Madagascar is more popular with tourists and includes two of the island’s most famous parks: Ranomafana and Isalo National Parks. Away from the main holidaymaker routes, the south-central highlands offer a vast yet intimidating adventure for intrepid, experienced explorers. However, the more circumspect traveller will find that these more accessible destinations provide a great fill of Madagascar’s wondrous wildlife and sublime scenery.
Diademed sifaka
Ranomafana National Park
Situated on the precipitous slopes of the High Plateau, the forests of one of Madagascar’s largest national parks cover an area of around 416km2 (41,600 hectares). The name comes from the Malagasy term for ‘hot springs’ (‘rano’ meaning water and ‘mafana’ meaning warm), where visitors can soak aching muscles after hiking the undulating, sometimes strenuous trails. Ranomafana and Berenty Private Reserve (see below) are absolute musts when visiting this part of Madagascar. The park is part of the Rainforests of the Atsinanana UNESCO World Heritage Site – a serial property comprising six national parks that protect relict forests along Madagascar’s eastern strip and are known for their exceptional biodiversity. The other five parks are Masoala National Park, Marojejy National Park, Zahamena National Park, Andringitra National Park, and Andohahela National Park.
Ranomafana owes its existence to Dr Patricia Wright and her discovery of the golden bamboo lemur in 1986. This prompted the authorities to declare the region a national park and helped save the dwindling population of one of the world’s most unusual primates. As a result, the critically endangered golden bamboo lemur is probably the park’s star character. Their main claim to fame is that they are the only primates that specialise on a bamboo diet (chimpanzees and gorillas eat bamboo, but it does not form the basis of their diets). No one fully understands how they process the enormous quantities of cyanide present in the soft stalks and growing tips of bamboo shoots. Experts estimate that they ingest approximately 50 times the lethal dose for a similarly sized mammal every day.
Golden bamboo lemur
Apart from the cyanide guzzling golden bamboo lemurs, Ranomafana is home to many other lemur species, including the eastern woolly lemur, eastern grey bamboo lemur, red-bellied lemur, greater bamboo lemur, black-and-white lemur, red-fronted brown lemur, ruffed lemur, small-toothed sportive lemur, and the Milne-Edwards sifaka. The bushbaby-like mouse lemurs are undoubtedly the forest’s cutest offering – emerging at night with the eerie aye-ayes (for fortunate travellers) to take advantage of the plethora of insect life. Ayes-ayes are most easily seen near Tamatave.
Madagascar is an incredible birding destination, with at least five endemic bird families: vangas, ground-rollers, cuckoo rollers, Malagasy warblers and mesites. Though the forests (and birding opportunities) of Ranomafana are similar to those of Andasibe-Mantadia, Ranomafana offers the best chance to spot (among others) the yellow-bellied sunbird-asity, the cryptic warbler, and Madagascan snipe. Of course, this being Madagascar, the reptiles (especially chameleons) are many and varied, and the waterways and forest paths are dotted with colourful little frogs. The aptly named giraffe-necked weevils are another Madagascan endemic – a peculiar insect with an elongated neck designed for nest building and fighting off rivals.
Elephant’s Foot Plant – Isalo National Park
Isalo National Park
Delving further into Madagascar’s interior, the 815km2 (81,500 hectares) Isalo National Park is a world apart from the tropical rainforests of the east. Hot and dry though it may be, Isalo is one of Madagascar’s busiest parks for a reason. The views are different every day, with shifting shadows and changing colours creating a living work of art as the sun moves across the sky. Isalo boasts wooded ravines, idyllic pools like “Piscine Naturelle”, and incredible flora. The park is also very close to the main road.
Isalo is often described as Madagascar’s equivalent of the Grand Canyon, though this is probably a slight overstatement. Regardless, the scenery is not dissimilar to that of Arizona in the US, complete with dramatic canyons and colourful sandstone ridges. The sweeping panoramas can be explored on hikes ranging from a few hours to several days. Some magnificent trails also descend into the sclerophyllous (hard-leaved, drought-adapted) woodlands of the gorges, arriving at limpid pools where visitors can refresh their bodies and souls.
Here, tourists delight in the antics of the park’s ring-tailed lemurs. They’re unlikely to bust out any dance moves or speak with Sasha Baron Cohen’s inexplicable Indian accent like DreamWorks’s famous (mis)representation, but these black and white lemurs are equally sassy. From the endemic and distinctive elephant’s foot (which looks a bit like a bulbous bonsai baobab) to several native aloe species, the plant life is unique and fascinating. Recent studies indicate that Isalo is home to 24 amphibian species, 47 reptile species, and over 100 bird species.
All this said, seeing birds and mammals in Isalo can be tricky. An excellent birding option is Zombitse-Vohibasia National Park, where expert bird guides will delight you with incredible sightings of giant couas, cuckoo-rollers, the highly restricted Appert’s greenbul and myriad non-venomous snakes and endearing chameleons.
Clockwise from top left: Giant-striped mongoose; giraffe-necked weevil; red fody; yellow-bellied asity; long-tailed ground roller
Tsimanampetsotsa National Park
No discussion of southern Madagascar would be complete without mentioning the island’s seemingly inhospitable but enthralling spiny forests (cover image above). Situated in the south-western corner of Madagascar, the 432km2 (43,200 hectares) Tsimanampetsotsa National Park lies in the driest part of the country and protects a section of this unique ecoregion. This is a difficult area to access, but it is not impossible – you can catch a boat to Anakao from Toliara and then a four-wheel-drive or open truck tour from Anakao to the park. The park can only be accessed by road. One has to wonder at the various pronunciations of the name “local taxibrousse” (a Malagasy bush taxi) that drivers must have heard from eager tourists. Tsimanampetsotsa takes its name from Lake Tsimanampetsotsa – the “lake in which no dolphins live”. There are indeed no dolphins in the salty waters, but at certain times of the year (April-November), the alkaline lake is covered in a pink flush of greater and lesser flamingos.
Tsimanampetsotsa is also home to one of the world’s rarest carnivorans: the Grandidier’s mongoose (also known as the giant-striped mongoose or Grandidier’s vontsira). As playful and bold as any mongoose species, they are commonly seen at campsites searching for scraps. They are not found anywhere else on the island.
Away from the sacred salt lake and associated wetlands, the landscape changes to the sparse dry woodlands that define the ecoregion of southern Madagascar. The region boasts exceptionally high levels of plant endemism, with an estimated 95% of plant species classified as endemic. These include the unmistakable octopus trees (Didierea madagascariensis) – a kind of woody semi-succulent not dissimilar to a cactus. They sport enormous and vicious-looking thorns, but this does little to deter the groups of critically endangered Verreaux’s sifaka from clambering and leaping between them. With their disproportionately long limbs, these sifakas are designed for arboreal life, and when moving on the ground, they are forced to canter on their hind legs, with their arms thrust out to the side for balance.
Scattered throughout the dry forest, the brooding outlines of ancient, squat baobabs are visible. Known as fony (sacred) baobabs (Adansonia rubrostipa), these trees are fascinating ecosystems in their own right. An ancient baobab, nicknamed the “Grandmother” (or “Mother of the Forest”), has recently been revealed to consist of three fused trees: one 200 years old, one 1,000 years old, and the oldest 1,600 years old. The roadrunner-like long-tailed ground-roller dashes around at the base of these trees, its wings lined by bright blue streaks. In the Mitoho Grotto, a hidden cave, blind sleeper goby fish still swim the freshwater pools, isolated forever. Here, fossils bear testament to a time when giant lemurs the size of small gorillas once roamed.
One need not travel to Tsimanampetsotsa if it is a little out of the way and time is limited. A few kilometres north of Toliara, in the Ifaty area, there are great lodges, a reef, guides and bird guides that will show you Didierea and baobabs along with all the bird endemics the area has to offer.
Berenty Reserve
On the banks of the Mandrare River, the small private Berenty Reserve also protects around a third of Madagascar’s remaining tamarind gallery forest. It is a popular destination for visitors looking for close encounters of the lemur kind – ring-tailed lemurs are the true stars of Berenty. Lucky visitors might be treated to a sighting of a Verreaux’s sifaka’s “dancing” movements. Other great fauna to look out for in Berenty include Dumeril’s boa, Madagascar flying fox, sickle-billed vangas and running coua.
Ring-tailed lemurs
The ins and outs of exploring southern Madagascar
Want to go on safari to Madagascar? To find lodges, search for our ready-made packages or get in touch with our travel team to arrange your safari, scroll down to after this story.
Madagascar’s tropical climate is typically enjoyable all year round. However, the wet season and tropical cyclones during the summer (November to March) can make Ranomafana National Park inaccessible. The cooler dry season from April until October alleviates the worst of the oppressive heat, which is particularly important when exploring the island’s central highlands or southernmost tip, where temperatures regularly exceed 35–40˚C. You will need just over two weeks to explore this part of Madagascar.
There are plenty of budget and camping options in or near all the major parks, but luxury accommodation is relatively scarce. An exploration of Madagascar is often a rough-and-ready experience. It is advisable to travel in Madagascar with a reputable company, but hiring a car to drive between attractions is also possible. The roads are bad, particularly during the wet season, and a 4×4 is essential. Parts of the central plateau are dangerous to travel through, and it is advisable not to travel alone without being well-informed.
Land of plenty
Madagascar is a fantastical land – a natural evolutionary playground and a human kaleidoscope of cultural influences. Remarkable, offbeat, and enticing, this magical island offers an intoxicating combination of unique wildlife viewing and magnificent scenery. There is far more to Madagascar than our series could ever hope to convey, but there is no question that it offers something to every nature enthusiast. Our travel consultants are always on standby to help you plan the Madagascan holiday of your dreams.
The rainforest of Ranomafana National Park
Want to plan your safari? Get in touch with our travel team to start the discussion.
Ken Behrens is a birder, naturalist, consultant, guide, and photographer who is based in Madagascar. He is the co-author of several books, including Wildlife of Madagascar. His work can be seen at ken-behrens.com
I see you. Okavango Delta, Botswana. 2019 Photographer of the Year entrant Clare Doolan
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Top 101 photos + leopard Hosana’s death + Kaokoland’s Himba
The southern hemisphere autumn chill has nothing on the incandescence emitting from AG’s Photographer of the Year 2022. The competition is hotting up, and we’ve selected the Top 101 entries (from a whopping total of 7,389 submissions!) for the year. Our winners are somewhere in these four galleries below.
Hosana, famous leopard of Sabi Sand, has been killed. News of the leopard’s untimely death evoked an outpouring of emotion on social media. Sabi Sand has subsequently issued another statement defending the APU’s actions, stating “there is exponentially more at play here than meets the eye,” and that this “isolated incident is in fact a miniscule fraction of a much bigger picture”. Sadly, further details are unforthcoming. The facts we do know so far are contained in Jamie’s balanced and heartfelt reflection on the incident and Hosana’s life, in our first story below.
In our second story, anthropologist Izzy Sasada delves deep into the challenges facing Kaokoland’s Himba people, reflecting on how climate change and marginalisation are forcing Namibia’s iconic tribe towards modernity.
On a brighter note, safari season is upon us!Check out the hundreds of options we have for travel across the continent – it’s not too late to plan your 2022 travels.
Happy indulging in Africa to you all!
Taryn van Jaarsveld — Editor
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
Did you know that leopards sometimes fall asleep while hunting? Admittedly, no one else I have spoken to has ever witnessed something similar, and my sample size for this fact is one leopard. His name was Hosana, and I was watching him hunt impalas. He was still relatively young, and I think he might have been trying to learn from past failed hunts, which he had messed up with an overeager approach.
He was crouched in the grass, watching the herd gradually moving towards him. It was one of those gloriously warm autumn days, and the antelope were in no hurry. When the moment finally arrived for him to launch an attack, nothing happened. Still nothing happened when one of them stepped just two metres away from his head. And then the impalas were gone, and I took a closer look. Hosana had dozed off, blissfully unaware that his lunch had just wandered away.
This was just one of the memories running through my mind as I wrote our first story below.
WATCH: Longing for a new experience, for an escape? Retreat to the makhani palm forests of Kaokoland, Namibia, to refresh the soul. Omarunga Epupa-Falls Camp is a magical, cosy lodge on the Kunene River, where you’ll experience the culture of Namibia’s iconic tribe, the Himba people (02:30). Click here to watch
Here are the Top 101 entries in our 2022 Photographer of the Year! We will announce the overall winner and two runners-up in the beginning of June. They will share US$10 000 in prize money and join their partners and our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safari in Botswana.
This is Gallery 4 of the Top 101. To see the other Photographer of the Year Top 101 galleries, click below:
Here are the Top 101 entries in our 2022 Photographer of the Year! We will announce the overall winner and two runners-up in the beginning of June. They will share US$10 000 in prize money and join their partners and our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safari in Botswana.
This is Gallery 3 of the Top 101. To see the other Photographer of the Year Top 101 galleries, click below:
Here are the Top 101 entries in our 2022 Photographer of the Year! We will announce the overall winner and two runners-up in the beginning of June. They will share US$10 000 in prize money and join their partners and our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safari in Botswana.
This is Gallery 2 of the Top 101. To see the other Photographer of the Year Top 101 galleries, click below:
Here are the Top 101 entries in our 2022 Photographer of the Year! We will announce the overall winner and two runners-up in the beginning of June. They will share US$10 000 in prize money and join their partners and our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safari in Botswana.
This is Gallery 1 of the Top 101. To see the other Photographer of the Year Top 101 galleries, click below: Gallery 2 Gallery 3 Gallery 4
Deep in the heart of Kaokaland in the Namibian desert live the Himba people – a group of semi-nomadic pastoralists who have lived there for hundreds of years. But climate change, combined with a lack of government support and ongoing marginalisation, is forcing this iconic tribe to choose which parts of modernity to claim, and which to reject.
Namibia’s iconic tribe
If you are familiar with any of Africa’s tribal groups, it is probably the Himba. The tribe are renowned for their unique adornments and their continued adherence to tradition. Women of the tribe are bare-breasted and heavily decorated with symbolic jewellery. They cover their bodies with ‘otjize’, a mixture of animal fat and ochre which gives their skin and hair a reddish hue.
Traditionally, these cattle-herding tribes live in wooden huts which encircle a sacred ancestral fire, and daily work revolves around rearing and herding livestock.
The Himba people have long avoided contact with the modern world, continuing their quiet lives of pastoral cattle-herding in the barren corner of north-western Namibia for generations. The region had no direct Western influence until well into the 20th century, and little is known about the inhabitants of Kaokoland before the first European expeditions in the remote area.
Consequently, the Himba people have often been presented (in particular in recent tourism brochures) as timeless and archaic, representing a ‘forgotten’ or ‘ancient’ age of Africa.
A traditional Himba village near Epupa Falls
A foot in each world
Whilst presented as isolated from the modern world, in reality, many Himba people are now moving towards modernity. As the tribe is in transition, Himba culture is not static nor homogenous, and while some aspects of their lifestyle are being left behind, new opportunities await those moving from the barren desert to towns.
For those members of the tribe keen to take the plunge, the nearest town is Opuwo, the capital of the Kunene region. The small settlement contains schools, shops and petrol stations, and for many newcomers, it is the first taste of life in the 21st century.
For an unfamiliar traveller, it is indeed a sight. The town is a melting pot of Namibia’s other tribes too, and large groups converge on the streets of Opuwo, drinking beer, chatting on mobile phones, and gathering in their dozens. Seen alongside the Himba tribe are the Herero people, known for their extravagant Victorian-style dresses, and also members of the Zemba group.
Clockwise from top left: Many Himba people who live in Opuwo live in makeshift tented accommodation; Himba women take their shopping home after a day in Opuwo; A Himba family in a semi-traditional homestead of Otjakati; Portraits of Himba women in Opuwo
Push factors
Compared to traditional living, life in towns such as Opuwo may seem more convenient, but in reality, there are more push than pull factors causing people to move from rural homesteads.
Mr Ondoba, a Himba traditional chief whose original homestead is 180km north of Opuwo, explains why his family has made the journey south. “Life has become far harder for us in recent years,” he says. Sitting in the shade of one of Opuwo’s many bars, he has a miniature spear tucked behind his ear which he uses to snort ground tobacco between sentences. “We lost all of our cattle to drought a few years ago, and that’s why we’re here. Life without cattle – it is impossible.”
Mr Ondoba now owns a small garden in Opuwo to harvest maize and other plants. While he and his family have enough to survive, his current lifestyle is a far cry from that established in the historic practice of cattle-herding.
The loss of cattle makes it practically impossible for traditional life to continue, as cattle are the basis for subsistence; the need to graze cattle has dictated the Himba’s nomadic way of life for hundreds of years. Cattle have cultural significance too, determining social status, and forming an integral part of marriage and dowries.
Scenes from a traditional village in the Epupa Falls area (first three images); frequent droughts have led to widespread livestock loss throughout the Kunene region
Many other Himba residents in Opuwo share a similar story to Mr Ondoba. Down the street, sisters Veerii and Ondu sit on the hard floor, drinking beer. They, likewise, have moved to Opuwo in recent years. “Before, in Onjuva [a homestead about an hour’s drive away] things were better for us. We could live easily. But our cattle were taken – we think by a lion, and we could not stay.”
Namibia’s Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme provides compensation when livestock is lost to predators through the human-wildlife conflict compensation scheme. But it appears the scheme’s efforts are proving inadequate for many.
According to Dr Michael Bollig, an anthropologist who has conducted extensive fieldwork in the Kunene region, the human-wildlife conflict compensation is a “cumbersome process, whereby the conditions are nonsensical.”
“Compensation is a tricky business,” he explains, “conservancy budgets are often too small to adequately compensate for lost livestock, and local communities do not have the administrative infrastructure right away to compensate for this pertinent issue – how could they?’
“Resultantly, compensation is returned at a quarter of the market price for cattle, sometimes after far too great of a waiting time, and the management is so complicated that very few are successful.”
Veerii and her sister’s experience supports this. “We knew we were on a list waiting for compensation, but we never received the money.” Veerii explains, “if the government helped us just by providing say two or three goats, we could rebuild our livestock and we would not have to beg here.”
Livestock loss is exacerbated by extreme droughts which have plagued the region in recent years. Some scientists believe these extreme conditions to be linked to climate change. As global temperatures are set to rise further in the coming decades, the situation in Kunene reflects the general global trend of climate change impacting socio-economically vulnerable groups, from countries that have contributed the least to global emissions.
New problems
For all their hopes of a new life in Opuwo, things are perhaps a disappointment for many Himba people who have made the move. Life in a town requires money, and it is difficult for newcomers to find employment. Many Himba people now survive from the government’s pension scheme, often with one person’s pension handout providing for the entire family.
In homestead Otjakati, just an hour’s drive from Opuwo, life is far quieter. Here, the elders worry about the fate of those looking for employment in towns.
‘”They leave looking for a job, but they won’t find one. Even the most educated Himba won’t get a job,” one of the elders explains. “Then, they turn to things like drinking and end up spending all of the money on alcohol, and then the problems start, like crime and prostitution.”
Alcoholism certainly appears to be a problem amongst Himba urbanites, and the streets of Opuwo are lined with numerous bars.
Discrimination, and favouritism towards dominant tribes are felt to be reasons why few Himba people attain employment. “Most Himba cannot even get a sweeping job,” Ueri tells me, “people think we are dirty.”
A make-shift tent set up in Opuwo; a Himba woman pictured in a village in the Epupa Falls area; Himba women visit a grocery store in Opuwo; one of the many bars which line the streets of Opuwo, often frequented by Himba people; a Himba woman in Opuwo
A tribe in transition
The world for the Himba people is changing. With inadequate compensation when cattle are lost to predators, exacerbated by an increased frequency of droughts, it is likely that more Himbas will be forced towards towns like Opuwo in search of employment.
Anthropologist and conservation pioneer Margie Jacobson, who has spent decades conducting fieldwork with the Himba tribe, explains how this move is impacting the group.
“Whilst they continued to be great subsistence herders for generations after contact with so-called ‘modernity’,” she says, “now their social systems are beginning to erode.”
A Himba woman in the traditional homestead of Otjakati
“Now,” she explains, “those… democratic and powerful structures are breaking down. With the introduction of euro-centric education, party politics, wage labour and a cash economy, in many cases, every man is for himself.”
Recent research also indicates a loss of indigenous knowledge as Himba people move to towns, with cosmopolitan Himbas experiencing a reduced ability to focus during optical tests than their pastoral counterparts (much like urban people who also exhibit this reduced ability to focus).
Although the Himba people now face a plethora of previously unfamiliar problems as the modern world encroaches upon them, their historical resilience in the face of change should give us hope. Culture is not static, and the Himba should not be perceived as fossilised relics of a past time.
And why shouldn’t they enter the ‘modern’ world?
“The Himba are people,” says Margie, “they want the things that we want, and they have every right to them.”
Asking the elders at Otjakato “where will you be in 20 years’ time?” they assert in response, “we will still be in the homestead, where we belong… but of course, we will visit Opuwo.”
For insight into Himba traditions and history, read more here.
Northern Namibia and other African safari destinations will benefit from the growth of tourism as a revenue generator that is sensitive to the needs and cultues of local people.
The message on our group chat read, “Guys, just reading now that Hosana has been killed”. It was followed by a screenshot of the official announcement from the Sabi Sand Wildtuin social media account (the official social media account of Sabi Sand Game Reserve) confirming that a male leopard had been killed by an anti-poaching unit acting in self-defence. The statement, released on Friday, 6 May 2022, notes a “strong likelihood that the leopard was the Hosana male” – a leopard made famous by the Wild Earth live safaris that had followed his story since birth. I have known him since he was born, as I was guiding in Sabi Sand at the time.
Hosana – the legend
Hosana has been in the spotlight since he was only a few hours old. He was born in Djuma Private Game Reserve in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve (Greater Kruger) on the 2nd of February 2016. We know this because footage of him and his sister, Xongile, was broadcast across the globe during a live safari only a few hours after his birth. His mother, Karula, was a legend in her own right and an extremely confiding cat, even when tracked on foot. She allowed us untold hours of access to her cubs, and we watched with joy from the vehicles as they slowly transformed from tiny, clumsy balls of fluff to miniature versions of the lithe predators they were destined to become.
We realised that Karula was sufficiently comfortable for us to approach her and the cubs on foot, though we never pushed her boundaries by trying to get too close. Hosana and Xongile became increasingly accustomed to these strange bipedal interlopers, initially curious but eventually ignoring us. We would sit on the ground and watch two wild leopard cubs play, and I would have to pinch myself occasionally at the magic of it all. He was named Hosana – meaning “the little chief” – and he became famous.
Karula was getting older and eventually disappeared in 2017, just after the cubs turned a year old. Xongile vanished shortly afterwards, following a savage fight with her older sister. Suddenly alone in the world, Hosana had to face independence far sooner than he was ready for, and we watched his struggles with bated breath as the Little Chief learnt to survive.
Against all odds, he did survive and, in so doing, won the hearts of the thousands of people who watched his transformation from bumbling teenager hunting terrapins to a skilled predator. He regularly waltzed through the camp, often in broad daylight, drank from the swimming pool, and occasionally came and looked through the windows of my room. One of the last times I saw Hosana, he was sleeping peacefully 15 metres away from where I was standing. He was three years old and dispersed shortly after that.
We watched from afar like proud mother hens as Hosana filled out, gained a few new scars and eventually established his territory and began siring cubs.
Hosana caught napping, using leftover meat as a pillow; Hosana in his youth; on the prowl; pictured as a young cub; resting in the safety of a tree
The incident
On Friday, 6 May 2022, the Sabi Sand Wildtuin social media pages released a statement confirming that an adult male leopard, believed to be Hosana, had “ambushed” an anti-poaching unit (APU) patrolling a drainage line at dusk. They “responded in self-defence resulting in the leopard losing its life”. Africa Geographic immediately reached out to the Sabi Sand authorities to request further information about the date of the incident and a detailed explanation of the circumstances that led to the leopard’s death. AG also asked for images to confirm that the leopard was, as the statement suggested, Hosana. AG had not yet received a response at the time of publication but will update this article as and when one is forthcoming. None of our other sources were able to confirm conclusively that the leopard was Hosana (through images). However, we can safely assume that it was Hosana as the Sabi Sand authorities would not have invited the inevitable outcry without cause.
The unfortunate use of the word “ambushed” was a poor choice and seemed to imply that Hosana set out to do deliberate harm to the APU. Of course, leopards can and do hunt people on rare occasions (and assuming the leopard wouldn’t hurt people just because it was Hosana is anthropomorphism at its worst). Perhaps this was precisely what happened, but such opportunistic attacks on people are unusual. It seems highly unlikely that Hosana would target a group, especially given his history of being tracked on foot.
The first statement noted that “a full investigation” had been carried out, and it was concluded that all safety protocols were adhered to. However, a second statement was issued on 8th May, stating that the Sabi Sand authorities had conducted “preliminary investigations”, “will be engaging further with the contracted Anti Poaching Unit”, and “are conducting a full investigation”. They confirm that a more detailed statement will be forthcoming.
Bravery in the face of danger
Speculation is inevitable without knowing the exact details of how it all played out (and the conspiracy theories that spring up are almost impressive). We do not know the circumstances – the leopard may have been sick, injured, mating or defending a kill. The APU may have been moving very silently (as would be expected during an anti-poaching patrol) and surprised him. However, we can say that the APU must have believed that he posed a real and immediate threat to their safety. These men and women risk their lives to protect our continent’s most endangered animals, and we cannot vilify their reaction in the heat of the moment. They work under considerable pressure and in perilous circumstances. That was not Hosana the beloved leopard to them – it was an animal capable of killing a person with relative ease and speed.
No matter how special that leopard was to so many, a leopard’s life cannot be valued above an anti-poaching team’s safety. Their work in protecting the region’s rhinos and other endangered species and searching for and clearing snares is vital and requires enormous bravery. When patrolling the bushveld on foot, there is always a risk of encountering a potentially deadly animal, and things can go wrong quickly. Just a few days before the announcement about Hosana, 36-year old Shando Mathebula was killed by a buffalo while carrying out his duties as a field ranger in the Kruger National Park. By virtue of the nature of their work, APUs are forced to move quietly at risky times of the day, increasing their chances of a lethal encounter. It could have been an elephant, hippo, lion, or buffalo, but in this case, it was Hosana.
A tragic combination of circumstance
We are not able to comment on what wildlife training the APU in question had received. However, a full-blown leopard warning charge is a genuinely terrifying thing, and it requires preparation and training to face it down and then extricate oneself safely. It can be explosive, loud and fast. This incident does emphasise the importance of training those who operate in the field to handle wildlife encounters – both for their safety and that of the animals they meet in the line of duty. There may be circumstances where there is no option but to shoot an animal to save lives, but it should always be the last resort.
If the leopard in question is Hosana, he was cut down in his prime. This is an absolute tragedy. I mourn for the leopard we knew and loved – a goofball who treated us to endless hours of both hilarious antics and fascinating leopard behaviour. We learned so much from him about leopard life, and I am so profoundly grateful for having had the opportunity to watch him grow. To me, and to so many, he was a special cat, and while he would never have known it, he changed a fair few lives for the better. His clumsy insouciance was undeniably endearing, his resilience heartening. After everything he survived, it is deeply upsetting for those who knew him that he died in this way.
In loving memory of Hosana, 2016 – 2022
I cannot find it in my heart to blame the actions of the APU, though I do not doubt that they are currently being dragged through the mud on various platforms. I hope that lessons were learnt and that his death was not entirely in vain.
I am sorry, Hosana, for how things ended. You inspired a love of Africa and her creatures in people of every generation across the world, and I hope that when the grief is less raw, your legacy will continue to drive that passion and bring people together. I donated to a rehabilitation and anti-poaching organisation in your memory because, to me, you were the essence of the wild, and now, more than ever, the wild needs our support.
Rest in peace, Little Chief.
Want to send your tributes to Hosana? Join the club to share your memories and tributes below. Learn how below this story.
Resources
Read about Hukumuri, another leopard made famous by live safaris, who died last year.
The setting sun spotlights a herd of elephants in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Photographer of the Year 2019 entrant.
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Last epic photo entries + best spots to see leopard + the swallow songstress
The hairy rock fig tree is again dripping with delicious ripe figs, and our bushveld garden is the centre of attention for frugivores seeking that energy fix. Green pigeons, black-collared barbets, grey go-away-birds and other feathered beauties are jostling for the spoils during the day, and epauletted fruit bats and woodland dormice are amongst the nighttime partygoers. OK, this exciting news (for us) does not rock the world like Elon Musk buying Twitter or Depp suing Heard for US$50m – but it’s all relative. Right? Enjoy your own personal relativity – it’s free and all around you. Seriously.
In other local news, the onset of the dry winter months sees queleas begin to flock like locusts and the thinning out bushveld means that we now hear more roaring lions and whooping hyenas during the dark hours. The morning air has a chill to it, and that morning dose of pressed coffee goes down like a home-sick mole 🙂
This is also the start of the safari season – a busy time for teamAG (loving it) – and our clients are out there having fun, learning stuff and making a difference. Safari njema!
Keep the passion
Simon Espley – CEO, Africa Geographic
From our Editor – Taryn van Jaarsveld
I’m a bit giddy this week as the final entries for Photographer of the Year are now in. We had so many extraordinary pics in our last round of submissions that we’ve put together two jam-packed galleries for you.
Our entrants this week have scoured under-explored corners of the continent. I’m particularly taken with the photos of Sahara wanderers, Sebeïba ceremonies, and Algeria’s ancient Hoggar Mountains. Omar Dib’s images invoke echoes of spiritualism past and ethereal glimpses into the present. Also not to be missed is some otherworldly underwater photography. There’s plenty to satisfy the wildlife cravings too, including a black leopard photographed in the dead of night in Laikipia. Check out our two galleries below.
In our story, you’ll also spot a black leopard – and tips on where to find one – which will likely serve as a reference for your leopard-seeking adventures for years to come. We’ve compiled a list of our seven favourite leopard-viewing destinations for (almost) guaranteed sightings. So read on and let the adventures begin!
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
Did you know that female songbirds sing? Goodness Jamie, I hear you exclaim, of course they do! That is patently obvious to anyone who has ever spent more than five minutes watching a member of the enormous Passeri (songbird) clade.
And yet, scientists only just recently confirmed that female barn swallows (one of the most researched bird species on the planet) like a good ditty as much as their male companions. How did this come to be? It comes down to research bias, and the authors of the resulting paper explain it best themselves. However, one of their conclusions is that “men [the predominant researchers] are significantly less likely than women to lead research projects studying female song”. Of course, the reverse is true in some cases. For instance, we are only just beginning to understand the role of bull elephants in herd memory, behaviour and demographics.
Biases aside, the female birdsong revelation also shows that sometimes a disconnect can develop between science and the bleedin’ obvious.
We have a few places left on our 2023 photographer-guided safari to the wild Chitake Springs (Mana Pools, Zimbabwe). The safari sold out within hours of going live on our website, so we opened a second slot for those that missed out. We will not be adding further slots for 2023 because the authorities restrict volumes – for good reason. Last chance to reserve your place on this epic safari!
– Here is why you need to go on this safari
– Check out the details here
JUST DO IT
For the pursuit of culinary delights and Big 5 safari heaven, there is this: Bush & beach, Pinotage to predators – South Africa – 12 days. You know you want to
WATCH: In the coming weeks, billions of newly spawned sardines will flank the coast of South Africa. The frenzy of pursuant predators will produce a spectacle followed by hundreds of marine enthusiasts. See what the Sardine Run fuss is all about (03:04). Click here to watch
Our Photographer of the Year 2022 is now closed for submissions. Cash prizes of US$10,000 have been set aside for the winner and two runners-up. Winners and their partners will also join our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safariin Botswana.
Judging for Photographer of the Year will take place throughout the month of May 2022, and the winners will be announced end May 2022.
Our Photographer of the Year 2022 is now closed for submissions. Cash prizes of US$10,000 have been set aside for the winner and two runners-up. Winners and their partners will also join our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safariin Botswana.
Judging for Photographer of the Year will take place throughout the month of May 2022, and the winners will be announced end May 2022.
This is a copy of our weekly email newsletter. Subscribe here to receive the newsletter.
Last chance + Tarangire’s migration + farewell to super tusker Tolstoy
Last chance …
This is the FINAL COUNT DOWN for entries to our immeasurably inspirational Photographer of the Year. Entries close in two days, and then my amazing team starts to sift through the weekly selections for the nuggets. US$10,000 and an epic Botswana safari on offer for the winners!
MEANWHILE, the South African Minister of Environment (et al.) has been instructed by the courts to pause her plans to issue trophy hunting quotas for leopards, black rhinos and elephants. In my op-ed of a few months ago, I bemoaned her application of suspect ‘science’ in her decision-making processes – and that’s precisely what the courts have decided. She failed to provide the requisite scientific evidence that such hunts would not be detrimental to the species, amongst other shortcomings. Watch this space for counter-measures by the trophy hunting industry and retabling of the quotas.
Surely it’s time for real science and demonstrable benefits to local people to be the primary parameters in these critical decisions and for political wrangling to exit backstage?
Keep the passion
Simon Espley – CEO, Africa Geographic
From our Editor – Taryn van Jaarsveld
In ANOTHER BLOW to Africa’s dwindling population of giant elephants, Amboseli super tusker Tolstoy has died, six weeks after being treated for a spear wound. We celebrate the life of this iconic, majestic elephant in our second story below.
This week we had a really tough time narrowing down the excellent entries for our Photographer of the Year Week 12 selection. This gallery is one of our best yet – so grab a coffee and take a moment to browse and be inspired by some incredible moments captured around the continent. See the gallery below.
As a member of the AG tribe you are naturally familiar with the Great Migration. But another often forgotten national park in northern Tanzania offers a similar and no less sensational experience: the Tarangire Migration. Tarangire National Park is a mecca for wildlife enthusiasts. Every year during the dry season, the Tarangire River becomes one of the only available sources of water, and tens of thousands of animals are drawn to its banks. Read more about the true romance offered on safari in this national park, in our first story below.
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
The 27th of April was World Hyena Day, and while I have personally always found World Something Days a bit trite, I can never resist the urge to share a fun fact about my favourite animal.
There is a very persistent misconception (twisted from dated research) that spotted hyena cubs are the Cain and Abel of the animal kingdom – committing siblicide on a regular basis. Did you know that this is largely utter nonsense? Yes, hyena cubs are born with fully erupted teeth, and they will squabble to establish dominance during their first few weeks. During times of resource shortages, this hierarchy may translate to facultative siblicide because the dominant sibling outcompetes its submissive sibling for access to milk – but such instances are rare.
Given their already poor reputation, it seems unfair to suggest that spotted hyenas are born with such murderous instincts. Sibling bonds in hyenas are strong, and, for twin sisters, in particular, they may last a lifetime.
DESERT & DELTA – 11 days This iconic and ever-popular safari is about water – or the lack thereof. We visit Victoria Falls, Okavango Delta, Chobe and the desolate salt pans in our quest to understand how water defines southern Africa’s wild places. Options for all budgets.
WALKING WITH GIANTS – 13 days
Join us in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park as we follow the wise old elephant herds over an 80km walking route along the Galana River and onwards by vehicle to the Indian Ocean coast at Malindi. We hope to see huge elephant tuskers, the famous Tsavo maneless lions, rare hirola and fringe-eared oryx, the long-necked gerenuk and many of the over 500 bird species. This is an authentic safari – from a bygone era!
WATCH: This ghost town in Namibia is haunted by a rare creature. Watch how elusive brown hyenas have made a home in the Namib Desert ruins (03:14). Click here to watch
On the morning of his death on 27 April, rangers in Kimana Sanctuary (the central part of a corridor linking Amboseli National Park and Chyulu Hills) who had been checking on Tolstoy every morning and evening since the initial treatment, found him lying down. While it was not unusual for him to lie down, on closer inspection the rangers found that he was struggling to get up.
Tolstoy, moments after being treated for a spear wound six weeks before his death
“Following another treatment, the rescue team spent hours trying to get him back on his feet, eventually trying to prop him up with a front-end loader,” says BLF’s Jeremy Goss. “But this time around, he was just too weak, and died lying there.”
The combined efforts of thirty people from KWS, DSWT, and BLF, one helicopter, four vehicles, the front-end loader, and the best veterinary medicine possible was not enough to prevent Tolstoy from succumbing to his injury.
KWS and DSWT vet teams treat Tolstoy’s spear wounds on the day he died; BLF rangers share a moment with Tolstoy – an elephant they monitored and looked after every day for several years – after his death
Tolstoy was a member of the prolific TD family of super tuskers, and survived multiple spear wounds and drought over the years. He was uncle to Amboseli’s famous elephant, Tim, who died in 2020 at the age of 50. The two were often seen together and maintained a kinship throughout their lives. Tolstoy’s mother, Teresia, was the matriarch and leader of the TD family, known for her long, straight tusks. “The males born to the TD family have all been magnificent and each one has had a calm and gentle personality,” according to Amboseli Trust for Elephants. “Tim and Tolstoy had many friends among the independent males and were much admired by the females.” Tolstoy’s tusks were once so long that they grazed the ground as he walked. But the lower portion of his tusks were sawn off by Kenya Wildlife Service in an attempt to relieve him of extra baggage – an action which was criticised by some at the time.
“Tolstoy was one of the few elephants in Africa with thick tusks that grazed the ground,” according to Elephant Voices. “To the world he was a super tusker. To us, he was Tolstoy, an elephant who came up through the ranks over the course of the time we have worked in Amboseli – from a calf in a well-known family, to a role model to younger males and a father to many of Amboseli’s younger elephants.”
Super tuskers Tim (left) and Tolstoy (right) were lifelong companions (photo courtesy @ryan.wilkie.photos)
One of Kenya’s much-loved elephant elders and ultimately a victim of human-wildlife conflict, Tolstoy was well known by conservationists for his calm nature. The spear wound that led to his death was the fourth spearing incident he suffered in as many years. “The case of Tolstoy is a reminder that there is still a lot of work to be done and this will not be able to continue without financial support and the support from the communities who must reckon with Tolstoy and his like on a daily basis, especially with regards to land subdivision,” says BLF’s Josh Clay.
Land subdivision plans have been completed for areas in the Amboseli ecosystem, whereby one million acres have been divided into tens of thousands of privately owned plots. It is essential that communities and conservation organisations work together in creating land-use plans that take into account the needs of both humans and wildlife to prevent similar incidents of conflict in the future.
Tolstoy was a familiar sight in and around Amboseli (photos courtesy @ryan.wilkie.photos)
Our Photographer of the Year 2022 is open for submissions, with cash prizes of US$10,000 for the winner and two runners-up. Winners and their partners will also join our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safariin Botswana.
We are open for entries from 1 February 2022 to midnight on 30 April 2022. Judging for Photographer of the Year will take place throughout those months and for the month of May 2022, and the winners will be announced end May 2022.
Northern Tanzania’s safari scene is dominated by the Serengeti and neighbouring Ngorongoro Crater. There are many good reasons for this – sightings are reliable, especially when the Great Migration is passing through, and the scenery is breathtaking. Yet there is a third, often forgotten, national park in the northern circuit: Tarangire National Park. Tarangire is a place of giant baobabs, fever tree forests, shimmering swamps and sweeping vistas, where wildlife roams in abundance. In this region, travel is still infused with the true romance of an African safari.
Tarangire National Park
Situated in Tanzania’s Manyara Region, just southeast of Lake Manyara National Park, Tarangire is just over 100km from the city of Arusha. This makes it easily accessible for travellers en route to the Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area, situated further west. The national park extends over 2,850km2 (280,500 hectares), but the land available to wildlife is expanded by Game Controlled Areas, conservancies, and the Tarangire Conservation Area. Here, people and wildlife exist side-by-side. Several luxury lodges operate in these concessions on the park’s fringes, allowing their guests to experience both the park and the increased freedom away from its confines – by offering night drives, for example.
From the Tarangire River in the north, rolling hills give way to vast swamps. These soak up the rain like sponges and maintain a tinge of green, even during the dry season. Away from the watery marshlands, the landscape is dotted with granitic ridges, red-earth termite mounds and sparse whistling thorn (Vachellia drepanolobium) woodlands. Throughout, bulbous baobabs (Adansonia digitata) impose themselves upon the backdrop, dwarfing even the enormous herds of elephants that forage around them.
The Tarangire Migration
Life in the northern section of the park (in terms of lodges, campsites, and wildlife) revolves around the sinuous bends of the Tarangire River. This geographical feature plays a pivotal role in Tarangire’s most remarkable natural phenomenon – the Tarangire migration. Though not involving the same wildlife numbers as the famous Great Migration, Tarangire’s migration is arguably equally sensational given its strict seasonality and the exceptional variety and densities of wildlife.
The park is part of an enormous ecosystem that includes Lake Manyara, the Maasai Steppe, and the area from Lake Natron to Mount Kilimanjaro. Every year during the dry season, the Tarangire River becomes one of the only available sources of water, and tens of thousands of animals are drawn to its banks and floodplains from miles in every direction. These include several species of antelope, buffalo, giraffe and zebra. Elephants also arrive in their hundreds, and Tarangire is believed to have one of the largest elephant populations in Tanzania.
Tarangire’s landscape is dotted with whistling thorn woodlands; the river and residual pools attract wildlife; massive baobab trees are a highlight (giraffes for scale – follow @fabianfridholmphotography for more images)
Tarangire is an elephant enthusiast’s paradise. It is impossible to spend time in the park without encountering these iconic pachyderms, feeding at the base of a baobab, strolling through the riverine forests or playing in the mud of the marshes. They are often present in a conglomeration of herds that may number close to 300 individuals – an incredible sight for even the most seasoned safari-goer.
Elephants aside, Tarangire is home to one of the greatest concentrations of wildlife outside of the Serengeti ecosystem. The dry season influx of ungulates sees a profusion of wildebeest, zebra, gazelle, eland, hartebeest and buffalo assembled near the river, or around residual pools in the swamps. Such a concentration of prey serves to attract the attention of the park’s various resident predators – particularly the ever-attendant lions. The lions of the Silale Swamps are particularly renowned, not only for their marshy hunting techniques, but also for their habit of lounging in the boughs of trees, perhaps to escape the tsetse flies. Leopards and cheetah are also present, though less regularly seen, and even African painted wolves (wild dogs) come haring through the park on occasion.
Away from the wetter areas of the park, visitors may even be fortunate enough to spot a gerenuk or fringe-eared oryx, making Tarangire one of the few places in Tanzania to see these arid specialists.
Tarangire offers much in terms of sightings, from the over 500 species of birds recorded, including flamingos and yellow-collared lovebirds, to large herds of elephants and ample wildlife
Twitching through Tarangire
For those able to tear their eyes away from the mammal life on display, Tarangire’s many varied habitats confer it the status of one of Tanzania’s top birding hotspots, with over 500 species recorded. From chattering flocks of yellow-collared lovebirds to stately ostriches picking their way across the plains, avid birders will find it a struggle to know where to look next. In contrast to mammal viewing, the best bird sightings are during the wetter months (November to May). This is when the swamps come into their own for waterbird watching, and migrant arrivals fill the skies. In addition, many dry-region bird species such as vulturine guineafowl and northern pied babbler are present at the margins of their ranges. Enthusiasts can while away the hours searching for the drab but sought-after endemic rufous-tailed weavers and ashy starlings, or search for the flash of colour signalling the arrival of the dazzling red-and-yellow barbets.
Explore & Stay
Like much of East Africa, Tarangire experiences two rainy seasons: the “short” rains in November and the “long” rains in April and May. However, heavy rainfall can occur any time from November until May, and many of the lodges and camps close down for the rainy season when the park becomes boggy and difficult to traverse.
Accommodation ranges from the basic to luxury in Tarangire; a hot-air balloon safari offers an opportunity to see the Serengeti from a unique perspective at Lemala Mpingo Ridge Lodge; here, guests can enjoy sweeping views across the Tarangire River and valley
Accommodation options in Tarangire National Park and surrounds range from public and private campsites to high-end luxury lodges. Naturally, Tarangire is at its best during the dry season, from July until October. During this time, concentrations of wildlife are mind-boggling, and, conveniently, this is also when tsetse flies are at their least active. Walking safaris at this time of year are as phenomenal as game drives, and the open habitats allow for comfortable and easy encounters with the larger wildlife species. For those looking to combine their trip with a chance to see the Great Migration, this is generally when the zebra and wildebeest begin to move north into the Maasai Mara in Kenya.
One of the major attractions of Tarangire National Park is that even during the tourism high season (June to August) when many of the parks throughout Africa are at their busiest, it remains one of Tanzania’s best-kept, uncrowded secrets.
Tarangire Treetops is situated on the path of an annual elephant migration, amid a landscape of rolling, baobab-studded hills
The perfect safari
Tarangire is often treated simply as a stop-over between the more popular destinations on Tanzania’s northern safari circuit. Yet those visitors who opt to explore this varied and fascinating national park are richly rewarded by one of Africa’s most underrated safari destinations. With magnificent scenery and an abundance of wildlife, Tarangire National Park has every ingredient needed for the perfect safari.
Want to go on safari to Tarangire? To find lodges, search for our ready-made packages or get in touch with our travel team to arrange your safari, scroll down to after this story.
‘I see you’ – Etosha cheetah – 2017 Photographer of the Year entrant. 2022 entries close in twelve days.
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Epic pics (last chance to enter) + best pools + Mara family safari
There has been much ANGER and polarised debate about two of Africa’s largest elephants in Botswana being reduced to hunting trophies on some needy person’s wall. And so it should be – these critical issues need to be broadcast to the world so that decision-makers understand the gravity of the situation and work to stop this annihilation of Africa’s icons. Thanks to those who weighed into the debate in the comments beneath our breaking news report. As often happens, many of the large news networks picked up on our story and repackaged it for their audiences – excellent!
What has this got to do with your next African safari?
Our profound belief is that people should safari in Africa knowing the brutal truths, the SPECTACULAR joys, and the real difference they can make when choosing a long-haul African safari over a short-haul beach vacation. This is why teamAG blends these flavours into our eclectic story recipe for you – we believe that YOU want to know what makes Africa tick and how you can get involved via discussion, safari or donations. Sadly many safaris are still sold based on myths and a sanitised version of Africa.
Only one week left! If you haven’t entered Photographer of the Year, now’s your chance. The entries are boiling beyond fever pitch. This week’s selection (below) is one of our hottest yet, featuring famous gorilla Ndakasi and her rescuer André Bauma, and magnificent cats of the Mara. Enter now!
This week we’re also bringing some poolside magic to top off your safari. Whether your vibe is gazing out over the big blue in an oceanside pool, or spending your safari break taking a fresh dip while gazing over wildlife at a waterhole – we’ve got a recommendation for you in our second story.
Safe travels to you all.
From our Scientific Editor – Jamie Paterson
If you haven’t seen the documentary Virunga, do yourself a favour and watch it immediately (or as soon as you have finished reading this newsletter). When you do, you will understand how André Bauma (see this week’s Photographer of the Year gallery) became beloved by millions worldwide. His unflinching refusal to leave his gorilla charges as the M23 rebel fighters invaded the national park was an act of absolute heroism.
Animals have always paid the price of our wars. Did you know that curlew sandpipers and many other bird species depart from Africa on their migration back to Europe in the next week or two? For many, their path will take them directly across the skies of Ukraine… Somewhat unsurprisingly, “warfare ecology” is becoming an increasingly important field of study.
This could be the BEST INVESTMENT you ever make Family safari SPECIAL OFFER – stay 4, pay 3. This classic 6-day safari at Enkewa Camp in Kenya’s Maasai Mara is what families dream of – for kids of all ages ;-). Expect fun activities in camp, a local village and the bushveld. And, of course, the usual Mara wildlife Big 5 extravaganza – enjoyed in a game drive vehicle, on foot or in a hot air balloon.
Zen Safari moments This 4-day SALT PANS add-on to your Botswana safari is ideal for that feeling (we all know it) at the end of an enthralling, exhausting wildlife safari when you want to chill out and reboot. Price ranges to suit all pockets
WATCH: The largest mammal migration on Earth. Can you guess the species? (0:44). Click here to watch
Our Photographer of the Year 2022 is open for submissions, with cash prizes of US$10,000 for the winner and two runners-up. Winners and their partners will also join our CEO Simon Espley and his wife Lizz on the ultimate private safariin Botswana.
We are open for entries from 1 February 2022 to midnight on 30 April 2022. Judging for Photographer of the Year will take place throughout those months and for the month of May 2022, and the winners will be announced end May 2022.
Travel in Africa is about knowing when and where to go, and with whom. A few weeks too early/late or a few kilometres off course, and you could miss the greatest show on Earth. And wouldn’t that be a pity?
Trust & Safety
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We donate a portion of the revenue from every safari sold to carefully selected conservation projects that make a significant difference at ground level.
YOUR safari choice does make a difference - thank you!
This week we are celebrating African icons. In our first story, we celebrate a safari icon: the humble tent – a symbol of freedom for adventurers. From simple canvas stretched over poles to opulent villas in remote destinations, tents enable their inhabitants to be fully immersed in their surroundings and experience the rawness of the wild. We’ve put together a selection of our favourite tented camps on the continent below.
Taryn van Jaarsveld – Editor
Meet monitor Christine Mwende and supertusker Konomoju2. Our CEO Simon spent time with them and 
Did you know that the AG app hosts a hand-picked selection of trusted conservation and community projects that are of real benefit to Africa’s people, ecosystems and wildlife? This empowers the AG tribe to offer support & donate to projects that make a difference.
App subscriber Colin West writes:
App subscriber Chanan Weiss and family travelled to Rwanda, DRC and Tanzania’s Mafia Island with AG in June. Visiting Nyungwe Forest – one of Africa’s oldest rainforests – Chanan had the joy of coming across a troop of Angola colobus monkeys. Chanan captured this intimate moment between a colobus and its baby. The Weiss family also experienced straw-coloured fruit bats on Lake Kivu’s Napolean Island, Grauer’s gorilla in Kahuzi-Biéga National Park, and mountain gorillas in Volcanoes National Park.
The AG tribe has done it again! By donating to our hand-picked 
App subscriber Richard Rolfe says:
App subscriber Angela Key travelled to Uganda with AG. ? Navigating Mabamba Swamp with expert bird guide Harriet Kemigisha, Angela got up close with a shoebill, and was finally able to photograph the dinosaur bird in person. Check out 
Ian Macallan 
App subscriber Roger Whittle says:
Alex Brackx is a wildlife photographer who teaches languages in Belgium. He started to pursue nature photography in 2010 while travelling in South and Central America. Through further travels in Asia, Belarus, Finland, and again South America, he began to hone his craft, travelling to film and take photos of wildlife. For Alex, it is a thrill to photograph his observations of animals, birds, landscapes, jungles, deserts and oceans.
Geo Cloete is a multifaceted artist with a degree in architecture from Nelson Mandela Bay University. His photographic works have been recognised through various photographic competitions. Geo has completed award-winning works in architecture, jewellery, sculpture, and photography. As a life-long “aqua man” with an undying love for the ocean, it’s been his passion to share the beauty, splendour and exquisiteness of the underwater world through his photographic projects. Geo strongly believes in the notion that we only love that which we know, and we only protect that which we love. In 2016, in recognition of his contributions to ocean conservation, Geo was selected as a partner for 
Cecile Terrasse is a French wildlife photographer. Cecile enjoys spending time in nature, particularly observing and photographing birds. She strives to capture beautiful light and ambience in her photographs.
Originally from Francistown, Botswana, Brendon spent much of his childhood enjoying the outdoors. His father’s keen interest in birds and bird photography sparked Brendon’s passion for the same when he left school. This led him to pursue a degree in nature conservation. After working in a variety of southern Africa’s diverse habitats, including four years as a field guide at Phinda Private Game Reserve, he and his wife Zandri moved to the Isles of Scilly in the UK. They now spend their free time searching for rare birds and other interesting wildlife. Without large animals to distract him, Brendon is currently working on photographing the diverse moth species that the UK has to offer.
Hesté de Beer hails from a family of skilled photographers, but it was not until 12 years ago that she became interested in the craft. At the time, she asked her father to introduce her to the world of photography. He is still her mentor and strictest critic. Hesté travels with her partner to distant locations around the globe to pursue the most endangered species of the animal kingdom. Through her travels, she has witnessed the adverse effects of the ever-growing human population and technology on the natural world and ancient tribes and cultures. Hesté aims to raise awareness of this plight through her photography.
Sean Davis is an amateur nature photographer who has a passion for bird and wildlife photography. Working in the printing industry, he has always had a fascination with photography. In 2015, he accompanied a friend on an outing to photograph birds and the bug bit. Seven years on, Sean has travelled to many destinations in pursuit of honing his skill. He enjoys constantly learning from other inspiring photographers whilst photographing and experiencing the beauty of birds and nature across southern Africa.
Nick is a wildlife guide who has been guiding for 13 years. Most of his guiding career has been spent in South Africa, where he has worked in public and private reserves. Nick has spent most of this time pursuing his greatest passion: big cats. In his spare time, he searches for big cats outside of the African continent, in destinations such as India and Brazil, searching for tigers and jaguars. For the past three years, Nick has stepped out of lodge-based guiding in favour of privately guided trips. He now travels with guests on safari trips to incredible destinations through Africa and beyond. He aims to inspire a love of wildlife through his photography and raise awareness of the importance of conservation of wild areas to make a positive impact on the world of the wild and all its inhabitants.
Kevin Dooley is an award-winning wildlife, portrait and wedding photographer who grew up in Placitas, New Mexico. His interest in photography began at an early age when at 14, he was gifted with a 35mm camera. Working as an assistant photographer and darkroom technician in his father’s portrait studio, Kevin began his life-long career in photography. After completing service in the US Navy, he returned to New Mexico and opened his photography studio in Albuquerque. During the 39 years the studio has been in operation, he has received numerous awards and been published in many publications. He has also released a photography book: Wild faces in wild places. Africa has always had a special place in Kevin’s heart. He thrives on sharing this amazing place with others.
Marcus Westberg is an award-winning Swedish photographer and writer who focuses primarily on conservation topics in sub-Saharan Africa and Scandinavia. He is a photographer for African Parks, and his work is frequently found in publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, bioGraphic, Vagabond, GEO and Wanderlust.
Hendri Venter is a photographic guide at Zimanga Private Game Reserve in South Africa. He has always been enchanted by wildlife and the natural world. Growing up on a farm, he enjoyed spending time with its seemingly endless expanse of wildlife. Exploring nature by horseback and by foot, he formed a strong sense of appreciation and amazement for all things natural. He enjoys taking images that capture the endless ebb and flow of nature.
Aimin Chen is an independent photographer who spends much of her time focusing on field photography. Aimin has always loved the life and culture of Africa and hopes to continue to record more wonders of the world with her camera.
Guenther Kieberger hails from Austria. He picked up his passion for wildlife photography ten years ago. Working as a cameraman on wildlife documentaries, he travels to many destinations on adventures around the world. His photos have been widely published in books and magazines. His photographic pursuits centre around identifying specific wildlife subjects to capture and focusing solely on the species in question throughout a photographic trip. Sharing these images with people who cannot experience these moments for themselves brings him joy.
Jens Cullman was born in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1969. His introduction to photography was at age 13, when he received his first camera. As a teenager, he worked with black-and-white film and image developing until he was able to acquire more sophisticated equipment. During a trip to Namibia and Botswana in 2003, Jens’ passion for wildlife photography really ignited, and he has grown in stature since then. He has won several prestigious international awards. Jens was the winner of the Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year 2020 and a runner-up in the 2019 competition. He uses his photography to create awareness about conservation issues and preserving natural habitats.
Johan, an award-winning wildlife photographer, was born in Sweden. Since 2001 he has lived on the small Mediterranean island of Malta, where he recently published his first book, on the island’s wild orchids. He regularly guides photographic tours around the world. After his first safari to Kenya in 2012, he took up wildlife photography full-time. Since then, he has had great success in prestigious international photography competitions. More recently, he was appointed as a Fellow of the Malta Institute of Professional Photography and an elected member of the Swedish Association for Nature Photographers. In his new home country of Malta, a keen interest in nature is not woven into the island’s culture, nor is it a priority in politics. With both his local and international work, Johan hopes to raise awareness and appreciation for the natural world that we are all part of.
Born in San Francisco and currently based in London, Julian Asher has lived in cities around the world, including New York, Zurich, Berlin, and Cape Town. Julian is an award-winning photographer who will go to great lengths in the name of the perfect shot, including being duct-taped into a doorless helicopter over the Okavango Delta in Botswana. The risks have paid off – his work has won multiple awards and has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. As a photographer, Julian focuses primarily on wildlife and wild places – with a particular interest in predators and their behaviour and in indigenous peoples and their traditions. He spends several months a year in the field in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He enjoys sharing his love of the natural world by leading photography workshops and planning safaris as the founder of Timeless Africa, a triple-bottom-line sustainable travel company. Julian serves on the boards of several Africa-focused NGOs centring on conservation and education.
Owen is an aspiring conservation photographer based in South Africa, with a desire to highlight the challenges faced by tenacious peri-urban leopards in the Greater Kruger region. Owen has published a coffee table book, Searching for spots, about the leopards he has monitored through the duration of a leopard identification project he runs on Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate. His goal is to improve people’s mindsets toward human-predator co-existence and encourage the protection of the natural habitat. Although Owen has a deep love for leopards, he is a nature enthusiast who enjoys birding and the challenges that wildlife photography presents. Travelling to wild spaces and capturing unique moments is where he feels most at home.
Ilna Booyens is an award-winning wildlife photographer whose work has been featured in numerous publications. She has always been drawn to the bushveld’s sights, sounds, and smells. Her passion for wildlife photography started in 2015 when she was gifted with a camera. She enjoys the connection developed with the natural world when photographing its wonders. Ilna spends as much time as possible in the bushveld, testing her patience and perseverance by braving extreme weather conditions and driving for hours to find the perfect subject.
