Having travelled to many other parts of Africa and worldwide to view and photograph wildlife, it has always been a dream to one day take a trip to the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, one of our ‘bucket list’ priorities. That dream came true when my wife and I embarked on this trip in September this year which we booked and arranged through Africa Geographic. Their service and support by arranging the itinerary, flights and transfers, and our stay at the Sentinel Mara Camp on the banks of the Mara River were superb!
The Maasai Mara National Reserve is a wildlife paradise with abundant game, birds, predators, and vast plains and vistas for photographing everything from fauna and flora to magnificent landscape scenes, as well as spectacular sunrises and sunsets – a photographer’s ultimate all-round destination.
This leopard female had been out on the plains and was returning to her cub waiting in the more secure dense bush. She waited for the safari vehicles to move away and make a gap for her to move through. We were very impressed with the park rangers’ presence and supervision in getting the vehicles to create sufficient space for her to get through and reunite with her cub.
We spotted this lioness out on the plains stalking some zebras. She was very well camouflaged in the long grass, but I managed to get a brief glimpse and a photo of her moving through the grass. We watched her unsuccessful, but quite spectacular, charge from a distance.
We were fortunate to see many birds on this trip, which included a variety of raptors, like this brown snake eagle, and colourful local birds endemic to this area. There are more than 470 species of birds in the Maasai Mara, including seasonal migrants.
Every day in the Mara was a unique experience. On some days we would leave camp before sunrise and return later that morning, while on other days we would head out a bit later and stay out for the entire day, depending on the agenda. The packed breakfasts and lunches provided were lovely, and we all found it quite special to stop out in the reserve at a specific venue or sighting for our refreshment break.
After consuming a sizeable portion of a wildebeest, these lionesses moved off to a nearby stream to quench their thirst. Both of them looked to be in prime condition and were very aware of our presence while drinking.
This group of zebras appeared to be very nervous as there was a lioness in the vicinity. While we were watching them, a small bird suddenly flew up out of the grass and startled the zebras into backing up rather quickly.
These magnificent birds were mainly seen in groups – a male with one or two females in open grassland. The grey crowned crane, along with the black crowned crane are the only two crane species capable of nesting in trees. The birds generally mate for life and may live up to 22 years in the wild.
Jonathan, our Maasai guide, was superb in terms of local knowledge of the fauna, flora, the reserve, and his people and culture. We were also fortunate to have Geoff and Suzanne from Canada on our safari vehicle. They are both well-travelled avid birders with superior expertise in this field. The presence and interaction with these experts enhanced our trip immensely, having both learned and shared respective experiences, which have now culminated into ongoing mutual friendships.
One of the many highlights of the trip was having sundowners out on the plains, or next to a river while watching the sunset with this group of lovely people. Nothing better than good company accompanied by chilled refreshments and beautiful scenery.
The predator sightings were magnificent! We witnessed two different cheetah kills, lionesses on a wildebeest kill, several lion prides interacting with their cubs, lone male lions, as well as jackal, hyena and serval sightings.
One day we came across a young lion cub walking down a game path calling for her mother. We followed her for some time until we heard the mother calling. It didn’t take long for the cub to be found and reunited with her mother and sibling, making it quite a special moment and sighting for us.
These vigilant buffalo bulls were usually seen on the fringes of the grazing herds and were continuously on the watch for impending danger from predators.
We watched this pair of lions for quite some time while they went through the rituals of courtship. The male lion moved off occasionally to mark his territory and then returned to the lioness who wanted to rest and repeatedly rejected his overtures.
We were fortunate to see a serval on two occasions. Servals are small wild cats that have long legs, long necks and thin bodies, and have been given the nickname ‘giraffe cat’. Their large ears help them to listen for potential prey such as insects, frogs, birds and rodents.
The juvenile fiscal shrike is found through most of sub-Saharan Africa. It is also known as the ‘butcher bird’ or ‘Jacky Hangman’ due to its characteristic behaviour of impaling its prey on thorns, branches or barbed wire. The prey is stored in this way for consuming later. The adults have a distinctive black and white plumage, whereas the juveniles have a greyish-brown colouring.
This sighting of the cheetah mother and cubs proved to be one of the highlights of our trip! We followed this cheetah and her three cubs from a long way off to a resting place on a termite mound to observe potential prey. We watched her stalk and hunt a gazelle on two occasions without success, and then return to the waiting cubs to recover and rest.
However, it wasn’t long before we saw another cheetah on a successful hunt. It stalked, charged and took down this gazelle calf right in front of our eyes, all in a matter of seconds from the time of chase to walking off to a secure place to consume the prey.
Watching the wildebeests and zebras crossing the Mara River was such a unique experience! The instinct to cross the river is present irrespective of the danger awaiting these fantastic animals. The fortunate make it across, but many die trying.
These crossings can turn into quite a frenetic spectacle where the animals attempt the crossing in the shallow water and rapids, while the crocodiles wait below the rapids downstream to catch those animals that slip or fall into the deeper water.
Zebras were also part of the river crossing drama, and we watched many zebra foals, wide eyes with fear, swimming close to their mothers who attempted to guide them to safety.
Unfortunately, some animals do not make it across the river alive, and these two Nile crocodiles were spotted on the banks of the Mara River tussling for a zebra head.
Back to the other fantastic sightings: This young spotted hyena pup emerged from a culvert under the road as we were passing by. The pup appeared to be waiting for the return of the clan and sustenance from its mother.
The violet-backed starling, also known as the plum-coloured starling, is one of the smallest in the starling (Sturnidar) family group, which includes starlings, mynahs and oxpeckers. It is quite a striking bird!
Our accommodation was at the Sentinel Mara Camp; a non-permanent tented safari camp set up each season in a forest along the banks of the Mara River. It had well-appointed colonial-style décor, with a central dining area for meals, three relaxation areas with internet access, charging facilities and reading material. Minnie and her competent staff superbly managed the camp.
The camp has seven fully-serviced luxury tents, positioned under large trees with excellent views of the Mara River. Each tent has an en-suite toilet and shower facilities.
Each tent is positioned to provide privacy and superb views of the Mara River. Resident hippo pods were present with an abundance of birdlife and early morning song. This lodge has been specifically designed to be eco-friendly, with solar power and waste recycling a prime focus area.
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A world-renowned British wildlife photographer once said to me that “the Maasai Mara is not just about the migration and river crossings, but a whole lot more, even if you don’t see any crossings – you will come away deeply satisfied with your experience”.
We have come home from this trip enthralled by the unique beauty, the abundance of wildlife, the Maasai people and culture, the service and accommodation, and many great memories and new friendships — a unique once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Gavin Duffy is an amateur travel and wildlife photographer based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
After retiring from an International brewing company, Gavin revived his love for photography as one of his main pastimes. He, and his wife Rita, have travelled to several locations on photographic safaris and expeditions – including the Arctic, Norway and the Northern Lights, China, Vietnam and Cambodia, Alaska, Europe, Africa and many locations in their home country of South Africa.
Gavin is a member of the Board of Examiners at the Institute of Brewing and Distilling in London, and a silver member of the Nikonians International Photographic Community.
ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE
Story: The Mountain Gorilla – Gentle Giants of the Forest
“The thrill of trekking for mountain gorillas in the astonishingly beautiful misty highlands of East Africa is not difficult to explain. Quietly observing these gentle giants as they go about their day is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a privileged few, and to be treasured beyond compare. If you are lucky enough to exchange glances with one of the troop, you will become aware of that narrow genetic gap between our two great ape species. The exchange of recognition, of awareness, is obvious.”
There are countless reasons why tortoises cross the roads, considering how many roads now run through pristine habitat which results in habitat fragmentation. Tortoises may be searching for better grazing land and water, fleeing predators, and even chasing down potential mates. It’s not uncommon to see large tortoises climbing over small wire fences to get where they want to go – believe it or not tortoises really get going when they set their mind to it.
There are around 20 species of tortoises and terrapins that are found across South Africa in almost every conceivable habitat, from the coastal sand forests, fynbos, Albany thicket and right across the dry arid regions of the Karoo and Namaqualand.
South Africa is home to the world’s smallest tortoise, the speckled padloper (Homopus signatus) which average only between 80 – 90mm! These tortoises are classified as ‘Vulnerable’ by the IUCN mainly due to habitat degradation as well as the risk of collection for the illegal wildlife trade. The largest tortoise found in South Africa is the leopard tortoise (Stigmochelys pardalis) which can reach close to half a metre in length and weigh up to 13 kg!
With the December holidays just around the corner, tens of thousands of South Africans will be road-tripping around the country, passing through prime tortoise habitat and arriving at their coastal destinations only to encounter more tortoises.
So why did the tortoise cross the road? One thing we can be sure of it was not to be picked up by a human, put in their car and transported hundreds of kilometres away from its natural habitat to live in a suburban garden alongside the family dog and be fed lettuce leaves and cherry tomatoes…
Due to their enduring nature, tortoises are often picked up when crossing roads and are then saved from the immediate danger of being run over by passing vehicles. However, the problem lies when they are removed from their habitat and transported elsewhere rather than placed on the side of the road that they were heading towards.
Another problem tortoises face is the illegal collection for the pet trade both locally and internationally. It has become a common sight since the 90s to see young men selling tortoises on the roadside towards Sun City in the North West Province. Often motorists with good intentions buy these tortoises with the premise of either releasing them further up the road or taking them home as their new “rescued pet” with the promise of giving these animals a great new life.
Sadly, the initial novelty often soon wears off they are either released into the veld where they often die from lack of a correct food source, become ill from the change in conditions, or they are dumped in one of the several tortoise sanctuaries or reptile parks around South Africa. These facilities can only accommodate so many animals and many are at full capacity, as once removed from their habitat they’re seldom able to be returned to the wild.
Certain species of tortoises are highly prized on the black market, with many overseas tourists coming specifically to collect and smuggle their catch out of the country – many are caught but countless go unnoticed.
All tortoises and terrapins are protected in South Africa and by law cannot be kept with the correct permits issued by the province where the animal was from. You will never be granted a permit to keep a tortoise you happen to pick up in the Western Cape on the road and then bring it back into Gauteng and keep it legally.
So, what do you do if you see a tortoise trying to cross the road? Consider these important points:
• If you are on a relatively quiet road, like a remote dirt road, and the tortoise is not at risk of being run over, then carefully drive around it and let it carry on its way.
• If the tortoise is in danger of being run over, then first and foremost make sure you are safely able to stop your vehicle. A busy road is no place for a tortoise or a stationary car!
• If possible, try not to handle the tortoise – they usually react adversely to being picked up. Though if you need to, then gently pick it up – but be cautious of the mouth as they can bite and may scratch with their feet.
• When picking the tortoise up, keep it horizontal. Using two hands, hold the tortoise firmly on both sides of its body right in front of its back legs. Keep the tortoise in its normal walking position (horizontal). Be aware that tortoises can urinate in fear, and if, in a drought-stricken area, this loss of water can be dangerous or even fatal!
• Do not put the tortoise in your car and drive it to a “better spot”. Rather safely remove it from the road and place it on the side in which he was heading towards, otherwise it will most likely turn around and try to cross the road again!
By all means, when you see a tortoise on the road these holidays stop if you’re able to and make sure it moves off to the side of the road safely, snap some pictures as well if you want, but letting it go on its way is the best thing you can do for them.
They came thundering from all sides, driven by a primordial instinct and sucked in by the cacophony and energy of those already crossing, plunging into the Mara River separating the Serengeti from Maasai Mara. Seemingly without a care, they chanced their luck against the current, the rocks and the crocs. Chaotic, pulsating, exhilarating…
The day started like any other on my Serengeti safari – early. The mocking chats and freckled nightjars were stridently leading the dawn chorus as my guide Frank and I chugged out of camp. Most guests were still sleeping or enjoying a mug of coffee with scrambled eggs and flapjacks. Little did we know that this would be no ordinary day…
The previous day, we had enjoyed bucket list bliss as a 30-minute stream of thousands of wildebeest and zebra crossing the Mara River in front of us, with four going down to massive Nile crocodiles that seemed to lurk everywhere, biding their time and choosing their victims wisely. All four victims were young wildebeest that had strayed from the safety of thousands of churning hooves; their agonised cries drowned out by the cacophony.
Later that day, we found two black rhinos on the open plains, completing the Big 5 sightings within 24 hours of my arrival.
My special request for the day was to look for rufous-tailed weavers, northern Tanzania being the only place in the world where they are found. After hours of searching, we found a flock of six weavers working the short grass for insects and seeds a few metres away from the bush track. This is a robust weaver, with piercing bright blue eyes – a ‘lifer’ for me.
We also got caught in a sudden thunderstorm and took shelter in a copse of thorn trees. After the refreshing downpour, we hit the tracks again, Earth’s pheromones infusing us with a sense of her fecundity and of exuberant celebration. Flying ants were emerging, much to the delight of a pair of feasting bat-eared foxes, and countless mongooses, hornbills and toads that gobbled up this rich protein bonus. A good day indeed!
And so, today we planned to trundle around and enjoy whatever Africa delivered. We had packed breakfast and lunch – this was to be a long, exploratory day out. Our route took us through the nearby rocky kopjes, in search of the leopard and her large male cub we had watched the day before harassing a pair of ostriches, while several oribi whistled their angst at the presence of the spotted ones.
After an hour or so of bumbling around, we crested a rise and gazed down towards the Kenyan side of the Mara, to see if any wildebeest were gathering. Indeed, they were.
The riverbank and beyond was black with wildebeest – with a few bunches of zebras breaking the black background.
By some stroke of luck, the first of the wildebeest hit the water the exact second we parked on an elevated peninsula directly opposite. What followed blew my mind. A thick column of wildebeest some 30-across forded the river directly towards us. Initially, they aimed for a narrow gully to our right, but then the leaders stopped in their tracks, suddenly unsure of that route. By now hundreds were pouring into the river from several places on the opposite bank, and the bottleneck in the water ballooned before the decision was made to veer to our left and stream up a narrow gully a few metres from us.
Chaos reigned, as some animals were trampled in the panic to clamber up the gully to our left – often with three or four animals barging into a space fit for one. By now wildebeest and zebras were bursting out of the woodland from all sides on the opposite bank and galloping towards the crossing point, crashing down into the water, splitting as they reached us, and climbing up the bank on both sides of us! (Note that our vehicle was on a high peninsula and not obstructing the path of the herd in any way.)
The noise was deafening and the energy levels high – overpowering in fact. It was about 20 minutes later, with many tens of thousands having crossed, when someone called full-time, and those remaining on the opposite bank pulled back to regroup for the next attempt. In less time, this crossing saw several times the number of animals than yesterday’s crossing.
Amongst the chaos two more crocs hit paydirt, dragging their bellowing victims below the swirling waters before sealing the kill with violent death rolls.
Watch a video of the wildebeests and zebras crossing the Mara River, filmed by Simon Espley and Frank Gabriel, below
Zebras seemed slightly more organised, more alert to danger, pickier about when and where to cross. One group chose to cross a few metres upstream from the tightly-packed thrashing wildebeest horde, creating a bow wave to push along a tiny foal with wide eyes. The tiny rocking horse scrambled and surfed to shore, shook himself off a few metres from us and staggered off to follow his herd.
Emotionally exhausted and with sore eyes, we retreated from the mayhem and found a quiet spot for some succour and reflection. And breakfast. Nothing like a delicious bush breakfast in the cool shade of a balanites tree, with the savannah vista stretching out below us.
These crossings were right up there with my most extraordinary wildlife encounters on this vast continent I am lucky enough to call home. These natural phenomena cast a spell on me, reminding me that we are all just minor actors in the theatre of life. All of us. That throng of wildebeest reminded me of crowds waiting to cross a busy city street or board the underground train, packed tightly and subject to that group energy, that sense of going with the flow.
After a few days of river crossings in northern Serengeti, I caught a short flight to the central plains of the Seronera area. From the air, I saw lines of wildebeest plodding south, towards these plains, in anticipation of the coming rains. But the central plains were still dry during my brief stay – the short grass corn-yellow, and swirling dust devils betraying the bone-dry soil.
In my three days here I saw nary a wildebeest, although zebras were scattered here and there, scavenging on patches of burnt ground with mere millimetres of green grass, perhaps sprouted in anticipation of the coming rains. There were Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelle everywhere, often in large gatherings. And lions. We stopped counting lions after a while, so many were there. We also found a few leopards and cheetahs, but lion encounters defined this part of my safari.
The big cats were hanging in at the peak of the dry season, waiting for the rains and the herds to arrive. Ribs were showing on tawny muscular bodies, and the sense of anticipation was palpable. Pity the first arrivals from the north…
The Great Wildebeest Migration is a never-ending pursuit of nutritious grazing by the two million-strong wildebeest and zebra herds of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem. In the northern-most months of this roughly circular annual journey, the herds have to cross firstly the Grumeti River and then the Mara River en-route north and again on the return journey south. Often various herds wander back and forth across the rivers, as they seek out the best grazing.
The Mara River usually offers the most dramatic crossings, because it is wider and deeper than the Grumeti. There are also a few places, such as the Sand River, where the herds can cross without getting their feet wet. This crossing process ebbs and flows every season, and timing is entirely dependent on the rains. These crossings are the most popular tourism aspect of the Great Wildebeest Migration, and the most popular northern hemisphere holiday month of August is prime time, although crossings can be viewed at any time from June to November.
Serengeti National Park, in northern Tanzania, comprises almost 15,000 km² of predominantly rolling grasslands, savannah, riverine forest and woodlands.
This vast landscape forms part of the unfenced Mara-Serengeti ecosystem that spans Kenya and Tanzania. It plays host to the Great Wildebeest Migration, also offering regular sightings of the Big 5 (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino) as well as zebras, crocodiles, hippos, giraffes, various antelope species and good populations of cheetahs, hyenas and wild dogs, and smaller species such as serval and bat-eared fox.
The name Serengeti is derived from the Maa word ‘siringet’, which refers to a “place where the land runs forever”.
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Simon was hosted at Lemala’s camps, lodges and villas in Tanzania: Lemala Kuria Hills Lodge, Lemala Ewanjan Tented Camp, and Lemala Kili Villas.
LEMALA KURIA HILLS LODGE
Lemala Kuria Hills Lodge is perched amongst massive boulders on a rocky kopje in the Wogakurya Hills of northern Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, a short game drive from the Mara River and the Kogatende airstrip. Each of the 15 glass-fronted guest tents has been discretely positioned amongst the boulders to ensure privacy and spectacular views, and the main lodge area enjoys sweeping views from the bar, wooden deck and swimming pool areas.
Simon’s highlights
“I enjoyed that Kuria Hills is perched on a rocky kopje, looking down over the plains. The camp area is alive with birds, and I enjoyed pairing my late afternoon high tea with watching the white-headed and spot-flanked barbets compete with brown parrots and Fischer’s lovebirds for ripe figs in the huge fig tree hanging over the wooden deck of the main area. Watch out for the large cranky male buffaloes that hang out amongst the guest units, and always call for an askari to escort you from your room to the main area. There is an awesome sundowner spot on the rocks immediately next to the lodge.”
LEMALA EWANJAN TENTED CAMP
Lemala Ewanjan Tented Camp is an authentic tented camp, with a decidedly colonial explorer feel to it. The camp is positioned in a quiet valley, near to the vast central plains of Seronera in the Serengeti National Park, but away from the busy main game drive routes. The 12-tented camp is positioned to provide access to the Great Wildebeest Migration from November to January as the herd heads south from the Mara River to the Ndutu Plains further south, and again during April to June as the herds head north again. The Seronera area enjoys year-round wildlife viewing and has a large population of resident big cats.
Simon’s highlights
“I enjoyed the large tents, with their creaky wooden floorboards and colonial-era furnishing. This camp made me feel like an explorer, an adventurer. Freshly-brewed early morning coffee on my private verandah was a camp highlight, looking out over the savannah packed with zebras and Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelles, and watching the stunning white-headed buffalo weavers and D’Arnaud’s barbets work the camp area for scraps. Sundowner drinks at the fire were always memorable, complete with awesome conversations and of course, yet another amazing sunset.”
LEMALA KILI VILLAS
The four Lemala Kili Villas are located on a private wildlife and golf estate on the outskirts of Arusha in Tanzania. These villas offer the ideal overnight stay before or after your safari, being a short drive from both Arusha and Kilimanjaro Airports. Each of the four villas is self-contained, with its own team – ideal for small groups and families.
Simon’s highlights
“I enjoyed the laid-back, homely feel about my villa. The villa is large, and has a rambling feel about it, without losing personality. I arrived after a long day of travelling between camps in the Serengeti and immediately relaxed into the rhythm of the place. A short walk along the golf course produced some excellent last-minute birding bonanzas and dinner on the verandah was the perfect end to my Serengeti safari.”
Image caption: Simon with photographer Frank Gabriel
Simon Espley is an African of the digital tribe, a chartered accountant and CEO of Africa Geographic. His travels in Africa are in search of wilderness, real people with interesting stories and elusive birds. He lives in Hoedspruit with his wife Lizz and two Jack Russells, and when not travelling or working, he will be on his mountain bike somewhere out there. His motto is ‘Live for now, have fun, be good, tread lightly and respect others. And embrace change.’
The latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has revealed that overfishing is causing fish species in parts of the developing world to decline. According to the updated list, 54 fish species from two important fisheries are threatened by unsustainable fishing.
Nine percent of the 458 fish species assessed in Lake Malawi are at high risk of extinction, causing concern for regional food security. Three out of the four species of Chambo (Oreochromis karongae, Oreochromis squamipinnis, Oreochromis lidole) – Malawi’s most economically valuable fish – are ‘Critically Endangered’.
Chambo fisheries are now on the brink of collapse. Over one-third of Malawians depend on Lake Malawi, Africa’s third-largest lake, for their food and livelihoods. Similar findings were highlighted in a recent report from the Lake Victoria Basin, where three-quarters of all endemic freshwater species are threatened. Local livelihoods in several East African countries dependent on resources from these lakes are threatened by unsustainable fishing.
“At least two billion people depend directly on inland freshwater fisheries such as Lake Malawi for their survival,” says William Darwall, Head of IUCN’s Freshwater Species Unit. “Almost 80% of catch from freshwater fisheries comes from food-deficit countries – where the general population does not have sufficient food to meet recommended daily calorie intake – yet freshwater resources are not prioritised on national or international agendas.”
Meanwhile, the first reassessment of all 167 species of grouper – an economically valuable iconic type of sea bass occurring widely in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Indo-Pacific regions – confirms that 13% are threatened by overfishing. Local communities in developing tropical and sub-tropical countries are particularly impacted.
However, there was good news for the fin whale, which has improved in status from ‘Endangered’ to ‘Vulnerable’ following bans on whaling, and the mountain gorilla subspecies, which has moved from ‘Critically Endangered’ to ‘Endangered’ thanks to collaborative conservation efforts.
The IUCN Red List now includes 96,951 species of which 26,840 are threatened with extinction.
There are more gorillas in the mist – a rare conservation success story, scientists say. After facing near-extinction, mountain gorillas are slowly rebounding. On Wednesday, the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) updated mountain gorillas’ status from ‘Critically endangered’ to ‘Endangered’, a more promising, if still precarious, designation. There are now just over 1,000 of the animals in the wild, up from an estimated population of 680 a decade ago.
“In the context of crashing populations of wildlife around the world, this is a remarkable conservation success,” said Tara Stoinski, president and chief scientist of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.
The Atlanta-based nonprofit is named for the primate researcher whose work helped draw international attention to mountain gorillas and whose memoir became the basis for the 1988 Sigourney Weaver film, Gorillas in the Mist.
“This is a beacon of hope – and it’s happened in recently war-torn and still very poor countries,” said Stoinski, who is also a member of the IUCN’s primate specialist group, which recommended the status change.
Mountain gorillas live in lush and misty forests along a range of dormant volcanoes in east Africa. Their habitat falls inside national parks spanning parts of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Fossey, who died in 1985, had projected that the primates may be extinct by 2000. Instead, their populations have been slowly increasing thanks to sustained and well-funded international conservation efforts.
“We have made progress in terms of their protection, in terms of allowing an environment where mountain gorillas can continue to thrive and grow,” said Anna Behm Masozera, director of the International Gorilla Conservation Program, based in Kigali, Rwanda. “But it’s important to note that mountain gorillas’ numbers could still slip back very quickly. We still have just two fragile and small populations,” split between two national park areas.
Several factors have enabled mountain gorillas’ modest rebound, said Masozera. The three governments have stepped up enforcement of national park boundaries — areas where hunting, logging and paved roads are illegal.
Tourism helps too: Visitors pay up to $1,500 an hour to watch gorillas, money that helps pay for park rangers.
“Primate ecotourism, done right, can be a really significant force for funding conservation,” said Russ Mittermeier, chief conservation officer at Global Wildlife Conservation. “It gives local governments and communities a tangible economic incentive to protect these habitats and species.”
There’s also health care. Gorilla Doctors, a nongovernmental group, has trained veterinary staff in each of the countries where the mountain gorillas live. Hunting in the national parks is illegal, but nearby residents still set traps to catch other animals, such as antelopes. Those traps can also grab gorillas’ arms and legs.
When gorillas are found struggling with snares, the vets are called in to clean wounds. Kirsten Gilardi, U.S. director for the organisation, called it “extreme conservation”.
Other experts said emergency vet interventions play a significant role in maintaining mountain gorilla populations.
“It’s a total conservation win, and there aren’t that many of them,” said Gilardi.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is once again drawing attention to the plight of giraffe. The IUCN Red List reveals that they are in serious trouble, with some now being considered as ‘Critically Endangered’. Many people first became aware of the declining numbers of the iconic giraffe when they were uplisted to ‘Vulnerable’ on the IUCN Red List in 2016. Today’s IUCN update comes as a further reminder that some of the currently IUCN-recognised giraffe subspecies are in real trouble.
The conservation status of seven of the currently IUCN-recognised nine giraffe subspecies has been assessed – five of these subspecies for the first time ever. For many, it comes as a shock that three of the giraffe subspecies are now listed as ‘Critically Endangered’ (Kordofan and Nubian giraffe) and ‘Endangered’ (Reticulated giraffe), while others range from ‘Vulnerable’ (Thornicroft’s and West African giraffe) to ‘Near Threatened’ (Rothschild’s giraffe). Only Angolan giraffe – with their stronghold in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe – seem to be out of trouble and are listed as ‘Least Concern’. Only the South African and Masai giraffe are yet to be assessed. While South African giraffe appear to be doing well, Masai giraffe have plummeted and will most likely be placed within one of the threatened categories of the IUCN Red List.
The updated assessments of these giraffe subspecies were undertaken by the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Giraffe & Okapi Specialist Group (GOSG), which is hosted by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF), and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) – who already, two years ago, sounded the alarm for the ‘silent extinction’ of giraffe.
“Whilst giraffe are commonly seen on safari, in the media, and in zoos, people – including conservationists – are unaware that these majestic animals are undergoing a silent extinction. While giraffe populations in southern Africa are doing just fine, the world’s tallest animal is under severe pressure in some of its core ranges across East, Central and West Africa. It may come as a shock that three of the currently recognised nine subspecies are now considered ‘Critically Endangered’ or ‘Endangered’, but we have been sounding the alarm for a few years now.” – says Dr Julian Fennessy, co-chair of the IUCN SSC GOSG, and Director of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF).
In spite of this, there is also positive news in this latest IUCN announcement. Two subspecies that were previously considered ‘Endangered’ (West African and Rothschild’s giraffe) have since improved their conservation status. Concerted efforts by African governments and conservation organisations, under the guidance and support of GCF, have resulted in increasing numbers of both subspecies, and as a result have been downlisted to ‘Vulnerable’ and ‘Near Threatened’, respectively.
“This is a conservation success story and highlights the value of making proactive giraffe conservation and management efforts in critical populations across the continent. Working collaboratively with governments and other partners, we feel that our proactive measures are saving giraffe in some areas before it is too late. It is now timely to increase our efforts, especially for those listed as ‘Critically Endangered’ and ‘Endangered’.” – says Arthur Muneza, East-Africa Coordinator of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, and member of the IUCN SSC GOSG.
While IUCN still recognises giraffe as one species with nine subspecies, detailed collaborative genetic-based research carried out by GCF and its partners, and Senckenberg BiK highlights that there are four distinct species of giraffe – elevating some of the newly assessed subspecies to species level. While this might appear an academic exercise, the conservation implications are immense and they need to be reviewed as a matter of urgency. The Northern giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) – which includes the ‘Critically Endangered’ Kordofan and Nubian giraffe, and the ‘Vulnerable’ West African giraffe – and Reticulated giraffe (Giraffa reticulata) can be considered some of the most threatened large mammals in the wild, showing less than 5,200 and 15,785 individuals remaining in the wild, respectively.
Common name
Previous Red List status
Updated Red List status
Kordofan giraffe
Not assessed
Critically Endangered
Nubian giraffe
Not assessed
Critically Endangered
Reticulated giraffe
Not assessed
Endangered
Thornicroft’s giraffe
Not assessed
Vulnerable
West African giraffe
Endangered (2008)
Vulnerable
Rothschild’s giraffe
Endangered (2010)
Near Threatened
Angolan giraffe
Not assessed
Least Concern
Masai giraffe
Not assessed
Not assessed
South African giraffe
Not assessed
Not assessed
Human population growth poses the largest threat to giraffe in Africa today. Habitat loss and changes through expanding agriculture and mining, illegal hunting, increasing human-wildlife conflict, and civil unrest are all factors that are pushing giraffe towards extinction. However, with GCF giraffe have a strong advocate.
Steph Fennessy, Director of GCF and member of the IUCN SSC GOSG, points out that “the updated IUCN Red List assessment highlights what we have been saying for years: giraffe are in trouble and there is no one solution to giraffe conservation in Africa. Different scenarios require different approaches. As a small but impactful organisation, GCF works with partners throughout Africa to enhance giraffe conservation on the ground and, at the same time, collaborates internationally to rally support and awareness for giraffe, which will ultimately help to save them in the wild.”
The Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) is the only organisation in the world that concentrates solely on the conservation and management of giraffe in the wild, throughout Africa. Currently working in twelve African countries, GCF is dedicated to a sustainable future for all giraffe populations in the wild, and seeks to provide a range of appropriate technical and financial support to partners, including several African governments, to help save giraffe before it is too late. For more information, visit our website: https://giraffeconservation.org/
A new parliamentary report has called for a ban on captive lion breeding for hunting and the lion bone trade in South Africa. The Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs (PCEA) on Thursday, 8th November, adopted a report of the two-day colloquium that was held on captive lion breeding and the hunting of lions for bones on 21 – 22 August 2018. The PCEA requested that the Department of Environmental Affairs urgently initiates a policy and legislative review with a view of putting an end to the practice of breeding lions for hunting and the bone trade.
Entitled Captive Lion Breeding for Hunting and Bone Trade in South Africa, the 24-page report found that captive lion breeding held no conservation value. There was no evidence to support the flawed, minority-held, argument that the captive-bred lion industry is “a well-regulated, manageable industry that contributes way more positively to South Africa than negatively”.
The report further asserts that the South African government should rethink its policy stance on the captive lion breeding industry, which runs the risk of making the country an “international pariah”.
It was also recommended that the government should reconsider the decision to increase the lion bone trade quota from 800 to 1,500 lion skeletons, stating that the decision was informed by commercial considerations, as opposed to science. There are also ethical, welfare and brand concerns relating to the captive lion breeding and hunting industries, according to the report.
The report contains the views of representatives of local pro-hunting and conservation organisations, as well as international organisations like the IUCN, who spoke against the industry calling on the South African Government to terminate this practice.
Customs officers stand next to part of a 33 rhino horn shipment seized by customs in Hong Kong. Image source: Reuters / Bobby Yip
BEIJING (Reuters) – China has postponed the lifting of a ban on the trade of rhino horn and tiger parts for medicine and other uses, the government said on Monday, after a storm of protest from conservation groups over a plan to water down the decades-old prohibition.
Environmental groups said lifting of the ban would be disastrous for endangered rhinoceros and tiger populations, even if the animal parts were only sourced from those bred in captivity.
Rhinos and tigers are already under critical pressure from a black market supplying the traditional medicine trade.
The “detailed regulations for implementation” of the October change had been “postponed after study”, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing State Council Executive Deputy Secretary-General Ding Xuedong.
Under the October plan, exceptions to the ban could be made for parts from those animals, bred in captivity, being used for medical and scientific research, education and “cultural exchanges”.
Ding did not give a reason for postponing the change, or indicate if it would be permanent, but said the old ban remained in force.
“The ‘three strict bans’ will continue to be enforced: strictly ban the import and export of rhinos, tigers and their byproducts; strictly ban the sale, purchase, transport, carrying and mailing of rhinos, tigers and their byproducts; and strictly ban the use of rhino horns and tiger bones in medicine,” Ding said.
China would continue to “organize special crackdown campaigns” with a focus on “addressing the illegal trade of rhinos, tigers and their byproducts”.
“Illegal acts will be dealt with severely,” Ding said.
Conservation groups argue that easing the ban would be devastating for efforts to protect tigers and rhinos because it would confuse consumers and authorities as to which products were legal and which not, and expand markets for them.
China banned trade in tiger bones and rhino horns 25 years ago as part of global efforts to save the animals.
Commercial tiger farms are legal in China, and although using tiger bones in medicine was banned, tiger parts from farms often end up in tonics or other medicines, animal rights groups say.
Photography is all about light. Visiting one of Africa’s magnificent wild places is always an adventure, but experiencing it in great light can make it an out-of-this-world experience that you’ll remember for a lifetime. In the early morning and late afternoon, the low standing sun brings out an array of colours that add a magical touch to the scenery. Sudden dust storms or seasonal cloud cover also create special light conditions, which transform a wild place into a fairyland. These are the best opportunities for extraordinary wilderness experiences and for capturing stunning photographs.
We want to celebrate Africa’s extraordinary light by showing you some amazing images taken on slide film from Namibia.
Sossusvlei in the Namib Desert is usually just a dry, white clay pan surrounded by mighty dunes. Every five to eight years, however, the pan is flooded by the Tsauchab River during times of exceptional rainfall along the escarpment a hundred kilometres further east. This photo was taken just a few minutes before sunset after having waited two hours for the sun to reappear from behind the clouds in the west.
The first light at the Quiver Tree Forest in southern Namibia conjures a golden glow onto the trees. The Quiver Tree Forest is a prime example of the dramatic light changes during the day. When visited at noon, the area looks rather bleak and harsh, but when the sun stands low in the early morning and late afternoon, the scenery transforms into a fairy landscape.
In the early morning light, the gravel plains west of Sesriem shine with warm colours. Within days of a rare rainstorm, the rather monochrome desert landscape transforms into a colourful carpet of greens and yellows from sprouting grass and flowering devil’s thorn.
Mighty dunes surround the dry Sossusvlei. In the late afternoon, the beautiful shapes of the dunes, combined with the fascinating play of light and shade, offer endless possibilities for stunning images.
Baobab and palm trees surround the Epupa Falls along the Kunene River in north-western Namibia. Where the river suddenly drops in a series of waterfalls, it produces a deafening sound of thunder and throws white columns of spray into the air. Add picturesque baobab trees balancing on rock outcrops amidst the cascades, and you’ve got a magic water world.
A dramatic sunset at the Fairy Tale Forest in the Etosha National Park after a heavy rainstorm has just passed. When the sunlight finally breaks through in the western sky, it pours a symphony of colours onto the flooded savanna that just an hour earlier resembled a barren desert.
An aerial view of the landscape near Sossusvlei with soft cloud shadows offers a glimpse into the vastness of the Namib Desert. When experienced by road or on foot, the desert is grand, but it’s even more breathtakingly beautiful when seen from the air. The change in perspective truly opens up a new world.
An elephant herd passes in front of a pink sunset sky in Etosha National Park. There is not the slightest sound coming from the procession of giants walking past, several tons heavy but quiet as mice. They soon fade in the dusty twilight before they finally are lost in the dark.
Deadvlei, with its bizarre dead Acacia trees, offers countless photographic possibilities. However, this image can only be taken in a short time window at sunset, when the pan floor is already in shade, and the dune behind is still illuminated by the setting sun.
Elim Dune near Sesriem offers a magnificent view towards the Naukluft mountains at sunset. In the rainy season, there is a chance that a soft carpet of grass and clouds in the sky add to the magical atmosphere.
Cloud shadows over the plains and dunes of the Namib Desert near Sesriem transform the scenery to look like a painting. This array of pastel colours is a rare but extraordinary sight in this desert landscape.
Giraffes walk across the grassy plains north of Okaukuejo in the Etosha National Park. The dry season with its clear sky and dusty landscapes offers great opportunities for animal silhouettes against the setting sun.
The Spitzkoppe skyline under a clouded sky glows in the last sun rays of the day. Photographed at dusk or dawn the granite takes on a pleasing warm colour with an orange tint and offers great photographic opportunities with its variety of shapes.
For accommodation options at the best prices visit our collection of camps and lodges: private travel & conservation club. If you are not yet a member, see how to JOIN below this story.
ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHERS, CLAUDIA & WYNAND DU PLESSIS
Professional nature photographers Claudia and Wynand du Plessis have lived and photographed for more than 25 years in Namibia. Their heart and photographic passion belong to the African wilderness, especially the wildlife of Etosha and the Namib Desert of Namibia. Photos featured here are from their calendar AFRICAN LIGHT 2019. Other Namibia calendars now available are WILD NAMIBIA 2019, AFRICAN WILDLIFE 2019 and ELEPHANTS 2019 (all available on Amazon in Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain). For more information, visit the website here.
ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE
Epic Serengeti
They came thundering from all sides, driven by a primordial instinct and sucked in by the cacophony and energy of those already crossing, plunging into the Mara River seemingly without a care, chancing their luck against the current, the rocks and the crocs. Chaotic, pulsating, exhilarating…
The dart lands just below her left shoulder. Gashangi, a 33-year-old mountain gorilla, reacts as though stung by a bee. She swipes a large hand toward her perceived antagonist but is unable to reach the feathered projectile. A few moments later, she gets up and begins to move off through the lush montane vegetation towards the rest of her family. The bright red dart falls off when she attempts to squeeze her substantial body through the thick patch of Galium and Urera vines where she had been feeding. Veterinarian Eddy Kabale picks it up from the ground and nods towards his colleagues. The medicine has been injected; there is nothing more they can do. He collects his gear and readies himself to set off through Virunga’s nearly impenetrable jungle once again. It is already mid-afternoon, high time to return to the park’s well-protected headquarters.
Straddling Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), the misty Virunga mountains are home to just over half of the world’s 1,004 mountain gorillas. Together with Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, they make up the species’ last remaining refuge. But Virunga National Park, Africa’s oldest and once its most biodiverse, plays host to regular human conflict and was occupied by the rebel group M23 as recently as 2012.he first time.
One hundred and forty park rangers have lost their lives in the battle for the park and its nonhuman inhabitants since 1994, and numerous gorillas have fallen victim to bullets, machetes and snares. Park director Emmanuel de Merode was nearly killed in an ambush scant days before the Gashangi intervention, taking four bullets in the stomach and legs.
While the courage and dedication of Virunga’s rangers have played a significant role in the astonishing recovery of the mountain gorilla population, there is another group whose tireless efforts are equally important.
Gorilla Doctors is a non-profit organisation made up of a dozen or so local veterinarians in DR Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda, as well as several international experts and the occasional volunteer. Their mandate is to monitor the populations of mountain and Grauer’s gorillas – the two subspecies that live in the Congo Basin – and, when the life or well-being of an individual gorilla or family group is at stake, intervene.
The ailments that require interventions are often caused by humans – injuries from snares and, with increasing frequency, respiratory diseases contracted directly from people visiting the gorillas or living in their vicinity, or from their livestock – but injuries from falls and fights are treated as well. As there are so few mountain gorillas left, each individual’s life is considered essential for the species’ survival.
Kabale had arrived at the Virunga National Park headquarters in Rumangabo two days earlier. Meeting him there were the organisation’s regional director, a German volunteer, and Alisa Kubala, a veterinarian and PhD student who is conducting a study of cross-species disease transmission. Gorillas and humans share 98.5% of their genetic makeup, leaving them susceptible to many of the same infections. Yet gorillas, long confined to small, isolated habitats, have had no opportunity to build up immunity against diseases such as influenza.
Twenty percent of sudden gorilla deaths are believed to be caused by infectious respiratory disease, second only to trauma; many of these likely originate with human pathogens. Kubala is particularly interested in whether mountain and Grauer’s gorillas are susceptible to contracting malaria since climate change is bringing mosquitoes to the previously mosquito-free elevations where they spend their lives.
The reason for this visit was not malaria research, however, but the annual health examinations of four orphan mountain gorillas who live at the Senkwekwe Sanctuary at park headquarters: Ndeze, Ndakasi, Maisha, and Matabishi.
The team of veterinarians was also here to see a newly arrived Grauer’s gorilla, Kalonge, who had just finished her quarantine period and needed to be thoroughly examined for the first time.
The sanctuary cares for mountain gorillas orphaned through poaching or the illegal wildlife trade and is the only one of its kind in the world. New arrivals always go through a quarantine period and an extensive health examination before being allowed any contact with the other gorillas. Kalonge had been caught in a snare and found by a group of young boys; they brought her to their chief, who contacted the authorities.
Sedating the older gorillas for their examinations turned out to be more difficult than one might expect. The animals are intelligent and experienced enough to know that they won’t be darted in the head or while standing up – knowledge they exploited without hesitation and sometimes with humorous defiance, lazily swinging back and forth on the room’s rope swing before laying down on the ground, shuffling around to keep their heads facing the veterinarians.
It took almost half an hour to get a clean shot at Maisha, a 9-year-old female and the little group’s matriarch, but once that was done – with a dart containing ketamine and xylazine – the work proceeded without further complications. The four doctors, working on the floor around the still gorilla, quickly concluded that all was well and that Maisha appeared to be in good health. [Editorial comment: Since the story’s original publication, Maisha has died after a very long illness – the doctors could not come up with a conclusive diagnosis]
Next up was little Kalonge. When Philippe Bitege, one of the gorillas’ full-time caretakers at Senkwekwe, carried her in, she was already sedated. Kabale estimated that she was about two years old, and unlike the four mountain gorillas, she was small enough to be examined on a table. The caretakers and veterinarians were reasonably sure that she was a Grauer’s gorilla. Still, before she could be moved from Senkwekwe to GRACE – a sanctuary dedicated to that subspecies of gorilla – samples would have to be sent abroad for DNA analysis.
Kalonge’s examination was more thorough than Maisha’s, because it was the first one since her quarantine ended, but she too was found to be in good health. When she began to awaken, she immediately reached for the safety of Philippe’s arms.
Ndakasi, unfortunately, was not doing so well. Her tuberculosis test was positive, and her mouth, tongue and throat were covered with lesions. Her breathing appeared to cease several times during the examination; Kubala was tasked with keeping an eye on Ndakasi’s chest and warning the others if her breathing became too irregular. Despite these concerns, the examination was quick and efficient. Kabale, who is to remain in Rumangabo when the rest of the team returns to Rwanda, would continue to monitor Ndakasi carefully for another week and then again on his next monthly visit to the sanctuary.
Before the veterinarians were able to begin the next examination on the following morning, there was another job to do. One of the gorillas inside the park had been ill for some time. A tumour was making it difficult for her to swallow, and her lips were torn. She needed urgent medical attention. After a quick meal of rice and beans, the team set off towards Bukima, where the gorilla’s family was last seen.
Bukima is the starting point for all gorilla trekking in Virunga National Park. Here, the gorillas live side by side with farmers, and to reach the barbed wire separating the forest from the fields, the team first had to pass through a scattered local settlement. One of the rangers accompanying the veterinarians enlarged the gap between the bottom wire and the ground enough for the others to crawl through.
They continued in silence, walking in single file, and after an hour, made contact with two trackers. These men had been in the forest since the early morning to locate Gashangi, the sick gorilla. Kabale sat down on the damp ground and began his preparations, checking the dart gun that he would use to inject the medicine.
A whispered conversation with the trackers followed. What they were doing was not entirely without risk. The idea was to find Gashangi and separate her from the rest of the family, particularly the silverback. Gorillas are rarely aggressive, but a dominant male will protect his family. If he charged, treating Gashangi would become difficult.
But the family patriarch was busy enjoying his afternoon meal, and the patient was soon found, already isolated from the other family members. Her movement through the thick vegetation made it difficult for Kabale to get a clean shot, and it was almost half an hour before he dared to pull the trigger. A missed shot does not mean merely wasted medicine – it might very well mean a wasted day. A few years earlier, an intervention in Uganda ended up taking a full four days and more than 30 hours of trekking through rough terrain, so it is better to avoid taking unnecessary risks.
Alas, the intervention wouldn’t save Gashangi’s life – but there was never much hope of that. She suffered from malignant skin cancer, and there was nothing Kabale or anyone else could have done to prevent her death. But a number of the trackers suspected her to be pregnant, so Gorilla Doctors were hoping that an experimental treatment – an expensive vaccine that had proven successful in mice, dogs and humans – would reduce pain and delay death long enough for her baby to be born.
As it turned out, she wasn’t pregnant, and Gashangi died two days after the last of four vaccinations. But the intervention shows just how far Kabale and his fellow veterinarians are willing to go for even the remotest chance of saving a life.
As humans encroach on gorilla habitat for farmland, oil and charcoal, and as increasing temperatures and rainfall invite more pathogens, Gorilla Doctors’ work becomes ever more critical.
Facing challenges like gruelling treks through inhospitable territory and armed rebels, poachers, and outlaws, these veterinarians and rangers routinely risk their lives for our wild relatives. The future of these gorillas is anything but secure, but it would doubtlessly be far bleaker if it were not for Gorilla Doctors.
Marcus Westberg is an acclaimed photographer and writer, focusing primarily on conservation and development issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. A photojournalism finalist in the 2015 Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Marcus works closely with several non-profit organisations and projects across the continent. He is a conservation and community development advisor for Luambe Conservation in Zambia.
The name of the fabled Serengeti is derived from the Maa word siringet, which refers to a “place where the land runs forever”. Likewise, the Maasai Mara gets its name from the Maa word for “spotted,” in reference to the acacia thickets which are sprinkled across the savanna. Together, these regions of Tanzania and Kenya comprise the expansive Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, and it’s no coincidence that the Maasai people have identified these wildlife-rich habitats according to their physical features since time immemorial.
The rolling plains, winding serpentine waterways, and sparse-yet-mysterious riverine woodlands resonate deeply with something in the human spirit. They are the backdrop to an endless drama of predator and prey; in them, we glimpse something of the infinite struggle of man and nature – perhaps even something of our own origin. But these apparently timeless landscapes may not be as eternal and unchanging as they appear. In fact, they may have once looked quite different.
If you could step into the Maasai Mara of two hundred years ago, you’d be surprised at what you might see. Rather than driving across endless plains baking under a red African sun, you might stride beneath the dappled shade of a mature-growth forest of Acacia and Combretum. You might pick your way carefully amongst tangled thickets of Croton thornbush, hoping to avoid the very real possibility of stumbling across a leopard waiting out the heat of the day in the dense cover.
Unless you came to a break in the trees, you might not see the blue haze of the Oloololo Escarpment in the far distance, nor would you obtain an uninterrupted vista of the wild sprawl of the bush. You would be forgiven, in fact, for thinking that you were not in East Africa at all.
Researchers have been able to put this evocative picture together by extensively consulting the historical record: written journals, game wardens’ diaries, and hunters’ observations have all played their part. Scientists have also compared contemporary photographs with pictures of the same locations from previous decades, and they’ve used modern tools to determine the age of living trees.
Altogether, the Serengeti-Mara has been studied continuously since the 1950s, allowing us to extrapolate long-term trends that aren’t immediately apparent to visitors in this part of Africa.
One expert on the subject is Dr Colin Beale, an ecologist with the University of York who specialises in spatial processes, from the seasonal movements of individual animals to the greater patterns of entire species.
Colin works with conservation organisations in order to assist with wildlife management policies. Although he’s quick to point out that reserve management decisions should be made by local authorities rather than foreign scientists, his insight is nonetheless an invaluable tool for anyone seeking to understand this complex ecosystem. And he’s seen plenty of complex relationships in the Maasai Mara.
“The grassland-woodland mosaic in the area has changed a lot over long periods of time,” he says, “and elephants, humans, fire, and climate all have a role to play in these changes.” In fact, his research has contributed to a growing body of work that demonstrates that woodland in the Maasai Mara has been in decline for more than a century, resulting in the grassland savanna we know so well. But the reasons for this decline in woodland are manifold.
As Colin suggests, fire is one of the biggest drivers of change – and it’s tied inextricably to human activity. Fires in the Mara are not typically the result of lightning strikes; instead, most are set by Maasai pastoralists.
The fires are used to burn away grass and bush, stimulating a new flush of fresh grass for the purpose of livestock grazing. Other fires are set by reserve authorities under the impetus of park management plans. It’s not uncommon for a given area to be burned in this manner two or even three times per year. Naturally, this repeated activity has a significant impact on the environment, eliminating trees and encouraging the dominance of grassland. Some research even suggests that only fire can change an ecosystem from forest to grassland, though other forces are capable of suppressing new growth and keeping an environment locked into a grassland stage.
So while fire is a major agent of change, it’s not the only contributing factor.
Petter Granli is the president and co-founder of ElephantVoices, a scientific organisation that studies elephant cognition, communication, and social behaviour. With more than 40 years of field research under its belt, the organisation has been able to assist with the management of wild elephant populations by providing important information to the authorities of African reserves – including the Maasai Mara.
Petter was kind enough to lend me some further insight into a few of the challenges facing the Mara’s ecosystem.
“Firewood collection deeper and deeper into the reserve [and] more and more cattle grazing deeper and deeper into the reserve are some of the main ones during recent times,” he says. He also points to research showing that a century’s worth of a deliberate bush-clearing, as part of efforts to eliminate the tsetse fly, has further reduced the reserve’s woodland. These elements have all had a hand in the environment’s gradual loss of forest cover and in the rising prevalence of grassland, and they aren’t going away anytime soon.
With all of these forces exerting sustained pressure on the environment, it’s clear that the gradual transformation of the Mara is an incredibly complicated process with many moving parts. It also seems increasingly likely that humanity may ultimately be the most influential agent of change in the environment; the work of ElephantVoices and other organisations operating in the region has allowed us to realise a greater understanding of our own impact upon places like the Mara.
But even as recently as the 1960s, elephants were being singled out as the primary cause for the destruction of the environment’s mature woodlands. There were even calls for the elephants to be culled in an effort to reduce their impact on the ecosystem, as has been performed in other African countries. But could the situation ever really call for a solution this drastic?
To a certain extent, it’s difficult to imagine that elephants could even be capable of transforming their environment so dramatically. My first encounter with these titans of the Mara occurred some six years ago, in the Paradise Plain in the west of the reserve.
It was a sultry mid-afternoon in August, and most of the plains game were resting languidly, waiting for the heat of the day to subside. It was a pleasant surprise, then, to see a line of three bull elephants emerging from a stand of Commiphora along the riverbank. Each of these bachelors strode confidently abreast of the elephant next to it, and the leftmost amongst them was a real tusker, with incisors big enough to discourage even the most enterprising of adolescent challengers.
But any sense of latent danger was suppressed by the cool, self-assured manner in which the elephants approached the Land Rover. The foremost elephant even advanced to within a few feet of us, extending its trunk to see what could be learned from our scent. Either the elephant was quickly satisfied or we weren’t especially interesting, as it wasn’t long before the three companions ambled past us and into the distant grasses beyond. Yes, it was hard to imagine these gentle giants as a destructive force of nature – but only to a certain extent.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing a very hungry elephant – or a very determined one – you’ll already appreciate the way in which these animals can easily dig a succulent root from the ground, knock over an acacia, or strip the bark from a baobab. I have personally seen baobab specimens that were virtually destroyed by elephants, as the big animals had been desperate to access the spongy, palatable vegetable matter inside the trunk and had caused heavy damage to the huge trees.
And if trees are already damaged by fire, elephants breaking their branches and removing their bark can make them less likely to recover fully. So perhaps it’s not quite so surprising to learn that herds of elephants can, over a period of years, begin to have an effect on the makeup of vegetation in an ecosystem like the Serengeti-Mara.
While the extent of this impact is hotly debated, most experts do agree that elephants can at least have some influence on their environment. But does that necessarily mean that elephants are engaged in destructive deforestation? Or are they just benevolent gardeners?
To learn more, I spoke with Ethan Kinsey, a professional safari guide who also happens to be an ecologist specialising in biodiversity conservation and management.
When asked whether elephants can be considered a destructive force of nature, Ethan raises a provocative point. “The term ‘destruction’ is a judgement based on how we think something should be,” he says. The handiwork of elephants might be shocking to human observers: pushed over and debarked trees, or a loss of trees in certain areas altogether. But this might represent a natural process rather than a catastrophe.
“I much prefer to think of elephants as ecosystem engineers,” Ethan muses, recognising that the big animals are “essential in terms of seed dispersal, encouraging new growth, and opening up woodlands for grasslands, which then serve a different guild of species.”
In other words, the environment of a wilderness like the Maasai Mara would be poorer in both floral and faunal diversity without the influence of elephants. To the extent that elephants might ever place too much pressure on their environment, he suggests that this would actually be a result of human encroachment. If elephants don’t have the freedom and safety to traverse their traditional migration routes, they can be pushed into smaller areas, where their population builds up into unnatural concentrations and begins to have an effect on the ecosystem.
Petter Granli and his team at ElephantVoices have also observed this phenomenon in the Mara.
“In recent years, fencing has become a major threat to the ecosystem – with elephants being only one species seriously affected,” he cautions. If development continues unchecked without the establishment of sufficient migration corridors, the Mara’s elephants will be boxed into a smaller space and may begin to more seriously damage their habitat. This trend has accelerated over time, corresponding with a general increase in human pressure.
The problem has also been exacerbated by Kenya’s privatisation of previously-communal grazing land; pastoralists are increasingly forced to allow their livestock to graze in prime wildlife habitat, which further degrades its ability to sustain a wide variety of species.
However, it’s important not to let short-term trends dictate the course of conservation efforts, either; all too often, the long-term picture remains unclear. Ecosystems like the Serengeti-Mara experience natural fluctuations and cycles of vegetation; change is quite literally the only constant in the natural world. Managers of game lands might therefore expect to see some waxing and waning of animal populations, as well as plant demographics.
For example, certain parts of the Mara have even experienced a renewed expansion of woodlands as recently as the 1930s and 1940s. And with hundreds of elephants migrating into the Serengeti to escape poaching pressure in the Mara over the last 15 years, we may continue to see changes in the ecosystem’s landscape as the elephant population alters its distribution. That’s why it’s so important to avoid knee-jerk reactions to the appearance of trends like a decline in woodland habitat.
Ethan puts it succinctly: “Savannas do not have a single climax state and are in a constant state of flux.”
He recommends managing a reserve like the Mara for the diversity of habitat, which will naturally result in a healthy diversity of species. This approach will best reward both the animals who live in the habitat and the people who come to see them.
But as Colin Beale reminds us, the responsibility to manage wild habitats like the Maasai Mara ultimately rests with local people. They will be the ones to decide which species to prioritise and what constitutes the ideal habitat for those species. And one Kenyan organisation is already making exciting progress in reforesting the country’s wild places.
“We are wholly owned, self-financed, and operated in Kenya,” says Teddy Kinyanjui, Sustainability Director for Seedballs Kenya. This is an exciting initiative that packages the seeds of indigenous plants – mostly trees – inside small balls of charcoal dust.
These “seedballs” are sold at affordable prices and can simply be tossed into vacant property or distributed aerially over wide tracts of land. The charcoal coating protects the vulnerable seeds from predation and extreme temperatures until they can successfully germinate and take root. While the seedballs are meant to be used all over the country in order to increase forest cover, they’re especially useful in places like the Maasai Mara. That’s why the group has partnered with a number of different conservation organisations.
“All of our Re-Green partners are either companies or individuals who have bought seedballs from us or our conservation partners, with whom we have set up a direct donation portal,” Teddy explains. “People from anywhere in the world can send seedballs to them for distribution and follow-up.”
Some of their partners include the Big Life Foundation, Lion Guardians, and the Mara Elephant Project. These organisations work with Seedballs Kenya to plant olive trees, African cedar trees, nine different Acacia species, and two types of grass in the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. These species are critical in elephant habitats like the Mara, and this novel method of protecting Kenya’s biodiversity is exactly the sort of ingenuity needed to complement traditional conservation efforts in the country.
Will this be enough to ensure that there is always a place for elephants in East Africa, as well as the habitat necessary to support them?
Just as many forces have shaped the Serengeti-Mara into the ecosystem we recognise today, many forces must come together in order to ensure that the environment remains populated with these charismatic animals, as well as other denizens of the bush. Conservation organisations, government agencies, safari tourists, and regular people all have a part to play in this collaborative endeavour.
But in order to know where you’re going, it helps to know where you’ve started. Understanding the ecological history of places like the Maasai Mara will generate greater recognition of what these reserves require to thrive in the future.
For my own part, I plan to return to the Mara in just a few months. Thanks to the efforts of organisations like ElephantVoices and Seedballs Kenya, as well as the research of scientists like Colin Beale and Ethan Kinsey, I know that I’ll find elephants there. With a lot of hard work and a little luck, I hope that this may always be the case.
The international donor community and governments have invested heavily in fighting illegal wildlife trade, but so far, they haven’t succeeded in ending rhino poaching.New research from UCT shows that for these initiatives to succeed, local communities – many of which live in or near protected areas – need to be involved.
Local communities in rural areas in South Africa tend to be on the periphery of basic service delivery and only a few conservation initiatives partner with or enrol local people in their work. As such, often the only benefits community members can gain from wildlife economies are through poaching.
“During our research, we found that local community members felt that government, conservation authorities and non-governmental organisations valued the lives of wild animals more highly than those of rural black people,” explains Dr Annette Hübschle, the study’s lead author and senior researcher at UCT’s Global Risk Governance Programme.
The study aims to show how to change the incentive structures for members of local communities so that they participate in legal economies rather than illegal wildlife trafficking. Some of the case studies in the report illustrate how former poachers and wildlife traffickers have turned into wildlife guardians.
“In such instances, we have documented examples where poaching numbers were lower than in other protected areas where local communities are excluded from beneficiation, ownership and management,” says Hübschle.
Although the study focused on rhino poaching, its findings and recommendations are applicable to all forms of wildlife trafficking. The pangolin, for example, is now considered the most trafficked animal in the world, and cycads the most threatened plant species.
Serving people or rhinos
While rhinos may be protected by the South African National Defence Force, looked after by wildlife veterinarians and given supplementary food and water by conservation authorities, some of the communities living nearby do not have a permanent police presence, basic healthcare facilities, schools or shops.
“The rhino has its own doctor, its own policeman, its own helicopter, its own land and there are rangers to protect it,” says a local community member from the greater Kruger National Park, South Africa. “We don’t have these things. If the rhino goes extinct tomorrow, maybe we can finally get basic services.”
The report shows that many local communities shield poachers and wildlife criminals from law-enforcement agencies. It also describes the deep rifts and conflicts between actors in the conservation field, most notably, local communities and conservation management authorities.
By giving local communities a voice, the report aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the lived experiences, systematic exploitation and questionable assumptions of the dominant conservation regime in South Africa.
Empowering communities to conserve
Since the most recent escalation in rhino poaching, most conservation funding has been diverted to anti-poaching initiatives and to the administration costs of projects by international non-governmental organisations and conservation authorities.
The international community is focusing on militarising anti-poaching initiatives, calling for more helicopter gunships, drones and boots on the ground. This has – unintentionally – impeded community-orientated conservation and broad-based economic transformation.
There are, however, limits to what conservation authorities can do to uplift communities that live near national parks. Hübschle highlights the need to “explore other forms of rural employment, resource sharing and income generation beyond hunting, anti-poaching and tourism.”
She recommends that the needs of conservation initiatives be provided through community empowerment projects that contribute to teaching community members the skills to develop and maintain their own projects. Furthermore, women should be involved in mediating positive conservation outcomes.
“Women command considerable power and influence in the communities in question,” Hübschle explains. “In light of the patriarchal structure of many rural African communities, this suggestion may appear counter-intuitive. However, there are countless examples that demonstrate that women can exert a strong influence on conservation outcomes.”
I’ve been re-reading the transcript of the submissions made to the Portfolio Committee of Parliament in Cape Town recently. Some of the arguments advanced on behalf of the hunting industry made me wonder if they were written by a five-year-old child, rather than senior officeholders of hunting associations. Tragically these puerile arguments are accepted as gospel by conservation structures in South Africa.
Here are some howlers, along with my comments:
1. “It was not the practice of canned lion hunting that is damaging the conservation image of the country, it is the activists who keep publicising it. The government should ban people from commenting negatively on canned hunting. South Africa should only show good news and kill the bad news.”
My comment:Yes, this was a serious submission made to Parliament by an executive member of a hunting association. I did not make this up!
2. “The 1000 people who work in the lion sector have a right to earn a living.”
My comment: What a sweeping statement! So everyone has a right to make a living in any way he chooses. Like robbing banks? Surely, this right applies only to occupations that are not harmful. Otherwise, on his claim, you could argue that everyone involved in human trafficking or drug dealing had a right to earn a living in that way. Oh, by the way, the number of workers is grossly exaggerated – a few hundred at most are directly involved in hunting.
3. The DEA should not pay any attention to foreign NGOs who give input on how African wildlife should be managed. The DEA should only listen to Africans. And the Chinese. Not to any western colonial national.
My comment:Does that also mean that the SA government should not listen to any foreign hunting organisations such as Safari Club International?
4. Hunting brings in more than 1 billion rands of foreign currency to South Africa every year.
My comment:Ah! So now the criterion for legitimacy is how much money you make. The argument is that, if the industry makes a lot of money for its members, it should not be banned. On that argument, the sale of narcotic drugs should be legalised immediately since drug dealers surely make many times more money than the lion hunting industry. And what about the human trafficking industry? Should we also legalise that as well because it makes a lot of money for its perpetrators? Surely the question is not how much money an industry makes, but whether it is harmful. That is why human trafficking and drug dealing are banned and it is why canned lion hunting and lion farming should be banned too. How much money the industry makes is completely and utterly irrelevant. We are talking conservation here, not finance.
5. Lions should be hunted because otherwise, they would be “an economic burden on South Africa. One lion consumes food to the value of R120,000 per year. That equated to R250 million in economic value that they ate.”
My comment: Again, I’m not making this stuff up. We must kill lions because they eat too much? Really? Seriously? This is taken verbatim from the transcript.
And it is not only the hunting fraternity that is guilty of muddled reasoning and crooked thinking. Here from the hallowed halls of Oxford University comes a wondrous academic who advances the following perverse reason to promote canned lion hunting and the lion bone trade.
6. According to the precautionary approach, Dr Sas-Rolfes stressed, it should be incumbent upon proponents of a zero quota to provide assurances, backed up by scientific evidence, that it would not lead to expansion of illegal trade and the poaching of wild lions or other wild cat species.
My comment: Wow! Let’s unpack this little gem of logic. The cautionary rule is a law in South Africa that requires conservationists to take action against any potential threat even if there is insufficient scientific evidence to quantify or measure it. It is a law that is designed to protect the environment, not the commercial interests of polluters or animal abusers.
The good academic takes this law and applies it to an assumption which he has made that the killing of a tame lion prevents the hunting of wild lion. There is not a shred of scientific evidence to support his assumption; on the contrary, tiger farming for the sale of body parts is banned by CITES because everyone knows that allowing a legal trade in animal parts will inevitably stimulate an illegal trade.
Having made a false assumption, he then stands the precautionary rule on its head and applies it against conservationists who warn of the dangers of allowing the export of lion bones to Asia. In other words, he is taking a precautionary rule designed to protect the environment and using it to protect the commercial interests of lion farmers and canned lion hunting operators.
So on the basis of such childish arguments as these, the SA government Department of Environment (DEA) not only permits, but vigorously promotes, a lion farming industry which:
• Inflicts routine cruelty on helpless animals on an industrial scale;
• Sabotages the efforts of the Department of Tourism to promote SA as a responsible tourism destination;
• Causes controversy, confusion and division in conservation;
• Has no conservation benefit; and
• May very likely stimulate the illegal trade in body parts of big cats globally.
I also found some other interesting snippets in the transcripts:
SANBI (the scientific authority of the South African National Biodiversity Institute) who was consulted by the DEA with regard to the quota for lion bone trade to Asia, indicated that “it was not answerable to the public.”
Wow! Even though it operates 100% on public funds? Is that acceptable?
Conclusion
At the end of the transcript the committee announced that a report on the colloquium would be prepared and handed to the committee for further consideration. That has been delayed – perhaps partly due to the untimely death of Minister Edna Molewa, but is expected to be handed to the Portfolio Committee next week.
Then what? I’d love to be an optimist but I suspect that in five years time lion farming will still be flourishing in South Africa.
Everything is still and quiet as the sun pounds the floodplain of the Zambezi Valley. It is late afternoon, but the intensity of the heat has not abated. In front of me are a group of animals lying in a heap. Occasionally a big round ear will twitch, or a head might lazily rise, only to flop back down in exhaustion from the effort.
It is Blacktip and her pack of 14 painted wolves and nine puppies sleeping in the dense shade of a Trichilia tree. I am sitting 20 metres in front of them, my long lens and camera resting on its tripod in anticipation.
Excitement is building within me. From years of observation, I know what is about to happen but, to the casual eye, there is nothing to betray the eruption that will soon take place. Without warning the sleeping wolves explode and begin a ritual of unbounded joy and energy. Every wolf is on its feet as they squeak and skip, run and race, bite and barge, nudge and nibble, duck and dive, leap and lick and sniff and snort… just for the pleasure of being with each other.
This is their greeting ceremony. It is like watching long-separated families meet at an airport, despite them having lain on top of each other all day.
For the last six years, I have been following and photographing three packs of painted wolves on foot, in Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe. This infectious joy of the pack is one reason why I have become obsessed with these creatures. Here in Mana Pools, the painted wolves are incredibly lucky. They live far from the ravages of man, living as so many packs have done before them, over hundreds of thousands of years.
Yet most painted wolves are far from this fortunate. For the species, the last century has been devastating. Their population has dropped from 500,000 to an estimated 6,600 today, confined to roam across just a few remote corners of the African continent.
What has caused this demise? Like all African wildlife, they have lost much of their rangelands from expanding human populations. But the painted wolves have faced a far greater assault. Considered vermin by European settlers anxious to recreate their European farming systems, the painted wolf’s threat to livestock was highly exaggerated by ignorant farmers and a systematic programme aimed at their annihilation was carried out through much of Africa.
Colonial administrations offered generous bounties for each painted wolf’s death, and visitors were even allowed to shoot them on sight in many of Africa’s protected parks. In Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), they were considered a ‘problem animal’ right up until 1977. In 1975 alone, 3,404 painted wolves were destroyed in vermin control operations.
Even today, I hear old farmers talk about this animal with such hatred, and I have slowly come to recognise that their ignorance is totally impenetrable.
An Incredible Creature
But for those that really know them, this image of the painted wolf as a wanton killer could not be further from the truth. They are fascinating animals, and each wolf is an individual, most of whom I have got to know well.
They live in a matriarchal society. Only the alpha female will breed with a single alpha male. The rest of the pack will take on a different role – a doting aunt or uncle, a hunt leader, a look-out sentry and even the local doctor that will lick the wounds of any hurt family member.
Each is an individual character, and I am convinced to this day that one of my favourite wolves, Pip, was the clown whose job it was to entertain the children. It is at the den that you get the sense of the cohesion of the pack. Although there is usually only one mother, every member of the pack plays a critical role in their nurturing and development. The adults hunt twice a day and return to regurgitate food for the pups and the adults that remained behind.
Their skill as a hunter is well-known and painted wolves have earned themselves a reputation as Africa’s most efficient predator – some say that 80% of their hunts result in a kill.
In my experience, that number seems a little high, but not by much. While many individual chases may be unsuccessful, it is a rare day when the pack goes hungry. To watch them hunt is exhilarating. Their speed, stamina and agility combine to make a kill far more spectacular than any lion or leopard hunt. From what I have seen, the notion that the pack uses telepathy to communicate during the hunt does not stand up. I have stood in the centre of a hunt many times with wolves and impala rushing past me as I desperately try to photograph. It is more like opportunistic mayhem – every wolf for itself.
Once they have made a kill, any sense of individualism evaporates. To the casual observer watching a pack of painted wolves devour its prey, the frenzy seems savage as they rip the carcass apart. They need to eat fast as they are continually threatened by hyenas that attempt to steal their food, and frenetic battles between these two species are common with the little puppies often a casualty. Closer observation of the feeding frenzy reveals their sharing attitude. They always let the pups eat first. Then any wolf that is wounded, sick or elderly will be allowed to take their fill. The alpha female will often be the last to feed, once her pack is comfortably replete.
This is in sharp contrast to lions, where the big male hogs the kill and the rest of the pride must wait patiently until he is finished. And the little cubs only get to eat last. Rather than aggression, the dogs compete with submission, making for a far more harmonious, generous and kind existence. I am convinced this is because they are led by a female who nurtures rather than dominates.
Females Rule
Indeed, the alpha female is the core of the pack. She will lead her pack from its formation until she dies. She is the leader, general, decision-maker and caring mother. Once she dies, the pack splits, with the males and females heading in different directions to form new packs.
Tait of the Vundu pack was my favourite alpha female. She lived for over ten years and had eight litters, so her genes run through most of the dogs in the Zambezi Valley and probably beyond. Being with her, you could sense her strength of character. I remember when she was faced with an onslaught of 11 hyena against her 14 wolves. She seemed to stand back like a general and direct the defence, ensuring her pups remained safe. But she was no coward. When things got particularly hectic, she would be there in the mix.
As head of the pack, the alpha female presides over the pack’s generally harmonious family life. You get the sense that they really do care for one another with a deep bond of love. Or at least that is the best description I can provide, observing them from my very human viewpoint. Watching them at playtime is perhaps the greatest joy, especially around water. As the sun begins to set and temperatures cool, the pups run around ambushing each other and baiting the dozing adults. The grown-ups often can’t resist the fun and games, joining in with more vigour than the pups.
For the painted wolves, life in Mana Pools is how it should be. However, it is not all plain sailing. Hyena attacks are frequent, and the lions are a continual threat and are responsible for the deaths of many wolves. But in the remote Zambezi Valley, they are protected from their species greatest scourge… mankind.
In the west of Zimbabwe, Hwange National Park is surrounded by communal lands where the painted wolves are in daily contact with man. Here they are subjected daily to road kills, disease, snaring, as well as intolerant farmers.
Rabies and distemper often spread from domestic dogs, annihilating entire packs. Villagers lay snares to catch antelope to feed their families or pay for education. Painted wolves, while not the target, are all too often caught in these snares with fatal consequences.
While it is easy to criticise the villagers for laying snares, I would challenge anyone to say they would not do the same if their family was starving or their children unable to attend school. This is where organisations like Painted Dog Conservation (PDC), run by Peter Blinston, play a vital role. Not only do they carry out critical research and run a small army of anti-poachers to collect snares and apprehend criminals, but they also work hand-in-hand with these communities.
They build boreholes, plant vegetable gardens, vaccinate domestic dogs and have built a string of medical clinics with HIV/AIDS and maternity facilities. These things really matter to the communities, and the message is simple.
“Without the painted wolves, PDC will not be here and neither will the benefits we bring. It is the wolves that are bringing these things to you.”
This message seems to be working, and the communities have even set up their own voluntary anti-poaching team, an initiative entirely of their own making.
This approach certainly has an impact in the short term, but long-term, education is the key. PDC has set up a Bush Camp which brings in over 1,000 children a year for a four-day course on the painted wolves, science and conservation. The camp is designed to change hearts and minds, in an environment which for the children is like going to Disneyland. Attitudes are changing, and this is what is necessary if the painted wolves are to have a chance.
Beyond the villages and communities that must live with these predators on their doorstep, the painted wolves face a more significant problem. That is that so few people know that they exist.
In the conservation world, the elephant, rhino and lion continue to grab all the attention, while the painted wolf is not only ignored but unknown. Of course, these other animals are important – it is not a competition. But the painted wolf needs to be up there on the top table of conservation, especially given that so few remain.
To address this, Peter and I, together with leading conservationist Diane Skinner, have set up the Painted Wolf Foundation. Its objective is to increase the awareness of the painted wolf and raise money for organisations working for their conservation. Peter and I have also produced a book called Painted Wolves: A Wild Dog’s Life, which describes in detail the lives of these incredible creatures and what is being done to conserve them. It has been six years in the making and features the same packs in the BBC’s incredible film Painted Wolves: A Wild Dog Dynasty, narrated by Sir David Attenborough.
In the race to extinction, it is the painted wolves that are winning. It is a race they never wanted to enter. Few know they exist and even less care. As a species that has mistreated them, it seems to me that if we humans want to describe ourselves as more enlightened, we need to do something to tilt the balance back in their favour.
This is my passion. This is why we have the Painted Wolf Foundation. What we need is for more people to join us and become “Part of the Pack”.
The Painted Wolf Foundation was set up by Nicholas Dyer, Peter Blinston and leading conservationist Diane Skinner. The Painted Wolf Foundation aims to raise awareness about this much threatened and ignored species and support organisations that conserve painted wolves in the field.
The Painted Wolf Foundation has launched a significant campaign to raise global awareness about the species and its plight, working with many partners around the world and within Africa. For six years, wildlife photographer and author Nicholas Dyer has been tracking and photographing the painted wolves on foot in the Zambezi Valley. For twenty years, conservationist Peter Blinston has been doing all he can to save them from extinction.
What the foundation does:
• Raises awareness about the painted wolf worldwide
• Increases the support base for the painted wolf
• Elevates the profile of the organisations working to conserve painted wolves in the field
• Raises funds to support field-based conservation of the painted wolf
• Encourages sharing of best practices
• Supports painted wolf campaigns worldwide
The foundation does this by combining expert conservation knowledge with skills in communication and social media.
THE BOOK
PAINTED WOLVES: A Wild Dog’s Life
The painted wolf is a unique and remarkable creature. On the one hand, it is Africa’s most successful predator, yet on the other, it is an incredibly social animal, caring deeply for its family’s wellbeing in a tightly knit pack.
Yet for the last 100 years, the painted wolf has endured an outrageous onslaught, which has seen their numbers decrease from 500,000 a century ago to only 6,500 today. This 99% reduction in their population has put the wolf’s survival on a knife-edge. Painted Wolves: A Wild Dog’s Life is their story. It is told with insight and passion from two people who know them well, each with their own unique perspective on this endearing animal.
For six years Nicholas Dyer has been tracking and photographing painted wolves on foot in the Zambezi Valley. For twenty years, Peter Blinston has been doing all he can to save the painted wolf from extinction through his organisation Painted Dog Conservation.
In this book, they have come together to tell you what they know and love about this incredible creature, sharing their in-depth knowledge and unique experiences.
The book is illustrated with more than 220 stunning images. Each photograph tells a story and brings alive the captivating and mysterious world of the painted wolves and the lives of those around them. All profits from the book will go to the Painted Wolf Foundation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR, Nicholas Dyer
Nick grew up in Kenya and always had a passion for photography. After careers in finance and marketing, stuck behind a desk in London, he took the decision to return to Africa and turn his life around to dedicate it to photography, writing and wildlife conservation. In 2013, he discovered the painted wolves of Mana Pools National Park and fell in love with them. Nick has spent much of the last six years living in a tent while following and photographing three packs on foot.
He is the co-author of Painted Wolves: A Wild Dog’s Life, a founding trustee of the Painted Wolf Foundation and a finalist in the prestigious 2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition with his picture – ‘Ahead of the Game’. See more of his photography at www.nicholasdyer.com, and follow him on his Facebook and Instagram page.
ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE
Painted Wolves: A Wild Dog’s Life
The painted wolf (Lycaon pictus), also known as the African wild dog, is a unique and remarkable creature. On the one hand, it is Africa’s most successful predator, yet on the other, it is an incredibly social animal, caring deeply for its family’s wellbeing in a tightly knit pack. It has endured an outrageous onslaught, which has seen their numbers decrease from 500,000 a century ago to only 6,500 today. This 99% reduction in their population has put the wolf ’s survival on a knife-edge. Painted Wolves: A Wild Dog’s Life is their story. It is told with insight and passion from two people who know them well – award-winning photographer Nicholas Dyer and renowned conservationist, Peter Blinston.
Producing the first comprehensive fine-scale map of the world’s remaining marine and terrestrial wild places, conservation scientists writing in the journalNaturesay that just 23% of the world’s landmass can now be considered wilderness, with the rest – excluding Antarctica – lost to the direct effects of human activities.
These disturbing findings are particularly troubling as numerous recent studies reveal that Earth’s remaining wilderness areas are increasingly important buffers against the effects of climate change and other human impacts. The authors note two upcoming gatherings of key decision makes will be crucial to stopping current rate of loss.
Said the paper’s lead author James Watson of WCS and the University of Queensland: “These results are nothing short of a horror story for the planet’s last wild places. The loss of wilderness must be treated in the same way we treat extinction. There is no reversing once the first cut enters. The decision is forever.”
The authors describe wilderness areas as those places that do not have industrial level activity within them according to the marine and terrestrial human footprint. Local communities can live within them, hunt and fish, etc.
Various analyses reveal that wilderness areas provide increasingly important refuges for species that are declining in landscapes dominated by people. In the seas, they are the last regions that still contain viable populations of top predators, such as tuna, marlins and sharks.
In addition, wilderness areas are also places where enormous amounts of carbon are stored and sequestered with intact ecosystems being at least twice important as similar degraded habitats when it comes to carbon mitigation.
The loss of wilderness is not just a biodiversity conservation and climate issue. Many wildernesses are home to millions of indigenous people who rely on them for maintaining their long bio-cultural connections to land and sea. Their loss is eroding many cultures around the world.
As bleak as these recent findings are, the authors say there is still a chance for Earth’s remaining wilderness to be protected. Incredibly, just 20 nations hold 94% of the worlds marine and terrestrial wilderness areas (excluding Antarctica and the High Seas), with five mega wilderness nations (Russia, Canada, Australia, United States and Brazil) containing 70%. The authors argue that these nations have an enormous role to play to secure the last of the wild.
Said John Robinson, WCS Executive Vice President for Global Conservation at WCS and a co-author of the paper: “Wilderness will only be secured globally if these nations take a leadership role. Right now, across the board, this type of leadership is missing. Already we have lost so much. We must grasp these opportunities to secure the wilderness before it disappears forever.”
Full report: James E. M. Watson, James R. Allan, Oscar Venter, Jasmine Lee, Kendall R. Jones, John G. Robinson, Hugh P. Possingham (2018) Protect the last of the wild. Nature.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-33380-4
Hwange National Park is the largest natural reserve in Zimbabwe, a staggering 14,651 km² of wilderness and wildlife, of empty spaces and large herds of animals, of deafening silence and the vibrating roar of a lion on a still night. At an isolated waterhole on a hot and cloudless September day in the far south-eastern corner of the Park, I meet Arnold Tshipa.
Arnold is a large man; both broad-shouldered and tall, dressed in weather-worn khaki and practical boots. He sits earnestly at a desk watching the waterhole. In front of him is a notebook, beside him his binoculars, and to his left hangs a thermometer. As I arrive he checks the thermometer and notes the temperature in his book.
Arnold’s face opens into a broad grin as he welcomes me and my intimidation at his size melts away. He explains that he is assisting Wildlife and Environment Zimbabwe with their long-running annual game count in which all animals are recorded at designated water points throughout the Park over a 24-hour period. The data is compared with previous years and is available to anyone who needs it.
With flies buzzing around our faces eager for the moisture provided by a drop of sweat and with frequent pauses to record the arrival of another herd of thirsty elephants, I interview Arnold.
He is currently finishing his Master’s thesis on elephant movement within and out of Hwange National Park and I am here to find out about his research, how it affects our understanding of Hwange’s elephants and what it means for elephant conservation.
Arnold received a degree in Forest Resources and Wildlife Management from the National University of Science and Technology Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. In his third year, he did an internship with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) at their Hwange research site. His time with the CNRS allowed Arnold to work in the field across multiple disciplines and thus to learn a huge amount about Hwange.
Upon graduating he applied for and was granted the job of Chief Ecologist and Environmental officer for the Zambezi Region (Zimbabwe and Zambia) with Wilderness Safaris.
“I started at Wilderness with a passion for elephants and that is where I chose to focus my research,” he states.
Arnold used GPS tracking collars on 32 elephants between the years 2010 and 2016 to conduct the first study of large-scale movements of African elephants in Hwange.
Hwange is unfenced, allowing free movement of animals and is a vital part of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA). The KAZA TFCA is an enormous multi-country conservation area that spans five countries and is larger than Germany and Austria combined.
Arnold collared female elephants, explaining that “it is the females that drive the population as a whole. They move as a herd so this data reflects the general movement of elephants better then collaring males would have done”.
The GPS collars were programmed to send location data either each hour or every 4 hours giving a very detailed look at the elephant’s movement over the three years of the study.
“We always spoke about cross-border movement but never had any proof of it, now we do,” he continued. “The biggest takeaway from my research is that partial elephant migration exists within Hwange National Park and that this is driven by water resources”.
“Of the 32 elephants we collared roughly one-third (10 elephants), proved to be long-distance migrants. These animals travelled from the Main Camp area to Botswana with one travelling as far as Nxai Pan National Park in Botswana. Another third were shown to be short-distance migrants. They travelled seasonally but they remained within Hwange National Park moving to the most Central and inaccessible areas of the park during the wet season. The final third of elephants in the study were resident to an area.”
He also found that an individual elephant was a short distance migrant for two years and then became a long-distance migrant in the third year, showing that this behaviour can change.
The data from the study brings to light that the elephant numbers within Hwange National Park vary hugely depending on the season. When the elephant population of Hwange is quoted it should always be qualified with the time of year.
Elephant numbers across Africa are dwindling and the KAZA TFCA is one of the last strongholds for these creatures. This research shows that elephants are a shared natural resource and do not belong to just one country. This is vital in deciding how this precious resource is managed and this research gives better data that can be used to determine current management practices. It is vital that if one country is to undertake population management exercises such as culling, all countries are consulted.
If Arnold could have one thing come about as a result of his research it would be that countries start looking at broader approaches with multiple stakeholders from surrounding regions.
“My hope is for people to work together with no arguments… we must focus on the long-term and embrace the Transfrontier concept,” he says. He is calling for integrative planning involving national wildlife management institutions and the private and communal sector.
Arnold would like to convey his gratitude for the support of the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and his sponsors without whom the project would not have been possible.
Although Arnold’s research has shown that the seasonal movement of elephants exists, the question of what drives it still remains. Arnold is hoping to answer this question and others that will contribute to our ability to conserve these iconic animals in his PhD research.
Learning More
Although his research has provided interesting data, many questions remain. Arnold is looking for funding for his PhD. He would like to collar elephants in new areas of Hwange National Park, closer to the border with Botswana (he previously collared elephants around the Main Camp area in Hwange’s northeast) to see if new movement patterns emerge. It is likely that even greater cross-border movement in elephant populations located closer to the border may exist.
• To understand the influence of elephant herd demography on migration. i.e.: Does the ratio of male, female, sub-adults and babies in herds affect their ability to migrate?
• To understand the influence of habitat on migration. i.e.: Do elephants in areas with greater resources remain while others leave?
• To understand the influence of competition on migration. i.e.: Do dominant herds stay while others must leave in the leaner seasons?
In the latest Botswana Wildlife Producers Association annual general meeting, President Mokgweetsi Masisi made the following remarks regarding game farms and hunting in Botswana.
REMARKS BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT DURING THE BOTSWANA WILDLIFE PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
• The Chairperson of the Botswana Wildlife Producers Association – Mr Rudie Dewet
• Distinguished Committee Members
• Members of the Media
• Ladies and Gentlemen
1. A very good morning to you all. I am delighted to be with you today at this important gathering where we will have the opportunity to discuss issues pertaining to natural resource utilisation in Botswana.
2. It is gratifying to note that over the years, Botswana has experienced quite a significant growth in the number of people participating in the Game Ranching sector and I can assure you that if well facilitated, the sector has the potential to contribute towards the diversification of the economy thus creating the much-needed employment amongst our rural communities.
3. In recognition of this potential, the Wildlife Conservation Policy (WCNP) of 1986 was formulated for the development of a viable commercial wildlife industry, to create economic opportunities, employment and generation of income for the rural communities through sustainable utilisation such as controlled hunting, processing of wildlife by-products and photographic safaris amongst others. In this regard, the revised policy of 2013 places the private sector at the centre of efforts to diversify the wildlife sector.
4. Government went further to develop the Game Ranching Policy in 2002, which gives detailed directions pertaining to the development of a game ranching industry, implementation guidelines and responsibilities for the stakeholders involved in the industry.
5. Consequently, the past years have been characterised by increased interest from private individuals and companies to participate in natural resource utilisation. This has led to an increase in the number of Registered Game Ranches from Thirty Three in 2000 to One hundred and Thirty to date. This resulted in the growth of wildlife population in Botswana including rare and endangered species such as sable and rhinos.
6. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that Government recognises sustainable utilisation of natural resources as an area that can contribute to the growth of the economy of this country.
7. To this end, deliberate efforts have been made to ensure the participation of both communities and individuals in Game Ranching. Currently, individuals benefit from sustainable utilisation of natural resources through non-consumptive approach since 2014.
8. Despite the marked growth of natural resource utilisation, the sector has not yet reached its maximum potential in terms of contributing to the national economy as well as its ability to contribute to natural resource conservation due to its high investment costs which make it difficult for ordinary Batswana to venture into.
9. In this regard, I have instructed Ministers, to remove all the impediments that are slowing down the growth of any industry under their mandate. My expectation is that issues of land, lengthy application processes and sometimes duplicate license requirements and inspections will be reduced to facilitate all of you.
10. My Government is also aware of the damage caused by elephants on your properties especially fences and water points which results in your animals going for days without water. To address this, we have started National Consultative Meetings on the National Elephant Action Plan and Human-Wildlife Conflict.
11. Ladies and Gentlemen, A moratorium on hunting was effected in 2014 in a bid to allow the population increase of the animal species but Government is of the view that it is time for us to reconsider the hunting ban in light of the high population increase of some animals particularly elephants. In this respect, the Government has started national consultations on this critical issue.
12. Furthermore, Government views the auction and export of live animals as an area that can contribute significantly to the growth of the sector. It is thus important that discussions on how this would be done should be held between the industry and the regulating Ministry. The aim will be to achieve a win-win situation.
13. The outcome of the consultations will allow the Government to make informed decisions on the current challenges facing the industry. Our Policies must ensure that there is a balance between conservation and sustainable utilisation of natural resources for the betterment of our people.
14. Government, therefore, acknowledges challenges in natural resource utilisation hence the need to promote the facilitation of a regulated natural resource-based sector. This should be premised on sustainable off-take, science-based quota setting and efficient utilisation of the resources. We should also encourage natural resource enterprises by providing opportunities for communities, individuals and the private sector to participate in such ventures.
15. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Government will consider the review of the Wildlife and National Parks Act (WCNP) of 1992 and other relevant Legislation to facilitate beneficiation of Wildlife resources.
16. I would like to make it abundantly clear that animals in a game proof fenced farm belong to the Owner of the Farm. The Minister is however empowered under Section 25 of the WCNP Act to make regulations for game farms and game ranches which may include the conditions under which animals should be kept, the capturing and selling of animals on game farms. Any deviation from the above will require the amendment of the Act which can be motivated through National dialogue.
17. Notwithstanding the above, it is worth noting that there are certain endangered animal species, some threatened by extinction which are jealously protected by the State. These include rhinoceros and pangolins. As stated, The WCNP provides that any rhinoceros horn shall be a Government trophy as provided for under Section 67 (6), which states that no person shall have in his possession, transfer or in any way deal in rhinoceros horn.
18. It is therefore my expectation that this gathering will generate ideas and recommendations that will shape the industry for the benefit of both conservation and the economic growth of the country, ideas that will sustain the industry while creating jobs with a decent income.
19. In conclusion, I would like to point out that a well-researched game industry will allow few good quality animals in a reduced land instead of many low-quality animals occupying a large piece of land. The returns will be high, fast and at a reduced cost. If less land is required for each participant it will allow more people to participate in the industry.
20. Research will also allow some people to grow rare species of high value such as the pangolin. In the long run, they will realise high benefits and put the country on the world map.
21. With these few remarks I wish you successful deliberations during your annual meeting.
China unveiled new rules on Monday that would allow the use of rhino horn and tiger parts for some medical and cultural purposes, watering down a decades-old ban in a move conservation group WWF said could have “devastating consequences”.
China’s State Council issued a notice replacing its 1993 ban on the trade of tiger bones and rhino horn. The new rules ban the sale, use, import and export of such products, but allow exceptions under “special circumstances”, such as medical and scientific research, educational use, and as part of “cultural exchanges”.
Horns of rhinos or bones of tigers that were bred in captivity could be used “for medical research or clinical treatment of critical illnesses”, it said.
Rhino horn and tiger products classified as “antiques” could be used in “cultural exchanges” with the approval of culture authorities, although they still may not be sold on the market or exchanged via the internet.
WWF said in a statement that Beijing’s move would have “devastating consequences globally” and be “an enormous setback to efforts to protect tigers and rhinos in the wild”.
“Even if restricted to antiques and use in hospitals, this trade would increase confusion by consumers and law enforcers as to which products are and are not legal, and would likely expand the markets for other tiger and rhino products,” WWF said.
Beijing banned trade in tiger bones and rhino horns, both prized in traditional Chinese medicine, 25 years ago as part of global efforts to halt declining animal stocks. But illegal poaching has continued, driven by demand in an increasingly affluent country. Commercial tiger farms in China are legal, and although using tiger bones in medicine was banned, tiger parts from these farms often end up being made into tonics or other medicines, animal rights groups say.
Conservation groups say Chinese traditional medicine recipes can make use of substitutes for products from wild animals. Some Chinese officials have in the past said full bans on the use of wild animal parts would threaten traditional Chinese medicine.
An officer holds a package containing crushed tiger bones, seized by the UK Border Force at Heathrow Airport. Image source: Reuters / Simon Dawson
BLOODLIONS Official statement:
“Blood Lions is deeply concerned about the announcement by Chinese authorities to lift the ban on rhino horn and tiger bone products for medicinal purposes.
There is a global movement by leading conservation groups to stop all trade in wildlife products. As has been the case with various other wildlife species, legal trade promotes demand and a parallel illegal market. This in turn puts pressure on wild populations.
As with lions, there are fewer tigers in the wild than there are in captivity. The lack of supply has ignited an alarming demand for lion bones as a substitute for traditional Chinese medicine. Although ‘tiger bone wine’ has been used in TCM for at least 1000 years, or more, there are no proven medicinal properties.”
The morning sun was starting to make us sweat as we sat on the ground in a circle and waited. There wasn’t a breath of wind as small puffs of pale-yellow dust rose into the air, kicked up by four inquisitive creatures who were making their way towards us. Slowly but surely, they got within arm’s reach as grunts, squeaks, oinks and sniffling filled the dry Namibian air. Before we knew it we were surrounded by four adorable young warthogs, their tails swinging wildly as they came to investigate the new visitors to their home, with one warthog eyeing me out with particular interest…
It’s not often you get to say that you have been pushed over by a curious warthog, his knees jabbing into your chest as he makes his way to your face, snout leaving muddy ‘kisses’ on your neck and cheek… and all the while a lone meerkat looks on big-eyed from a nearby rock, as the curious and friendly warthogs entertain us with their antics.
As amusing as this would be if it were a cut scene from The Lion King, it was, in fact, something that happened while visiting REST – the Rare and Endangered Species Trust – in Namibia, where I had the pleasure of meeting ‘Monte’ the warthog, along with his adopted siblings; ‘Dexter’ the meerkat; and a host of other wild animals in need of care and rehabilitation.
REST is a non-profit organisation founded in 2000 by conservationist and animal rehabilitator extraordinaire Maria Diekmann. She, along with her hard-working team, aims to bring attention to some of the most misunderstood and endangered animals in Namibia.
Initially, they began by helping only Cape vultures, but after a few years, it became apparent that there were a few species that needed specific support in Namibia. Now their research focuses on the ‘Forgotten Five + 1’ – the African wild dog, Cape vulture, Damara dik-dik, dwarf python, spotted rubber frog, and the pangolin.
The warthog encounter occurred during one of the daily tours that REST offers, where visitors are shown around the centre with the possibility of meeting wild animals that are currently being looked after. One of REST’s key beliefs is that all animals that arrive should be released back into the wild if possible. Visitors to REST cannot be guaranteed to see specific animal species at the centre, as young or injured animals at the centre may be there one month, but the next month could have been returned to the wild.
The warthog orphans were raised by Maria and her team, having been rescued when they were just piglets. They were rewilded some time ago, and are now free to roam, but occasionally come back to the centre for a visit – and it was just luck that I happened to be there on the day they visited.
And of course, there is Dexter the meerkat. He was rescued as a baby and was raised at the centre until ready for release. However, because meerkats are sociable animals and there are no other meerkats around, Dexter decided to hang around and adopt Maria and her team into his colony. He disappears into a burrow at night, but prefers the company of humans during the day and often is found following the team around as they go about their daily activities, chirping away in typical meerkat fashion.
There are a few non-releasable animals at the centre, such as birds of prey who are unable to fly. Walking into the expansive aviary, visitors can meet two non-releasable Cape vultures and spotted eagle-owls, a bateleur, tawny eagles, and a couple of tortoises (which Maria hopes will eventually be released).
While inside the aviary, Maria explains to the visitors the plight that vultures face, and how REST was in 2004 the first in Africa to fit a satellite tracking unit on a vulture. From there, RESTs satellite successes grew to eventually having tracking on six Cape vultures and one suspected hybrid – all for research and conservation purposes.
Vultures are endangered because of poisoned bait, dropped by cattle ranchers in their bid to wipe out jackals, and by elephant and rhino poachers, who have caught on to the fact that vultures circling a recently killed elephant or rhino can alert law-enforcement officials and game rangers that poachers are in the area – so they leave poison on the carcasses to kill the vultures. Read more about why vultures are under threat.
When asked about the highlights of running a rehabilitation centre, Maria replied:
“Rehabilitating a bird. Taking it outside. Letting it go and watching it fly off. And I can raise that bird or rehabilitate that bird for a year, feed it every day, love it and have a name for it and people ask how could you possibly let it go? But you know what? That bird loves you, and you love it. And knowing that is all that matters.”
When visitors book for a tour, REST lets them know that they cannot guarantee that they will see certain animals or species due to the unpredictable nature of wildlife, though these days 95% of visitors come in the hope of seeing a pangolin.
At present, it is believed that REST is the only centre in the world open to the public where baby Cape pangolins have been raised successfully and monitored until prepared for full release.
A few pangolins have come through the doors of the centre, such as Roxy and her son Katiti – who after three years of preparation, was successfully released back in the wild. Read more about this mother and son duo here.
But there is one particular pangolin that has stolen the limelight and has become the poster pangolin for REST: Honey Bun.
Maria found Honey Bun, or HB for short, in 2015, when she came across her severely abused mother. Honey Bun suffered no damage whatsoever, thanks to her mother’s protection. However, her mother was so traumatised that she escaped during rehabilitation, and Honey Bun has been in Maria’s care ever since.
Honey Bun shared stardom with one of China’s most famous women, actress and model Angelababy, in a WILDaid campaign clip that attracted 25 million viewers in the first 24 hours of release. Recently, Honey Bun was the star of the BBC wildlife documentary Pangolins: The World’s Most Wanted Animal, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, which was shown earlier this year.
Meeting Honey Bun in person was a surreal moment for me, and I was lucky enough to walk in the bush with her and Steven, a pangolin handler at REST.
Accompanying us was volunteer researcher Saskia, who follows Honey Bun every day during her walkabouts without disturbing her natural behaviour – taking notes and learning essential facts about pangolins, such as their diet, territory, interaction with other species, etc.
Honey Bun can walk up to five hours a day as she forages for ants and termites, and wherever she goes, the handler and researcher have to follow – even if it means scrambling through and under thorny acacia bushes. Only when I was faced with a wall of thorns, did I understand why I was told to wear old clothes for the walk. I did not come out unscathed, with my shirt and jeans subsequently sporting a somewhat ‘holier’ look than before.
One of the challenges when dealing with pangolins is the lack of research and information out there to help with care. As Maria told me, with vultures there are established protocols about how to treat poisoned individuals, but with pangolins, there is no available information on the topic of rehabilitation.
“The hardest by far is losing a pangolin because there is no information available about that particular circumstance,” Maria shares with me. “So we have this constant pressure to figure everything out as quickly as possible while operating in the dark, and that is hard to face because we sometimes feel disempowered and helpless – nobody likes to feel that way.”
The one silver lining in all this is that REST is making an effort to learn as much as they can with every pangolin that they care for, teaming up with researchers to work out ways to monitor and study these incredible creatures in their natural habitat, and through this build up their knowledge and expertise in pangolin care and rehabilitation.
REST doesn’t want to disappoint when visitors come in anticipation of seeing a pangolin, but wanting to satisfy visitors’ curiosity cannot under any circumstances be to the detriment of that pangolin. It is of vital importance to REST that visitors realise that they are not a zoo. Expectations should be to learn about the various species they focus on, and if lucky to see a pangolin firsthand.
Honey Bun lives by her own rules, and schedule and the team work around her, and Maria briefly showed her to us while providing various facts about pangolins – from their physiology and diet to conservation status and threats – before taking her back to where she rests during the day.
REHABILITATION, EDUCATION AND TOURISM
REST’s primary aim in being a good wildlife centre is to practice good conservation first. Maria feels strongly that although research and education are key, conservation of a species must take priority.
Maria says that one of the challenges faced when running a wildlife rehabilitation centre is trying to find that very fine balance between fundraising and conservation, research and education. The centre needs revenue from tourism to be able to pay its costs and be sustainable, “and yet…” she says, “you must be very careful not to cross the line and be all about the money, or to be perceived as such”.
“I’d rather see an animal in the wild than in captivity,” Maria goes on to say. “But there are times when you keep an animal in captivity for its health or welfare. Some animals are not releasable if permanently injured, and some don’t want to be released and have problems on a psychological level.”
One example Maria provided was that of an owl that she has tried to release about 30 times at various locations, but the bird keeps returning to REST and now prefers the comfort of his aviary.
Two visitors, I met at REST were JP and his sister Carla, who were visiting from South Africa to see if they could help to promote the centre, and pangolin conservation. I asked them their thoughts on REST and Maria’s efforts with wildlife rehabilitation and conservation.
“The commitment – it’s so inspiring to see someone commit their whole life to a higher cause. REST is such an amazing cause, I now want to do more to help,” Carla tells me.
JP adds to Carla’s sentiment: “It’s great to see someone fighting for the underdogs. This is not the glamorous ‘save the rhino’ deal, this is about the forgotten and often ignored species. Maria’s selfless efforts are incredibly inspiring and helping those who can’t help themselves is near to my heart. So I think they’re doing fantastic work at the centre.”
Many wild animals have come through the doors of REST and have been released back into the wild – from owls to pigeons, tortoises, warthogs, pangolins and dik-diks.
But the joys and elation of successful reintroductions are tempered by heart-breaking moments…
Not two weeks had passed since my visit when poachers brandishing pangas raided the burrow where the warthogs live. The eldest warthog, Missy, has not been seen since and is presumed killed for bushmeat. Monte and Madeline were injured, and Matilda managed to escape unharmed.
It was incredibly difficult for me to hear the news of the attack on the warthogs, having just met the four young orphans. Almost every day in my job, I am faced with news about various accounts of wildlife poaching, and I’ve learnt to tuck those emotions away and get on with the job of reporting. However, this attack was hard to swallow, and I found myself thinking how strong Maria and the team at REST must be to be able to handle heartbreaking situations where their former patients are injured or killed, after having worked so hard to release them back into the wild.
Maria is a strong, resilient person, relentless in her drive to rescue, rehabilitate and release wildlife. She is someone to be admired.
And the team behind her are just as impressive as they go about spreading the word, fundraising, looking after injured animals and constructing buildings to help house future patients.
Before I left to return home, I asked Maria about her ultimate goal for REST. And she once again demonstrated her unwavering determination and dedication to wildlife conservation, saying:
“Watching that rehabbed pangolin walk off into the bush as a wild animal is the ultimate high for my team and I. But as far as ultimate goals are concerned, imagine if we could keep tracking that pangolin from a computer at REST – and so contribute meaningfully to growing the available information about this special animal. Now THAT would be amazing, and surely that is the ultimate goal.”
It is a non-profit organisation, and their mission is to initiate and support the scientific and practical study of rare and endangered species in Namibia and to help develop and facilitate solutions to conservation problems among these species at community, national and international level.
How you can help
REST relies on donations, both big and small, to help keep the centre running and providing medicine and food for the wild animals in need of care. They are always thankful for any monetary donations, and currently, their greatest need is proper perimeter fencing – at 30US$ per metre – to help keep poachers off the property. Visit their donation page and sponsor page for more information.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR, THEA FELMORE
As a former field guide and teacher, Thea has combined her passion for the English language and love of African wildlife, travel and culture in her previous work as Africa Geographic editor. When not in front of the screen she makes time to get out and explore the beautiful Cape Town countryside in search for her favourite reptile species (and other fascinating creatures, of course).
ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE
Celebrating African Elephants Gallery
The African elephant is one of the most easily recognisable animals in the whole wide world. They once roamed across most of the continent from the northern Mediterranean coast to the southern tip, but are now confined to a much smaller range in eastern and southern Africa, with the highest densities found in Botswana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa. For many people, elephants epitomise an African safari. Their big stature, tactical trunks, and human-like qualities make them a point of interest for both avid and novice safari-goers alike.
A new study based on research at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda and just published in Scientific Reportssuggests that mountain gorillas who are nice to infants have greater success in siring more infants.
This finding is scientifically noteworthy because it contradicts what was long believed about male gorilla reproduction and male primates in general – that all that matters is the ability to fight for the dominant position, not whether you’re a good parent.
The study’s senior author, Fossey Fund President and CEO/Chief Scientific Officer Dr Tara Stoinski, says this study shows that long-term research of a species continues to pay off in unexpected ways.
“Dian Fossey first went to study these mountain gorillas in the 1960s, with the goal of furthering our understanding of human evolution,” Dr Stoinski says. “More than five decades later, the Fossey Fund’s continued research on this population – which makes them one of the world’s longest-studied animals – is still providing critical insights into what it means to be a gorilla – or a human,” she adds.
“Learning about what mountain gorillas do, and why, helps us understand how human males may have started down the unique path to our more-involved form of fatherhood,” says Dr Stacy Rosenbaum, former Fossey Fund researcher and the study’s lead author. She is now a post-doctoral fellow at Northwestern University.
“We don’t fully understand the mechanism, but based on this study, we propose that females preferentially mate with males who are nice to kids,” Rosenbaum says. And, she adds, “the evolutionary origins of male caretaking in the primate lineage that led to humans may be much older than we think.”
Additional research is now underway to investigate whether hormones, such as testosterone, may play a role in helping to facilitate these behaviours in the gorillas, as they do in humans.
Full report: Stacy Rosenbaum, Linda Vigilant, Christopher Kuzawa, Tara Stoinski. (2018) Caring for infants is associated with increased reproductive success in male mountain gorillas. Scientific Reports.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-33380-4
The African elephant (Loxodonta africana) is one of the most easily recognisable animals in the whole wide world. They once roamed across most of the continent from the northern Mediterranean coast to the southern tip, but they are now confined to a much smaller range in eastern and southern Africa, with the highest densities found in Botswana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa. For many people, elephants epitomise an African safari. Their big stature, tactile trunks, and human-like qualities make them a point of interest for both avid and novice safari-goers alike.
In this gallery, Celebrating African Elephants, we are sharing with you some incredible photos of these giant pachyderms, taken by photographers who entered our Photographer of the Year 2017 and 2018 competitions.
“While on safari, I came across a small breeding herd of elephants. We were stationary in a small narrow valley, and the elephants slowly started to move past us in very close quarters. While I was watching, this small elephant calf approached the vehicle and slowly lifted his trunk to get a scent of these strange creatures in the metal object mere inches away. It was great to create this image showing the inquisitive nature of the baby elephant.” ~ Andrew Aveley
An in-depth study of the African elephant’s wrinkly skin has revealed how its intricate design helps to keep the animal cool, protect it from parasites and prevent dehydration. Read about the study here
Elephants live for 50 to 70 years. Bulls only start contributing to the gene pools at 35 to 40 years old and cows start breeding at 12 to 14 years old. Cows undergo the longest gestation period of all mammals – they are pregnant for 22 months.
Elephants can detect seismic signals via their feet, through the leg and shoulder bones and into the middle ear. They communicate with each other over distances up to 10 km via low-frequency rumbles, again picked up via the feet.
“We visited the Addo Elephant National Park and were photographing the elephants at Hapoor dam. There were three babies in the herd, but this one was the eldest. He was chasing anything that moved around him, no matter how big or small. He had also discovered his trunk and was turning and tossing his head while his trunk swung in every direction – he seemed to enjoy this tremendously.” ~ Annette Heymans
“The Amboseli National Park in Kenya has the biggest herds of elephants in Africa. When we were there, I saw from afar a large elephant family coming directly towards us, heading for the swamp that was just behind us. This photo is the only one I got when all the elephants were looking head-on.” ~ Brigitta Moser
Elephants are the heaviest land mammals, at 4 – 7 tons, and the second tallest land mammal (behind the giraffe) at 3.1 to 3.4 metres at the shoulder. The largest elephant on record weighed 10.9 tons and was 3.9 metres at the shoulder.
There are about 50,000 muscles in an elephant’s trunk, made up of six muscle groups, and no bones. This compares to 639 muscles in the entire human body! The closest thing we have to an elephant’s trunk is our tongue. Elephants use their trunks to breathe, drink, eat, smell, snorkel, wrestle, communicate, touch, feel, hold, grab and pull. We can’t think of any other appendage that is so versatile.
“It was after the heavy rains in Namibia when I saw these elephants travelling on the dry, arid land from the mountains towards the Huab River in search of vegetation.” ~ Norman Victor
During the dry season, elephants provide access to water for other species. They dig holes in dry riverbeds to get to deep water – opening the water up for other species not able to dig. They also enlarge, and compact mud wallows to form large pans that fill up with water – again providing water for other species.
The elephant’s sense of smell is estimated to be four times that of a bloodhound or 160 times that of a human. They can smell water from many kilometres away.
A baby elephant is called a calf. It weighs about 250 pounds at birth and stands about three feet tall. Calves can’t see very well at first, but they can recognise their mothers by touch, scent, and sound.
“I watched these two bulls sparring for over an hour on the edge of the lakebed in Amboseli. At first, there were clear skies and then a huge storm built up above and around them. What with the dust, the clouds, the light, the drama and the action, it was truly an incredible scene, and I was lucky to pop off a few shots before they eventually moved off.” ~ Andrew Campbell
“Amboseli is the ultimate canvas in which to encounter elephants in their natural environment. In this photograph, the bull, who was in musth, is mock-charging our vehicle, coming within metres of us and moving with aggressive intent. He continued his antics, displaying signs of displeasure by stomping his feet and violently shaking his head from side to side. It was a compelling display of a 12,000-pound giant’s fury. Heart racing and adrenaline high, I managed to keep composure and capture the image of his violent display as dust and mud flew all about him. Nothing compares to coming face-to-face with a force of nature like this elephant’s unleashed fury.” ~ Dana Kennedy
Hwange National Park is home to one of the largest elephant populations in Africa. An estimated 44,000 pachyderms are inhabiting the 14,651 km² park, making up 90 % of the above-surface biomass. The park is lacking in natural surface water so during the dry season the animals, including the elephants, rely on human-made pans of calcium-rich water pumped from boreholes.
Painted Wolves: A Wild Dog’s Life – by Nicholas Dyer and Peter Blinston
The painted wolf (Lycaon pictus), also known as the African wild dog, is a unique and remarkable creature. On the one hand, it is Africa’s most successful predator. Yet, on the other, it is an incredibly social animal, caring deeply for its family’s wellbeing in a tightly knit pack. Yet for the last 100 years, the painted wolf has endured an outrageous onslaught, which has seen their numbers decrease from 500,000 a century ago to only 6,500 today. This 99% reduction in their population has put the wolf ’s survival on a knife-edge.
Painted Wolves: A Wild Dog’s Life is their story. It is told with insight and passion from two people who know them well – award-winning photographer Nicholas Dyer and renowned conservationist, Peter Blinston, both Painted Wolf Foundation Trustees.
For six years Nicholas Dyer has been tracking and photographing painted wolves on foot in the Zambezi Valley. For twenty years, Peter Blinston has been doing all he can to save the painted wolf from extinction through his organisation Painted Dog Conservation.
In this book, they have come together to tell you what they know and love about this incredible creature, sharing their in-depth knowledge and unique experiences.
The book is illustrated with more than 220 stunning images. Each photograph tells a story in its own right and brings alive the captivating and mysterious world of the painted wolves and the lives of those around them.
In this gallery, we are sharing just a small selection of the stunning painted wolf photos that feature in the book. You can order your copy of the book here, and all profits from the sale of this book will be donated to the Painted Wolf Foundation.
The mysterious and enigmatic okapi is one of the oldest mammals on Earth, but it has only been known to the western world since the early 20th century.
Covered in unusual markings on their rump and legs, okapi are elusive, shy and gentle, and nearly impossible to observe in the wild due to their secretive nature.
The Okapi Conservation Project (OCP) has been steadfastly protecting okapi in the Democratic Republic of Congo long before the country became known as such. Founded in 1987, when the country was called Zaire and under the ruling of Mobutu Sese Seko, the Project struck up a Contract of Collaboration with the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) with the agreement to protect the okapi and its habitat through wildlife protection, community assistance and conservation education.
Just five years later in 1992, the OCP, alongside ICCN, the Zaire government and many other partner NGOs, helped develop the Okapi Wildlife Reserve – a nearly 14,000 km² World Heritage Site in the Ituri Forest in the northeast of the DR Congo – dedicated to protecting the largest populations of okapi, forest elephants and chimpanzees.
Once a tourist hotspot under Belgian rule until 1961 when DR Congo gained independence, the town of Epulu is centrally located inside the protected area and where the Okapi Conservation Project is based, along with the ICCN headquarters for the Okapi Wildlife Reserve.
In 2016, the OCP launched a camera trap program aptly named ‘Team Okapi’ consisting of a group of ICCN rangers, local people and Pygmy guides to place camera traps in strategic locations around the reserve to understand what species exist nearby, the number of individuals, and any other natural history or interesting knowledge gained from capturing stills and video clips from the motion-sensing cameras.
It is possible to identify individual okapi based on their markings, as each okapi has a unique pattern, like human fingerprints. Camera trapping has the potential to be very useful in determining okapi population size and enhancing current population estimates, as before camera traps the populations were estimated using dung counts.
So far, the results have been fantastic! After a few trial-runs of learning how to use the cameras, Team Okapi was able to capture the first-ever footage of an okapi feeding in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, and more recently, the first-ever footage of an okapi calf in the wild.
We believe this calf to be the offspring of a pregnant female that was captured on film in December, and that she gave birth immediately following the footage – and a mere two months later the mother and her calf casually strolled past the camera, much to the delight of the team.
The okapi’s life and unique behaviours revolve around avoiding their only natural predator – leopards. As such, when a female gives birth, the calf finds a safe place to nest and remains there for roughly two months while the mother goes off to feed, ensuring her scent stays away from the youngster.
The calf only leaves the nest to feed when the mother calls using infrasonic sound at a level that both humans and leopards cannot hear. After those initial eight or so weeks, the calf begins following the mother, continuing to nurse. This unique behaviour may explain why we did not see the calf for the first few months.
The okapi (Okapia johnstoni), also known as the forest giraffe, Congolese giraffe or zebra giraffe, is an ungulate native to the central and northeastern tropical rainforest of DR Congo. Although superficially resembling a cross between a zebra and an antelope, the okapi is, in fact, the closest living relative of the giraffe; together they make up the group known as the giraffids.
An okapi’s short, oily fur acts as waterproofing in the damp rainforest environment. Their distinctive stripes are thought to act as camouflage by breaking up the outline of the body in the light and shade of the forest understory and are unique to each individual, which helps with identification. Okapi are one of the few species of mammals where the females are bigger than the males – the average okapi weighs between 200-300 kg. They also get to be around 6.5 feet tall and have an average length of 8 feet! The dark blue prehensile tongue is adapted for selective browsing and can be up to 18 inches (45 cm) in length, long enough that the animal uses it to clean its own eyes and ears.
Okapi share several characteristics with giraffe, including bilobate canine teeth and skin-covered, horn-like structures called ossicones, which are only present in males.
Okapi derives from the name given to it by the Lese tribes local to the area of its discovery. They called it ‘o’api’, which is a compound of two Lese words, oka, a verb meaning to cut, and kpi, a noun referring to the design made on pygmy arrows by wrapping the arrow with bark to leave stripes when scorched by fire.
The stripes on the legs of the okapi resemble these stripes on the arrow shafts.
Okapi are a shy and gentle species which occur in a wide range of primary and older secondary forest types. They are not found in forest-savannah or disturbed habitats near human beings. Their diet consists solely of understorey foliage from the rainforest trees. They prefer treefall gaps for foraging, where they browse on only the young leaves from more than 100 plant species.
They are mainly diurnal but have also been recorded feeding at night. Okapi are usually solitary, and have well-defined, non-exclusive home ranges, averaging 4-7 km² for adult females and up to 10-17 km² for adult males. Daily movement varies between 2.5 km and 4 km for an adult, often following regular pathways through the trees, a trait that makes them vulnerable to pitfalls and large snare traps.
Okapi are thought to be vulnerable to predation by leopards. Longevity in the wild is unknown, but okapi typically live 15-30 years in captivity, becoming sexually mature at around two years of age.
Okapi calves are usually able to stand thirty minutes after birth, but for the first few months of their life spend most of the day hiding while their mothers forage. Infants first defecate 1-2 months after birth, perhaps as an adaptation to reduce the chances of predator detection. One calf tracked by radio-collar was independent at approximately nine months of age.
Preliminary studies indicate that okapi are not highly social animals. While individuals may utilise sections of forest simultaneously, they do not form bonds or tight-knit groups.
Until late 2013 okapi were classified on the IUCN Red List as ‘Near Threatened’. This was mainly due to a lack of evidence regarding trends in their population.
Studies show a 43% decline within the Okapi Wildlife Reserve between 1995 and 2007, and data from ranger patrols conducted from 2007-2012 suggest this decline may have continued to the present day. In light of this evidence, the okapi has been reclassified as ‘Endangered’ (facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild) on the IUCN Red List. The rate of decline is estimated to have exceeded 50% over three generations (24 years). They face severe, intensifying threats and lack of effective conservation action, and, unless their present rate of decline is halted, extinction is likely.
Range and population
Okapi distribution extends across parts of central, northern and eastern DR Congo. They used to occur occasionally in the adjoining Semliki Forest of western Uganda, where the species is now extinct. The most significant concentrations of okapi occur within the Okapi Wildlife Reserve and Maiko National Park.
Population estimates are not known to any degree of certainty – ranging from ‘over 10,000’ to ‘35,000 to 50,000’. Recorded presence is concentrated in and around protected areas, where surveys are carried out. Much of suitable okapi habitat is poorly studied, due to security concerns, remoteness and inaccessibility.
Additionally, okapi often go undetected because they occur in low densities and are secretive.
Threats
Expanding human populations, deforestation and forest degradation have eliminated important portions of the okapi range, in particular in the southern and eastern Ituri Forest where the species was at one time abundant. Also, in a small area in the southern part of their range, okapi are hunted for their meat and skin by the locals who consider okapi the most prized bushmeat available.
The most prominent current threat to okapi is the presence of illegal armed groups in and around key protected areas. These groups prevent effective conservation action and monitoring and engage in elephant poaching, bushmeat hunting, illegal mining (gold, coltan and diamonds), illegal logging, charcoal production and agricultural encroachment. In a notorious incident in June 2012, armed rebels attacked the Okapi Wildlife Reserve Epula Station headquarters and killed seven people and all 14 captive okapi – since then no okapis have been brought back to the station.
“The okapi is a curious animal whose reclusive mystery adds to its allure. Solely living in a country that has struggled with insecurity and poverty, but still a vast and varied landscape rich in natural and cultural resources, the okapi maintains itself as a respected symbol of conservation and hope for the future of Congo’s people. We hope that by protecting the peaceful okapi, we can help bring the country’s citizens together to benefit all people and wildlife.” ~ Lucas Meers, Program Officer for Okapi Conservation Project
The Okapi Conservation Project was established in DR Congo in June of 1987 when the country was still known as Zaire. The project focusses on three issues: wildlife protection, community assistance and conservation education.
The Okapi Conservation Project works closely with the communities around the reserve and the Institute in Congo for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) to implement its programs. The OCP assists with coordinating wildlife patrols to remove snares, arrest poachers and close illegal gold mines – thus helping to preserve critical rainforest habitat for threatened species.
During patrols, ICCN rangers document all actions they take to protect wildlife and make a note of any sightings or signs of key wildlife species they encounter, including okapi. Data collected on the number and type of species encountered while on patrol helps develop population estimates of okapi, forest elephants and chimpanzees in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve (OWR).
The protection efforts are integral to protecting the okapi and the other imperilled wildlife in the reserve, but this is only possible with the support of the local communities that live alongside wildlife. The OCP manages highly successful programs that reduce negative impacts by residents in the forest.
The Community Assistance programs focus on several key components: agroforestry, women’s groups, pygmy assistance, rebuilding water sources, support for health centres and team sports. The programs aim to create positive relationships with ICCN and provide incentives to protect forest habitat through sustainable resource use. The objective of each program is to improve the financial and food security of families, reducing their reliance on bushmeat and involvement in illegal activities. By providing services, opportunities and training for community members, the OCP has been able to improve the quality of life for the people living in the reserve and reduce their exploitation of natural resources.
Our agroforestry program utilises community demonstration gardens and community tree nurseries to engage community members in cultivation practices that are not only sustainable but also increase crop yield by at least 25%. In communities that have gone through the program, there have not been any clearing of the forest outside of the ICCN designated agricultural zones.
The Women’s Groups show an entrepreneurial spirit, working together to start their own micro-enterprises, such as sewing and gardening, thus producing additional income for their families to improve their houses, pay for school fees and healthcare costs.
Conservation education is a key component to the OCP’s conservation programs, enlightening communities to the importance of symbiosis with the environment and being active stewards of their natural heritage. Education in the reserve takes several forms; large scale radio broadcasting, informative posters printed in multiple local languages and classroom lessons with secondary students. Schools are provided with educational materials, from posters that identify the local fauna to curriculum that highlights the value of okapi and their associated biodiversity. Students in the reserve are all exposed to okapi and their conservation, to create conservation ambassadors.
The Okapi Conservation Project was the driving force behind the advent of World Okapi Day, celebrated on October 18th each year. Events like World Okapi Day act as informal education opportunities, reaching further into the community and engaging members that are not reached otherwise.
The IUCN SSC Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group (GOSG)
The Okapi Conservation Project has been working closely with the Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group – one of over 120 IUCN SSC Specialist Groups, Red List Authorities and Task Forces working towards achieving the SSC’s vision of “a world that values and conserves present levels of biodiversity”. Made up of experts from around the world, the group leads efforts to study giraffe, okapi and the threats they face, as well as leading and supporting conservation actions designed to ensure the survival of the two species into the future. The Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) are institutional co-hosts of the GOSG for giraffe and okapi, respectively.
The banks of the Mara River offer ideal habitat for the forest birds of Maasai Mara – and for bird-watchers. What better way to spend those hot afternoons when the plains are sweltering than under shaded leaf canopies. These trees act as a refuge for a variety of mammals who move amongst the towering trunks, keeping cool as they wait for the temperatures to drop out on the open plains.
You may even encounter families of elephants wandering past, en-route to drink from the river, or warthog piglets trotting around in search of fresh grass, while troops of both banded and dwarf mongooses busy themselves looking for beetles and grubs in the detritus layer on the forest floor.
But these riverine forests also offer habitat for a diverse number of forest-dwelling bird species, and some of these species are incredibly rare to see in other parts of the Maasai Mara and even in other parts of Africa. As with all forest species they tend to be very shy and one must really be patient if you hope to catch a glimpse of them, and even more patient if you would like to photograph them.
Such was the case when I wanted to photograph the two turaco species that are usually seen hopping high above in the treetops in search of ripening berries.
Ordinarily, this would be a somewhat doomed-to-fail mission, as both species are incredibly wary of human onlookers. But, if you find a secluded puddle of water, hang around because this will be a magnet for thirsty birds, especially in the dry season. I found one such puddle, and I positioned myself and watched quietly as the birds gradually came down through the tangled vines to sip from the cool pool of water. First common bulbuls, then various species of weavers and a few mousebirds gained the confidence to drink in my presence.
I watched the turacos up high through my binoculars and could see that they were panting and knew that they too would eventually come down. And sure enough, they did after quite some time. They didn’t waste a second drinking the water before quickly hopping back up to their sanctuary of the tree canopy.
Other forest birds of Maasai Mara that can be seen flitting through the camps include violet-backed starlings that come to feast on ripening figs and other berries. Both African paradise flycatchers and African blue-flycatchers are beautiful residents of these riverine forests.
Another real gem to spot is the extremely secretive Narina trogons which blend invisibly into the foliage once they’ve turned their emerald-green back to you.
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Fourth-largest island in the world, Madagascar is one of the most bio-diverse countries on Earth, home to thousands of species of plant and animal life of which about 80% cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. The fascinating uniqueness of this island has led some to class it as the world’s eighth continent. Incredible and colourful chameleons, eerie-looking fossas, tomato frogs, giant rats, oddly-shaped insects, and hedgehog-like tenrecs are just a few of the curious creatures that inhabit this exotic realm. At the same time, the country’s isolation for centuries has developed remarkable tree species, such as majestic baobabs. Madagascar is simply breathtaking, and a photographer’s dream come true.
So, without further ado, we present the gallery Madagascar, comprising of a selection of stunning photos taken in this unique country, along with interesting facts and some thoughts from the photographers themselves. And they’re not just any photos; they’re some of the special photos submitted during our Photographer of the Year 2016, 2017 and 2018 competitions.
“This photograph was taken in the rainforest of Andasibe-Mantadia National Park. It was pouring with rain, but fortunately, I had decided to carry my tripod on the hike as it was far too gloomy for hand-held photography. Even when our guide pointed out the two birds, it was almost impossible to differentiate them from their surroundings. They rely entirely on camouflage and roost in open areas. Our guide pretended to have stumbled on them, but I suspect they roost in the same spot every day and he knew exactly where to locate them.” ~ Aron Frankental
Brown lemurs eat mostly fruit, leaves and flowers, but also sometimes bark. They do not often drink, as they get most of the moisture they need from leaves. To feed, they pull a branch to their mouth and eat directly from the branch. They rarely use their hands to handle their food directly.
The brown leaf chameleon (Brookesia superciliaris) is a small chameleon whose appearance mimics that of a dead leaf. It is found along the eastern coast of Madagascar, as well as the island of Nosy Boraha, and spends its days foraging among dead leaves on the forest floor.
“I was walking along a path when I came across this Verreaux’s sifaka, which then became intrigued with my camera lens. He could see another lemur – actually his reflection – in the front, nearly hemispheric, glass element of my wide-angle lens. Since he thought it was another lemur, he carefully reached out to touch it.” ~ Gary Krosin
Giraffe-necked weevils are no doubt one of the unique insects on Earth. Endemic to Madagascar, they derive their name from an extended neck much like that of the common giraffe. The extended neck is an adaptation that assists in nest building.
Tenrecs are little hedgehog-like creatures with spikes. As a result of convergent evolution, they resemble hedgehogs, shrews, opossums, mice and even otters. According to research, the various species of tenrecs on Madagascar evolved from one tenrec that washed ashore from mainland Africa millions of years ago.
Madagascar is home to around 50% of the world’s chameleons. One hundred fifty species of chameleon inhabit the island, which has a diverse range of habitats, including desert and rainforest. Most of the island’s chameleons are forest floor dwellers, as opposed to arboreal. The Malagasy have some colourful expressions regarding chameleons, one of them being “Ratsy karaha Kandrondro” which translates to “ugly as a chameleon”.
“The fossa was walking along the track towards us and promptly decided to flop down for a siesta. He was completely oblivious, if not contemptuous, of us.” ~ Frank Scheelings – Read more interesting facts about fossas here
“With its unique landscapes, flora, and especially fauna, Madagascar is certainly one of the most exotic destinations that any international traveller could visit in their lifetime. The one thing that stood out for me on my trip was the kindness of the country’s people. I am usually quite shy about photographing people during my travels for fear of intruding, but this little boy was so proud to show me his family’s fruit stand, that I couldn’t resist. You can only imagine his face when he saw the photo on my camera’s display!” ~ Pedro Ferreira do Amaral
The most common, widespread and regularly encountered native carnivore of Madagascar is easily recognised by its bushy, ringed tail after which it is named. The Malagasy ring-tailed mongoose is the size and shape of a typical mongoose, with a low-slung body, short legs, small, pointed head and rounded ears. The pads of its feet are large, smooth and hairless providing it with remarkable arboreal agility.
“When visiting the Allée des Baobabs in Madagascar one late afternoon, my biggest dilemma was where to position myself to photograph this mystical spectacle of colours, shapes, and scenery. The sun sets quickly, so I had to make the most of the occasion. After many shots of the backlit line of trees, and once the sun had already disappeared, I started to walk back for some final photos of this unique, baobab-flanked, dusty ‘allée’. That’s when I realised just how beautiful this water hyacinth- covered swamp with the baobabs and the purple sky in the background looked.” ~ Pedro Ferreira do Amaral
“During a late September visit to Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, this brown lemur allowed us to take a photo of her baby. The brown lemur is one of 101 species of lemurs in Madagascar and is considered to be a true lemur from the genus Eulemur.” ~ Gerrie Rall
The Madagascar day gecko is a diurnal subspecies of geckos. It lives on the eastern coast of Madagascar and typically inhabits rainforests and dwells on trees, feeding on insects, fruit and nectar.
Crowned lemurs are mostly diurnal animals, which means they are active during the day time. They are only found in a very small area in the northern tip of Madagascar. They prefer dry, deciduous forests and mid-altitude rainforests. They are social animals, usually living in groups of 5 – 6 (at most 15) that are led by dominant females.
Madagascar’s summer (November – March) is considered the wet season. It rains throughout the island, although the arid west and southwest do not experience ma rains. January to March witnesses heavy rain and most parts of the country are difficult to get to as roads are muddy and become impassable.
As their name suggests, leaf-tailed geckos are named after their broad, flat leaf-like tail. Their cryptic colouring and skin texture resemble tree bark and act as effective camouflage while basking in the sun amongst the branches.
In a single jump, Coquerel’s sifakas can propel themselves more than 30 feet thanks to their powerful hind legs.
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The South African feature documentary STROOP – Journey into the Rhino Horn War has won the coveted Best Documentary award at the prestigious San Diego International Film Festival held this past weekend.
Hollywood’s Mudbound producer Kyle Tekiela presented the award to filmmakers Bonné de Bod and Susan Scott saying, “documentaries tell stories that bring big issues to light and the jury felt this was one of the biggest of them all, that poignantly conveys the struggle the world’s rhinos are having to remain alive for the next decade”.
The weekend was a winning one for the filmmakers as they also scooped an additional two awards – from the LA-based Glendale International Film Festival where they picked the Best Female Filmmakers award (a huge accomplishment given that over 130-films across fiction and documentary were in competition, which meant that STROOP was given the nod across all genres). And – also in LA – from the city’s premiere film festival, LA Femme, which supports women producers from around the world, De Bod and Scott were awarded the Special Documentary of Focus Award.
The previous weekend, the film received another nod in the form of Best Documentary award at the San Pedro International Film Festival, also held in Los Angeles, and last month, STROOP was handed the 2018 Green Tenacity Award by the judges of the San Francisco Green Film Festival.
In recognition of the impact the South African film is having in California, the California Legislature, as well as the State Senator, have sent the filmmakers certificates of recognition from the State of California for outstanding achievements in the cinematic arts, thanking the South Africans for their work in revealing the rhino crisis to the world and contributing to the arts and the Californian community.
Says STROOP producer and presenter de Bod: “Winning these awards has opened up new opportunities to get the film seen around the globe.
“Film festival directors and distributors are contacting us directly because of the buzz around the documentary and to get something this hard-hitting and shocking in front of as many audiences as possible is of course vital for everyone who is concerned about the ongoing slaughter of our dwindling rhino population.”
Adds director Scott: “I do find it incredible and ironic that the state of California is recognising the film in such a huge way, because many times during filming, we were told to put Americans in the film to give relevance for the international audience. But this has connected with Americans precisely because it’s about ordinary South Africans doing extraordinary things for our planet.
“I’m so glad we stuck with keeping the story about our heroes on the ground! These awards recognise their work.”
STROOP – Journey into the Rhino Horn War tells the shocking and touching story of the ongoing poaching of rhino and the trade in its coveted horn.
In addition to the slew of awards the film has won, STROOP has been invited to screen at no less than 15 official film festivals, and this number is growing daily as it receives worldwide attention and acclamation.
STROOP – Journey into the Rhino Horn War tells the shocking and touching story of the ongoing poaching of rhino and the trade in its coveted horn. In an exclusive first, de Bod and Scott filmed special ranger units inside the Kruger National Park and at the home of the white rhino, the Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park. The pair also travelled undercover to the dangerous back rooms of wildlife traffickers and dealers in China and Vietnam and the result is a powerful, hard-hitting and incredibly moving documentary that will challenge and shock viewers.
STROOP – Journey into the Rhino Horn War will premiere in South Africa later this year.
Awards for STROOP – Journey into the Rhino Horn War to date:
• 2018 Green Tenacity Award given by the San Francisco Green Film Festival
• Best Documentary at the San Pedro International Film Festival
• Best Female Filmmakers at the Glendale International Film Festival
• Best Documentary at the San Diego International Film Festival
• Special Documentary of Focus at the LA Femme International Film Festival
Watch the trailer for STROOP – Journey into the Rhino Horn War from the Green Film Fest
Written by Sophie Brown, photographs by Samuel Cox
The very nature of wildlife means you never know what may be around the corner. This was epitomised during a recent drive on a private game reserve.
It had been a relatively quiet drive when suddenly our guide stopped the vehicle and made a statement I never thought I would have the odds of hearing.
“There’s a giraffe giving birth.”
And sure enough, a brief look to the left showed that very sight.
In amongst the acacias, whilst making sure to be in an open area in order to sight potential predators, stood a lone female. Her waters had broken, amniotic fluid pooled on the ground next to her, the beginnings of legs protruding from her rear, fluid still dripping from its hooves.
With the vehicle positioned in the perfect spot and the engine turned off, we waited with baited breath to see how she would react to our presence.
Fortunately for us, she seemed undisturbed and remained calm as we settled into our seats to watch something none of us ever thought we would be privileged enough to see.
Almost an hour passed and we watched as slowly, through intense strains from the mother, the remaining front legs and head emerged, a mucus plug remaining around its nose and mouth, sustaining its precious life during its arrival.
Then, as the neck slipped out and despite her acceptance of our presence, in a typical wildlife manner she retreated behind a termite mound, her giraffe instincts to hide kicking in. At this moment, the rear of the calf emerged and the newborn made its first contact with the earth, its back legs flailing out from behind the termite mound.
As our vehicle was repositioned, our hearts were in our mouths as the calf stayed still on the ground for what felt like an agonising amount of time. In reality, it was perhaps only a couple of minutes but in that moment time stopped.
Then, a back leg kicked out and a tiny head swung up in an attempt to take up a seated position. Everybody breathed out a sigh of relief.
But now came the next agonising wait. We all knew it was crucial that the calf stood as quickly as possible as in its current state it was in the most vulnerable position it would ever be in. Predators would take the opportunity to take down a newborn giraffe should there be any in the area.
Its mother was as aware of this as we were, and she quickly began licking the calf’s face, ears and neck in order to clean the amniotic sack still attached to the young.
She also began eating the placenta. By doing this, the mother removed the smells of the birth, giving the calf the best possible chance of survival in its first hours.
We watched for an hour as the young calf made failed attempt after failed attempt to stand. With each minute that ticked by, the increasing risk of predator attack was forever on our minds. However, with each failure, he inched closer to achieving his goal of standing.
Finally, with one mighty push, he staggered forward, rocking on his back legs, forcing his front legs up, standing for the first time in his short life.
Despite spending 15 months in his mother’s womb, developing his muscles, the baby trembled with the effort and energy it took him to maintain his standing position.
The sight was the most endearing sight I have ever seen, emotion filling the space as we all willed the calf to succeed in taking his first steps. As his mother began cleaning the remaining fluid from his body, he tentatively lifted his right hooves, replacing them a little further forward, followed tentatively by the left. He had accomplished his first steps. Pride overwhelmed us all.
At this point, we left the new family to themselves, emotionally drained and adrenaline pumping.
When we stepped into the game drive vehicle as the sun began to rise that morning, we could never have expected to see such a sighting. The odds of seeing such a sight are truly once in a lifetime with many people never being able to claim to see such an event.
It was an honour to watch as his mother expertly cared for her newborn in his first moments, magical to watch as he finally stood and heartwarming to witness his first steps. However, in the back of our minds was the overwhelming knowledge that he would have to continually defy the odds.
He had made it through his first moments of life but he will still have many obstacles to overcome if he is to beat the 50% chance of seeing his six-month birthday, let alone the course of his journey to fully-fledged adult.
By the end of his first day, he would be able to run, and within the next few days his mother would likely join a group of females and their young, and as a group they would work together to raise their young, giving them all the best possible chance of survival.
Before coming to Africa, I had little to no knowledge of the constant efforts being made to save our precious rhinos – one of Africa’s most iconic animals. Not long after arriving, however, I had the opportunity to photograph and assist in a rhino dehorning operation, a somewhat controversial method of hopeful poaching prevention, and got to witness firsthand how the process is done.
It was a day full of adrenaline and mixed emotions, and looking back, it is hard to describe all the feelings that came and went while being on the ground and in the thick of such a delicate undertaking.
Early in the morning, we joined a group of photographers, researchers and vets on the boundary of the reserve. It was cloudy and cold, somewhat symbolic of the harsh realities we were about to face, but there was a sense of excitement too, if not just from the circling helicopter flying low and kicking up dust.
The lead vet had briefed everybody on every detail and aspect of the operation, what we were after, why, and how every step in the procedure was so important. After that run through, we got into our vehicles and waited as the helicopter took flight to find the first patient. Within only a few minutes the radio crackled to life, and we were off…
Dust plumes covered the roads as we drove hastily in convoy to the area where the rhino had been tranquillised from the air and approached the scene once the vets had sprung into action.
It was a blur of freneticism, but perfectly organised and communication between everyone was flying as the white rhino lay on the ground surrounded by people who just a few minutes ago were all patiently waiting for the call. Everybody was a helping hand, whether it was carrying heavy equipment, administering antiseptics, supporting a supply of oxygen or applying brute strength to manoeuvring the immobilised giant, so he didn’t lose lung capacity or the feeling in his legs (2,000 kg is a lot of weight, after all).
His eyes were treated with a moisturiser before being covered, and the ears were plugged before the buzzing of the chainsaw ripped through the air. It’s impossible to convey how quick this all happened, as before we knew it the horn was being sawed off, with shards and dust flying everywhere.
It initially surprised me to see how much the shards resembled nail clippings, before realising it’s the exact same material after all – keratin.
The smell produced during that moment eliminated any feelings of excitement and made me question exactly why we have to do this to these beautiful animals?
That we must take something so iconic and important to them, to ultimately protect them from ourselves. I had to think for a minute about the lengths we go to because of the cruelty of mankind, and seeing the chainsaw, the tubes, syringes and surrounding vehicles caused a momentary emotional retreat from the scene.
After the horn removal, the remaining stump was smoothed down to prevent any future damage, and treated with antiseptic. Temporary orange paint was applied as a marker for the helicopter so they could identify which rhinos had already been dehorned throughout those couple of days in which the operation occurred, and a dose of adrenaline was administered to counteract the immobilising drug. We were back on our vehicles moments before the poor rhino stumbled to his feet, no doubt confused, disorientated, and slightly unamused. It was a beautiful moment to see this animal back on his feet again, but it wasn’t the time to relish the victory as there were more rhinos to find.
This was just the first of many to be done in this reserve.
Throughout the rest of the morning, four more rhinos were dehorned, including a calf, and a few days later a black rhino too.
I couldn’t shake my mixed feelings; pride that what we were doing was for the best, but also shame for us humans being the cause of this pain and suffering. If poaching continues to happen at the rate it is today, soon more rhinos will be killed than are born per year.
It seems like an impossible task to tackle, with a demand that doesn’t seem to be shrinking. However, it inspires me and reaffirms my faith in humanity when I got to see, document and lend a helping hand to the people who spend countless hours on protecting and prolonging the survival of these animals.
It’s hard to imagine a world without the iconic rhino, and these people who spend their lives fighting for rhinos need recognition and our full and unqualified support.
Natalia Gaal
Natalia Gaal is a Brazilian photographer passionate about wildlife. She graduated in civil engineering but always knew that the big city life wasn’t for her and only truly feels at home around nature. Her main goal is to use her images to spread awareness about wildlife conservation.
Samuel Cox
Samuel Cox originally studied filmmaking, earning a BA Honours degree in filmmaking before moving his sights onto photography. Travelling to Africa since 1999, his passion for wildlife quickly drew him to focus on photographing the diverse wildlife the continent has to offer and has seen his images published online with National Geographic and Africa Geographic, with printed publications in Travel Africa Magazine and BBC Wildlife Magazine.
Wanting to put aside work photographing weddings and events in the UK for a life and career in Africa, he dipped his toes into the water by volunteering with African Impact in Zimbabwe and South Africa – using his camera skills to aid in conservation efforts. Since then, he has joined the team at African Impact in the Greater Kruger National Park as the Photography Coordinator, teaching wildlife photography to international volunteers while also contributing to conservation and local community-based projects.
Reptiles are one of the most diverse groups in the animal kingdom. Their behaviours and physical attributes cover a broad spectrum, which is one of the reasons we humans find them so fascinating. While out on an African safari, you will almost be guaranteed to spot some species of reptile, be it a snake, lizard, crocodile, chameleon or tortoise (to name but a few) – it’s like a herpetologist’s dream destination!
In this gallery, Celebrating Africa’s Reptiles, we are taking some time out to appreciate a small selection of those stunning cold-blooded creatures, through the lens of some incredibly talented photographers who entered our Photographer of the Year 2017 and 2018 competitions. Some of the photos are accompanied by interesting facts and thoughts from the photographers themselves.
“I was in Ndumo Game Reserve when a quick movement caught my eye, and I saw the tail of a rock monitor disappear behind a tree. I approached slowly, hoping to find a nice photo opportunity, and planned to intercept it on the other side of the tree. Imagine my surprise when I realised that it was watching me through a knothole! I was very pleased to see that I had a unique image of an often overlooked species. I love the way the rough bark suggests the skin of the monitor, while the eye eerily peers out of an unexpected place.” ~ Ernest Porter
“Being nocturnal, these geckos live mostly nestled in deep burrows in the desert sand where there is a moderate amount of moisture during the day. They venture out to the surface only when the desert’s temperature has dropped at night.” ~ Tyrone Ping
“Walking in Mana Pools, I noticed a martial eagle having a tussle with something in the distance. I walked over quietly to get a better look but was too noisy, and the bird flew off. On the ground, I noticed a legavaan (rock monitor), clearly dazed but seemingly undamaged. I lay down quietly some distance away, and the monitor composed itself and slowly stalked across the baked earth towards me, tongue darting in and out. It wandered around about for several minutes, unaware that I was there. Its skittish senses soon returned though and realising how exposed it was; it darted up a nearby tree.” ~ Nicholas Dyer
The Parson’s chameleon (Calumma parsonii) is the largest in the world. Found in the lush rainforests of eastern and northern Madagascar, the Parson’s is a magnificent reptile to behold. There are two subspecies of Parson’s chameleon; the Calumma parsonii cristifer grows up to 45cm, while the larger Calumma parsonii parsonii grows up to 68cm – about the size of a domestic cat! Read more fascinating facts about the Parson’s chameleon here
“I was staying at Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve when I was told that one of the rangers, a snake enthusiast and guide, had rescued a black spitting cobra (Naja nigricincta woodi) from one of the staff toilets. Having never seen one, I hot-footed it over to him and asked if I could take a few photographs. I was thrilled when he said I could go with him to release it back into the surrounding bush. It was such an honour to share a few moments with such a majestic and beautiful creature: an experience I will never forget.” ~ Dionne Miles
“The Namib Desert is known for its true beauty of shape-shifting sand dunes and the iconic Dead Vlei. We came across this Peringuey’s adder (Bitis peringueyi) beneath the scorching desert sand – a true master of camouflage and desert living. With only its oddly positioned eyes sticking out of the sand, any small lizard who wanders too close will meet an untimely end.” ~ Tyrone Ping
“I noticed this delightful day gecko sipping the nectar from some succulent plants near where I was having lunch in Ranomafana National Park. I raced off to get my camera gear and managed to get some macro images before he disappeared.” ~ Sarah Zito
“This African tiger snake, also known as the Eastern tiger snake, was spotted on a tree at Mabuasehube in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. This is a small, slow-moving snake that hunts at night.” ~ Fanie Heymans
The territorial calls of the barking gecko can be heard at dusk and on overcast days during the hottest time of the dry Namaqualand summer. The males sit at the entrance to their burrow and emit a “kek-kek-kek” sound for hours on end. Apart from territorial defence, the calls also attract females.
Not all safaris are born equal. Some are so special by the very nature of what they offer, that even our seasoned teamAG keep them in their personal ‘must-do’ lists. Some refer to them as ‘bucket-list’ safaris; we simply suggest that you really should consider embarking on these journeys before you kick the bucket.
Remember that if none of these grabs your fancy, we can design that safari of a lifetime – just for you. The best time to plan your next safari is right now!
Our 3 epic safaris to do before you kick the bucket are:
Join us in Kenya’s legendary Tsavo East National Park as we follow the wise old elephant herds over an 80 km walking route along the Galana River as it winds through the park, from Tabangunji Camp to the park boundary and then onwards by vehicle to the Indian Ocean shore at Malindi.
Sharing the elephants’ home on equal footing surely supersedes any previous game viewing experience you may have had, and of course, we’ll also encounter other wildlife such as the famous maneless lions of Tsavo, hirola (the rarest antelope in the world), range-restricted fringe-eared oryx, the weird long-necked gerenuk and many of the over 500 bird species.
Join award-winning photographer Arnfinn Johansen on this exclusive safari for four guests in the famous Maasai Mara in Kenya, with daily game drives into the park from your community-owned safari camp bordering the park (there are no fences). Your small group will enjoy the use of a specially modified photographer’s vehicle and an off-road permit – only available to those who have a proven track record of responsible driving. This off-road permit, issued by the authorities on a trip-by-trip basis, means that the possibility of obtaining unique pictures is significantly higher.
Your basecamp is in a Maasai village, offering a unique and authentic insight into the traditional lives of these pastoral herdsmen. This unique safari offers genuine empowerment for local people, and so helps to conserve the greater Serengeti/Maasai Mara ecosystem. There are no fences between the park and the community land, and the wildlife roams throughout the area.
Mountain gorilla trekking is rightfully heralded as one of the world’s most exhilarating bucket list pilgrimages. And Rwanda is Africa’s mecca for ‘convenient’ trekking – gorillas can be seen within hours of arrival in Rwanda. Volcanoes National Park in northwest Rwanda is prime mountain gorilla territory.
This compact safari can be supplemented with incredible primate viewing opportunities in neighbouring DR Congo. So in addition to mountain gorillas, we could send you to see troops of golden monkeys and track Grauer’s lowland gorillas – the largest and most endangered gorilla in the world. Add chimpanzees and mega troops of pied colobus monkeys and you have the ultimate primate safari!
“Never a dull moment in the bush” is something my husband and I tell each other all the time. Well, that is certainly true for the events of a few weekends ago when a male lion got out of our stunning Kruger National Park! People driving on the N4 highway between Komatipoort and Hectorspruit saw him on the side of the road early in the morning. Now that is something you don’t see every day!
Luckily they managed to find the lion and dart it from the SANParks helicopter. At noon the vet and a reporter brought the lion back home to Kruger through the Malelane Gate. The lion was sound asleep in the back of their bakkie! We happen to live at Malelane Gate and I could not resist the opportunity to go and have a look. I could see that they were in a hurry to get the lion released, but they allowed me to take a quick photo before they drove off.
Our escapee looked in excellent condition. He was big! So big in fact that they could not close the tailgate of the bakkie! It must have been a crazy sight: a bakkie driving on the highway with a sleeping lion in the back – only in Africa!
Below is a video of the lion casually walking across the road, before it was safely darted and returned to his home in the Kruger.
Male lion spotted on the busy N4 between Crocodile bridge towards Hectorspruit. Rangers are on the scene. pic.twitter.com/BRoP0ZlIGo
The situation with this escaped lion from Kruger reminds me of a hectic situation that occurred in Lower Sabie a few years ago. I was just a tourist back then, visiting my friends who worked and lived in Lower Sabie at the time:
My one friend was a guide. He had the morning off and we decided to go for a bit of a game drive and explore the area between Lower Sabie and Muntshe Mountain. When we got back to camp, it was all chaos, madness and mayhem.
There was a huge traffic jam on the no-entry road towards the section ranger’s house. People were looking at something through the fence in the day visitors area. We looked at each other, slightly puzzled; a no entry is supposed to be just that: a no entry. What on Earth were all those people doing there then? All of a sudden my friend’s phone started beeping and buzzing nonstop. He had over 15 missed calls and text messages: There were lions in camp!
Apparently, the lions had caught a waterbuck against the fence close to the gate in the early hours of the morning. People leaving Lower Sabie were treated to a very special sighting not even 20 metres from the gate, which obviously resulted in a huge traffic jam. Before long, the lions were completely boxed in by the electrified fence on one side, and cars and safari vehicles on all other sides. From what I heard, the lions tried to get away but they couldn’t. They were totally blocked by people in their cars.
The only way out for the lions was to follow the fence and try to sneak out behind the cars. Something must have spooked the three young lions because they jumped over the cattle grid and ran straight through the open gate and into the overgrown day visitors area.
This meant all hands on deck for all rangers, the duty manager and reception staff. They closed the camp for incoming visitors and issued a warning to all people to stay inside. Especially to the people in the campsite, which is right across from the day visitors area.
This is more or less when my friend and I got back from our game drive. One of the other senior guides in Lower Sabie was already on the scene and so was Steven: a good friend back then and now my husband. They had blocked the road running past the day visitors area from both sides and were keeping people at a distance.
The SANParks vet was on his way from Skukuza (about an hour’s drive away) with his team. The plan was to dart the lions and to release them back into the bush a distance away from the rest camp and people.
I can only imagine these lions must have been scared with all the commotion and attention all on them, and we were all very relieved when the SANParks vet and his team arrived. Now it was time to get the lions back in the bush where they belonged!
A SANParks bakkie had blocked the no entry on the other side of the fence and was controlling the traffic. One of the vet’s assistants cut the fence around the helipad and they drove in with their Land Cruiser. They found the first two lions quickly and darted them. We had a look at them before the vet’s assistant took them to the bush to release them. It was fantastic to see a lion up close like that. The vet’s assistant was in the back of the bakkie with one of the lions. He explained that they had taken some blood for research and he was monitoring the lions while they were asleep. You don’t want a sleeping lion to all of a sudden wake up while you are right next to it! That would be a bit of a disaster!
Unfortunately, the third lion was spooked by the vet’s vehicle and it ran into the staff village. There were not many houses in the staff village and the bush there is very overgrown. Which makes it extremely hard to find a scared lion. So after chatting to the vet, they decided that Steven and his colleagues would walk in one line other from the far side of the staff village to the other end, where the vet and his assistant were waiting with the dart gun. The team hoped to flush the lion out and to also dart him successfully.
At first, they could not find the lion. They had been everywhere in the staff village. The last place for them to search was a particularly dense piece of bush close to where the vet was waiting. They carefully went in there. By the time the vet saw the lion, it was only about two metres away and almost on top of him. No dart will take effect that quickly so, unfortunately, the vet had no choice but to shoot the lion.
This was an outcome that no one wanted. Everybody involved was heartbroken. The rangers, vet, everyone worked so closely together and tried so hard to release all three lions. It all came together nicely with the first two lions but the third one sadly had to be shot.
I have to be honest. I was angry and upset. This all could have been avoided – simply by the onlookers giving those lions some space at their kill. I found a little comfort in the fact that the vet was going to take the lion back to Skukuza. They were going to test it for bovine tuberculosis in lions and use it for other research too. And after this incident, they electrified the cattle grid at the gate. So hopefully this will not happen again.
This incident happened years ago. I have been in two minds about writing about it, because of the sad outcome. But after the escaped lion from Kruger was returned safely on Sunday, I decided that this also was a story worth telling. Even though it only had a happy ending for two of the three lions. That, unfortunately, is also part of the harsh reality of working with wildlife and with animals in general.
The Lower Zambezi valley, with its majestic escarpment sloping down to meet the river, protects a massive rift in the earth’s crust through which the Zambezi River flows.Over millennia, mineral-rich volcanic soils deposited by the river have given rise to lush vegetation, while the many channels and oxbow lakes attract an array of wildlife.
The 4,092 km² Lower Zambezi National Park lies on the northern bank of the Zambezi River in south-eastern Zambia. Until 1983, when the area was declared a national park, it was the private game reserve of Zambia’s president, which has resulted in the area being protected from the ravages of mass tourism, leaving it a relatively pristine wilderness.
The park itself is surrounded by a much larger Game Management Area (GMA), there are no fences between the two and animals are free to roam throughout the entire area. One of the primary attractions of the Lower Zambezi National Park and the surrounding GMA is its remote location. The escarpment along the north acts as a physical barrier and the bulk of the park consists of hilly ground. As a result, most of the game is concentrated on the valley floor, in the flat alluvial plains beside the deep, wide river.
The Lower Zambezi is relatively undeveloped, its beauty lies in its very wildness. The diversity of animals is not as extensive as some other big parks, but the opportunities to get up close to the game are spectacular. The park lies opposite the famous Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe, so the whole area on both sides of the river is a massive wildlife sanctuary.
Most visitors arrive by boat or light aircraft. The park’s relative inaccessibility limits tourist numbers. Unless you have some pretty good off-road driving experience and come at the right time of year, it is not advisable to attempt a road trip.
We had felt a bit of an adventure was in order and so had decided to drive…
Five hours from Lusaka, three of which were spent on dirt, we finally reached our destination. A slight ‘issue’ with dirty fuel and a clogged fuel filter had slowed us down just long enough for me to (single-handedly) eat nearly all the snacks I had packed for our road trip… something I was to regret when we arrived at camp and were greeted with a delicious lunch!
Classical Baines
Baines’ River Camp is located just upstream of the park’s boundary, inside the GMA, with spectacular views over the Zambezi River. Named for Thomas Baines, the famous 19th-century artist and explorer, the small and intimate lodge captures the feel of a bygone era with its classic colonial-style buildings and casual elegance.
Straight after lunch, we were off onto the river. It was wonderful to be back with all the sights, sounds and smells of the bush around us. Our boat ride took us downstream into the national park, past elephants with babies and pods of hippos, to where our canoes were ready and waiting on the riverbank. Leaving the main river, we headed off down a channel fringed with overhanging jackalberry and Natal mahogany trees. We would re-join the main river at 7 km.
This was some of the easiest canoeing I’ve ever done. I had paddled for all of five minutes when our guide, Luke, informed me that I could put down my paddle, as he would steer and the current would carry us through the channel – so much for getting in any exercise to burn off all those ‘car snacks’ and enormous lunch!
We spent a tranquil afternoon drifting downriver, past banks teaming with birdlife, stopping briefly on an island for a drink to watch the sun set on our first evening in this beautiful park.
Just as the sun was going down, we heard the hum of an aeroplane approaching and were perfectly positioned to see the regular patrol flight of the Conservation Lower Zambezi (CLZ) plane passing directly over our heads. The park is home to lion, hippo and wild dog, who are all listed as ‘Vulnerable’ or ‘Endangered’ under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and are endangered by poaching and the illegal trade in wildlife products.
To counteract this, the CLZ – a non-profit NGO – was set up in 1994 to work to preserve the wildlife in the national park and the GMA (a total area of approximately 9,000 km²). CLZ provides technical advice and support to the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW), runs an environmental education programme targeting over 2,500 young scholars a year, and runs a Community Support Programme focusing on human-wildlife conflict mitigation in the neighbouring GMA.
After 20 years of working with local wildlife authorities in the Lower Zambezi valley, the CLZ is now one of the oldest, most well-established and well-recognised conservation organisations in Zambia.
In the morning we awoke to a river as smooth and shimmering as shot silk, stretching out in front of us, across to the opposite bank. The air was crisp as we set off in the boat, rugged up in blankets, mist rising off the water.
Around 20 minutes and 30 km later, we reached the park’s boundary, stopping briefly while our driver went to sort out entry formalities. A little while later we disembarked from the boat, into our waiting vehicle, setting off for an early morning game drive in the Lower Zambezi National Park.
Within minutes we heard the roar of a lion and saw its footprints on the sandy road. Around the bend we heard baboons raising an alarm call, warning the rest of the troop of a leopard in the thicket. Carrying on we found, in quick succession, the spoor of hyena and then wild dog… with this, we knew we were back in the bush.
A myriad of birds surrounded us; 378 species have been recorded in the park. Red-billed and yellow-billed hornbills swooped through the trees like clowns with their oversized beaks, black crakes flitted on the riverbank, a woolly-necked stork preened itself in the shallows, and one of my personal favourites, the ground-hornbills strode across the landscape like they were heading to an important meeting.
Luke pointed out what was new to me, but apparently not uncommon locally, a pair of collared palm-thrush.
Rounding the bend in a dry riverbed, we stumbled upon a lioness sleeping in the deep wheel ruts left behind in the sand by previous vehicles. The guides knew her and said she had two young cubs that she must have hidden out of sight nearby. We watched and waited for some time, but aside from some tiny lion footprints in the sand, we didn’t see a trace of the cubs. Clearly, they were obeying mum’s orders to stay out of sight.
Spotting some vultures swirling high in the sky, we headed in their direction, eventually reaching the spot they seemed to be concentrating on. The trees were weighed down by lappet-faced and white-backed vultures, but we could find no trace of any fresh kill. We did, however, find the ripe-smelling, month-old carcass of an elephant, rather curiously alongside an equally desiccated crocodile carcass. Luke filled us in on the story: Apparently, a month earlier, the elephant had died of natural causes, the crocodile, attracted by the promise of a feed, had walked from the river to feast on the elephant meat, only to meet his fate in the jaws of a leopard.
The rest of our morning was a journey through the picturesque riverine landscape of ebonies, leadwoods, acacias and fig trees, past Natal mahoganies, ilala palms, winter thorns and battle-scarred baobabs, until reaching an oxbow lake, luminously green with water hyacinth, where we stopped for a bush breakfast.
A pod of bobbing hippos watched us and we, in turn, watched an old buffalo chomping his way morosely through mouthfuls of the unappetising water hyacinth.
The next morning came, and we felt as though we were heading off into the unknown – no maps, no signposts and, frankly, no idea. All we knew was that we had approximately 50 or 60 km to drive. We didn’t see another soul along the way, but after three hours and a couple of slightly nerve-wracking wide stream crossings, we arrived at Anabezi Luxury Tented Camp.
The camp is located in the stunning and remote, eastern end of the Lower Zambezi National Park, where the Zambezi River and the Mushika River floodplain meet. I could see why the area had been chosen to build the governor’s personal retreat in the days of the British Colony, and we saw the nearby ruins of the now derelict building while out on a drive.
Anabezi is built on raised timber decks and walkways, perched on top of the riverbank with superb views in front and the Zambezi escarpment as a beautiful backdrop.
From the moment you arrive at Anabezi, there is an atmosphere of understated, unpretentious luxury, with a quiet air of sophistication. We arrived in time for a quick freshen up, and then lunch followed with a ‘power nap’ before heading out on a game drive.
Sometimes on safari, it is easy to forget about the little things, but out on our drive, after we’d had our fill of lions, waterbucks, impalas and other fabulous sightings, Prisley, our guide, switched off the engine and the lights and we sat and absorbed the night sounds of the bush.
The cool air physically pulsated with the chorus of crickets, baboons moaned and complained to one another as they settled down for the night, hippos grunted in the distance… this was the true essence of the bush.
It wasn’t only on game drives that we were surrounded by wildlife. All around us in camp we found animals, from a pair of mating lions that had set up their ‘honeymoon suite’ just 60 metres from our room (and remained there ‘honeymooning’ every 20 minutes for the next three days) to elephants just below the verandah at lunchtime and later tearing branches off trees behind us in the dark while we ate our dinner. Hippos had late-night pool parties in the channel below our room.
Walking back to my room from lunch, I was chaperoned by a squirrel who ran the entire length of the elevated wooden walkway, barely a metre ahead of me, spectacularly leaping into a tree at the last minute. While under the walkway a family of warthogs were busy digging up the grass.
We spent a wonderful morning walking in the winter thorn forest not far from camp, accompanied by herds of impala, waterbuck families and an array of birdlife. On the way back to camp we had a spectacular sighting of a leopard resting high in a tree. It was such a clear view that we could even see the two puncture wounds in her shoulder that could have been fatal if they had been a few inches to the right. Eventually, the leopard, bored with our presence, stretched, yawned and climbed down from the tree before sauntering off.
Not to be outdone by the leopard, just before we reached camp, we found a male lion, one of the area’s resident males, lying calmly and conspicuously by the side of the road. After allowing us a leisurely look, he calmly got up and disappeared into the long grass.
Waking from an afternoon nap, I watched from our tent as an elephant pushed his forehead against the trunk of winter thorn tree, persistently shaking the tree to dislodge its seedpods. Once the seedpods had ceased to fall, he delicately collected his prize, one at a time, with the tip of his trunk and transferred them to his mouth.
Watching him eat reminded me that it was time for yet another of the camp’s delicious meals… this time afternoon tea!
Our drive back across the park was a lot less daunting now that we knew where we were going. Back in the GMA, we were now staying at Royal Zambezi Lodge, a picturesque, thatched lodge situated at one of the broadest points of the river.
Setting out from the lodge, a sedate afternoon boat cruise soon turned into an unexpected game viewing opportunity when we found seven lions resting on the riverbank. Five sub-adult males and two young females lazed on the banks of the Zambezi. Two of the young males lay right on the edge of the overhanging riverbank, watching us intently, not remotely shy or timid. This particular pride, the guides told us, had swum across the river from Zimbabwe, looking to claim new territory.
Worn out from the ‘rigours’ of safari life, I decided to take the next day off from boats, vehicles and early morning wake up calls. Waking at 5.30 am – just long enough to push my husband out the door and off on another fishing expedition – I allowed myself a sleep-in, a cup of tea in bed and a leisurely breakfast alone while all the other lodge guests were out doing various activities.
But a day of relaxing did not mean a day devoid of wildlife. While I may have decided not to go to the animals, that did not stop them from coming to me! A precocious young vervet monkey staged an ambush, helping itself to my unattended bread roll while I was distracted at lunch.
After lunch, I retired for a nap on the daybed located on our private verandah that jutted out over the wide riverbank. An enormous monitor lizard surprised me by suddenly appearing from underneath the verandah. Not remotely intimidated by me, it took its time thoroughly investigating the area before ambling off.
Once ensconced on the daybed, I had a rather pleasant nap, only stirring to check what was making the rustling noises beneath the deck. This turned out to be two extended families of warthogs, with three large elephants close by.
Our last night in the Lower Zambezi was one to remember. Driving a short distance, downstream from the lodge, we arrived in a clearing where a long, lantern-lit table was set up for a bush dinner – accompanied by a full moon and a blanket of shimmering stars. Lions roared across the water, and we were serenaded by an ‘African choir’ of the lodge staff.
Halfway through dinner we heard splashing behind us in the river and turning saw a lone elephant wading across the river, heading our way, a silvery stream of reflected moonlight in its wake.
I had visions of diners scattering in all directions, but the elephant reached a deep channel in the river and disappeared underwater. Resurfacing, he changed course, heading downstream and leaving our dinner undisturbed — a magical end to a magical trip.
For accommodation options at the best prices visit our collection of camps and lodges: private travel & conservation club. If you are not yet a member, see how to JOIN below this story.
BAINES’ RIVER CAMP
This true colonial-style safari lodge, named after the famous artist and explorer Thomas Baines, offers a wide variety of land and water-based safari activities in and around the Lower Zambezi National Park. The camp can accommodate 20 guests in eight individual suites and a two-bedroom family unit, each decorated with rich, classical fabrics and colourful kelims. Each of the colonial-style safari chalets commands its own view of the Zambezi River from a comfortably furnished, private veranda.
ANABEZI LUXURY TENTED CAMP
Anabezi Luxury Tented Camp is a 24-bed camp located on the banks of the Zambezi River at the lower end of the Lower Zambezi National Park. The camp comprises of two common areas and 12 spacious luxury tents on raised timber platforms at the edge of a ridge providing magnificent views of both the Zambezi River and Mushika River floodplain. All luxury tents are equal in size and décor, and each common area boasts a swimming pool, viewing deck, lounges, bar and dining area.
ROYAL ZAMBEZI LODGE
Royal Zambezi Lodge, a spacious but intimate privately owned lodge, is situated on the banks of the mighty Zambezi River just minutes from the Lower Zambezi National Park and directly opposite Zimbabwe’s famous Mana Pools World Heritage Site. Royal offers the ultimate in luxury and cuisine while enjoying and participating closely in the sights and sounds of the African wilderness. The 15 airy canopied canvas tents nestle under mature trees, and each is positioned for maximum enjoyment of the surrounding views and complete privacy. Natural tones, luxurious textures and comfortable armchairs create a secluded retreat.
Travel writer, mountain guide and mother, Sarah Kingdom was born and brought up in Sydney, Australia. Coming to Africa at 21, she fell in love with the continent and stayed. Sarah guides on Kilimanjaro several times a year and has lost count of how many times she has stood on the roof of Africa. She has climbed and guided throughout the Himalayas and now spends most of her time visiting remote places in Africa. She runs a cattle ranch in Zambia with her husband when she is not travelling.
SANParks has released its Kruger National Park management plan covering the next 10 years. This 259-page report is essential reading for Kruger fans who enjoy debating the issues that the Kruger management team has to deal with on a regular basis, such as problem-animal management, hotels in Kruger and trophy hunting of free-roaming wildlife on reserves adjoining Kruger.
SANParks applies a ‘strategic adaptive management’ when managing Kruger, in order to cater for the various demands and expectations placed on them that reflect the relationships between people and natural landscapes. The various Kruger stakeholders have widely varying or even conflicting expectations of the Kruger, and SANParks has to consult widely in its planning and implementation, encourage public participation and be agile and responsive to changing societal values. In this regard, consider the conflicting views about trophy hunting and the expectations of affected communities living near the park versus those of international tourists. Ultimately though, SANParks has to manage Kruger under the legal framework of South Africa’s Constitution and relevant environmental legislation.
The Kruger mission statement is a good place to begin understanding management focus:
“To conserve, protect and manage biodiversity, wilderness qualities and cultural resources, provide a diverse and responsible visitor experience, contributing towards social, ecological and economic resilience and well-being whilst strengthening constituency within a unique regional landscape”.
The following 12 Kruger ‘vital attributes’ are identified as being central to how Kruger is managed, and the report analyses each in detail:
1. A flagship South African wildlife attraction and iconic local experience;
2. Diverse and unique visitor experiences across a local and international range of conservation-friendly land uses;
3. Catalyst for tourism and economic development in the region;
4. Recognised international brand and global tourism destination for a unique African wildlife experience in a large and safe protected area;
5. Unique location in a diverse regional landscape with multiple land uses;
6. Multiple rivers across the park, promoting biodiversity and regional socio-ecological connectedness;
7. Largely intact biota and ecological processes;
8. One of the last remaining protected areas in South Africa which contains large undeveloped areas contributing to sense of wilderness;
9. Rich and unique natural, historical and cultural heritage;
10. Well-developed infrastructure;
11. Internationally recognised long-term institutional management experience and reputation affording insight and foundations which support management decisions; and
12. Diverse stakeholder relations and co-operative governance.
Aspects of the report that we found particularly interesting include:
1. The zoning of areas in the Kruger as to the intensity of use: wilderness, remote, primitive, low intensity leisure and high intensity leisure.
This exercise serves as a tool to facilitate the wide diversion of user expectations and to facilitate visitor use without unduly compromising biodiversity conservation. According to the report only 18.59% of Kruger is zoned for tourism use (low and high intensity), and these two zones contain the least sensitive areas in the park. The remaining 81.41% is zoned as wilderness, remote and primitive use. The document covers each use zone in detail.
2. The tourism and commercialisation strategy for Kruger, as guided by the zonal plan above. In this regard, the report advises that: “Importantly, a decision has been taken that no further accommodation development (apart from the current and approved future developments) will take place south of the Sabie River.”
3. The inclusion of private and community land into the Greater Kruger and beyond into Zimbabwe and Mozambique – thereby creating a massive area under conservation, with Kruger at the core.
4. The sustainable use of Kruger resources, such as thatching grass, plant seeds and even the meat from culling and problem animal control events.
5. The management of human-wildlife conflict (HWC) and damage-causing animals (DCA), which the report acknowledges as “problematic and …. contentious”.
6. The annual cost of running Kruger – R1,1bn in 2018/2019, the annual revenue shortfall of R247m, and possible options to fund that shortfall
7. There is a very informative series of maps towards the end of the report.
An in-depth study of the African elephant’s wrinkly skin has revealed how its intricate design helps to keep the animal cool, protect it from parasites and prevent dehydration.
African elephants are well-known to love bathing, spraying, and mud-wallowing. These behaviours are not just for fun. Indeed, elephants lack the sweat and sebum glands that allow many other mammals to keep their skin moist and flexible.
Furthermore, because of their huge body size, and their warm and dry habitat, African elephants avoid over-heating by losing energy through the evaporation of the water they collect in and on their skin. By covering themselves with mud, elephants also avoid the attacks of relentless parasites and the excessive exposure of their skin to solar radiations.
Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics have now worked out how these cracks, or what at first glance looks like folds and wrinkles, are formed, and how the skin – which is made up of an intricate network of minuscule, micrometre-wide channels – can retain five to 10 times more water than a flat surface would.
Published in a report in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers were able for the first time to show how these tiny channels on the elephant’s skin form, using customised computer simulations that model the growth of the elephant’s skin based on CT scans of the real thing.
The researches found that the elephant’s skin channels are true fractures of the animal’s brittle outermost layer of skin – the stratum corneum. The accumulation of layers of deeper skin as an elephant ages forces the brittle stratum corneum to bend around the mounds, which then cracks from mechanical stress as the elephant moves. These cracks then join to form channels that collect water and help the animal to stay cool.
In this regard, the cracks are not considered to be folds or wrinkles in the traditional sense.
Full report: António F. Martins, Nigel C. Bennett, Sylvie Clavel, Herman Groenewald, Sean Hensman, Stefan Hoby, Antoine Joris, Paul R. Manger, Michel C. Milinkovitch (2018). Locally-curved geometry generates bending cracks in the African elephant skin. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06257-3
Watch a video showing in detail the skin structure of the African elephant:
Last spring, researchers in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert found a large male cape cobra devouring another smaller male of the same species. Surprised by the thought-to-be-rare event, they decided to investigate how common and widespread cannibalism was in cobras.
Apart from a few species, scientific understanding of snake diets is lacking. Snakes are elusive creatures that feed relatively infrequently, making feeding observations difficult to come by. Bryan Maritz, a researcher at the University of the Western Cape and lead author of the new study in the Ecological Society of America’s journal Ecology, explains, “This work highlights a renewed effort to meaningfully quantify several aspects of snake natural history, especially in poorly studied regions such as Africa.”
While Cape cobras (Naja nivea) are known to eat other snake species – up to a third of their diet – recorded instances of Cape cobras eating individuals of the same species, known as conspecifics, has been extremely rare. Scientists have treated such reported observations as aberrant behaviour.
So, what caused this Cape cobra to attack and eat the smaller male of its kind? How often does this happen? Do all cobras take part in cannibalism?
Maritz and fellow researchers in the southern African region were studying resource competition between two African snake species when they saw the rare cobra cannibalistic display that inspired them to conduct the new study. Snakes provide a unique opportunity to examine both cannibalism and when animals hunt and eat snakes (ophiophagy) because of their shape – prey fits easily into the predator’s mouth and body for consumption and digestion.
“Cobras” consist of about 30 species, six of which were included in the study. Results suggest that not only do wild cobras frequently eat other snakes – snakes accounted for 13-43% of all species they consumed – but also that cannibalism may be somewhat common as well, given that five of the six species displayed the behaviour.
Interestingly, Cape cobras ate conspecifics in surprising abundance – the only species they consumed more frequently was puff adders. Additionally, the researchers only found males engaged in cannibalism events, as prey or predator, hinting that this might impact intrasexual competition. This raises the question of whether cannibalism evolved from a male-male combative behaviour, considering that male-male combat in cobras typically includes biting.
Understanding how snakes interact with not only other species but also with individuals of their own, can provide a basis for learning about more complex behaviour in different scenarios. If their ecosystem warms drastically and food becomes scarcer, will snakes engage more often in cannibalism? If cannibalism drives snakes to select for larger sizes, what effect will that have on the other kinds of prey they eat? Maritz hopes that “improved understanding of snake ecology and feeding, in general, will help to highlight the ecological functional roles that snakes are performing in African ecosystems.”
Cape cobras occur are found throughout the Western Cape‚ Northern Cape‚ Eastern Cape‚ Free State‚ and North West Province in South Africa. They are also found in the southern half of Namibia‚ southwestern Botswana‚ and western Lesotho.
Full report: Bryan Maritz, Graham J. Alexander, Robin A. Maritz. (2018) The underappreciated extent of cannibalism and ophiophagy in African cobras. Ecology.doi: 10.1002/ecy.2522
Shaba National Reserve, deep in northern Kenya’s expanse, is a stunning wilderness area of dramatic gorges, open plains and extinct volcanoes. Made famous by the special bond between man and beast, namely Joy Adamson and the lioness Elsa (subjects of the 1966 film Born Free), Shaba is an incredible destination drenched in history and just waiting to be explored.
I arrived at the entrance to the reserve full of excitement.
“You don’t want an armed guard?” the reserve ranger asked rather surprised after I had signed in.
“No thanks. I do this all the time. I like exploring places by myself. Plus, nothing ever goes wrong!” I replied confidently.
The reserve opened up before me. The landscape was staggeringly beautiful. But it was almost completely devoid of life.
I saw a herd of nervous Grevy’s zebras, a couple of gerenuks sticking out their awkwardly long necks from behind some bushes, and a lone male waterbuck eyeing me suspiciously.
It was strange. Across the road in Samburu National Reserve I would have tripped over a hundred elephant trunks already, but here in Shaba there was nothing. Maybe it was seasonal. Still, the park’s beauty was undeniable – wild Africa at its best.
I parked my Land Cruiser and climbed a nearby hill to take in the views from above. I spotted a small herd of buffalo in the distance as the wind tore at my clothes. It didn’t get better than this.
The car didn’t start. Excellent. Just excellent. I looked down the valley in the distance searching for a sign of life. Nothing. I hadn’t seen a single other vehicle the entire day. I was on my own. I got to work.
An hour later, caked in oil and dirt, I threw in the metaphorical towel. I had fiddled with the battery terminals, bled the fuel from the filter and generally aimed a bunch of obscenities at my car. He’s called Ali. He wasn’t having any of it. Try as I might he wouldn’t start. A plane passed low overhead, I waved, but the pilot didn’t as much as tip the wings to acknowledge me. He disappeared into the halo of the sun.
I was out of options. I climbed a nearby hill and waited, scanning the horizon. Nothing. Suddenly, a glint in the distance. Then it vanished, almost as if I had imagined it. I rubbed my eyes. Then it reappeared. A car. It did not come my way, but I had a feeling that I could intercept it if I was quick.
“Do you guys mind giving me a jumpstart” I asked politely, breathing heavily.
The Dutch tourists in the car were as surprised as anyone to find another Dutchman in the middle of the African wilderness. They couldn’t really say no to my request.
Bodich Mountain towered over my campsite on the banks of the mighty Ewaso Ng’iro River that night. A large Nile crocodile slipped into the water, disturbed by my presence.
I awoke at midnight and photographed the stars. It was a peacefully magical night. A leopard roared nearby. Shaba was alive and I loved it.
There is a distinct excitement in the air as we make our way through the Von Lindequist Gate on the eastern side of Etosha National Park in Namibia. The sun has just risen, dappling the leaves of the mopane shrubs lining the road in mottled shades of gold and green.
Barely a few minutes into the park and we are greeted with the astonishing sight of a large martial eagle sitting on the carcass of a Damara dik-dik, the second smallest antelope in Africa. The guide tells us that this particular eagle specialises in preying on the diminutive dik-diks.
Our senses heightened by this bizarre encounter, we head to Klein Namutoni, the first waterhole on our journey. Luck is with us today; there is a pride of lions lying close to the water’s edge, claiming the waterhole for themselves and keeping everyone else at bay. The male is draped over the remains of a wildebeest, chewing away on a leg and keeping a beady eye on two opportunistic black-backed jackals hovering in the background. A few giraffe are standing in the distance, casting a wary eye in the direction of the lions, while some impala and kudu cautiously mill about.
We are in absolute awe of these beautiful, powerful predators and the eternal cycle of life and death so vividly depicted in front of us. Shutters are clicking away wildly, and the lions are oblivious to the interest they are generating.
Etosha is a stronghold for lions, with an estimated population of 450 to 500; a significant drawcard for tourists and certainly one of the many reasons I return again and again.
The summer temperature is rising; it is late November and 40°C is on the cards for this time of year. It is advisable to bring plenty of sunscreen, a wide-brimmed hat, insect repellent and long, loose clothing to keep the heat and mosquitoes at bay. The winter months are considerably cooler though, but still reaching heights of 25 – 27°C during the day.
The lions stroll over to the shade of the nearest tree, leaving the carcass for the cleaning crew to finish off. Our driver-guide is dispensing water bottles and cold drinks from a well-stocked cooler box and suitably fortified we make our merry way to Chudob – one of my favourite waterholes in Etosha due to its size and the sheer abundance of animals that congregate there when water is scarce elsewhere.
Several people seem to have the same idea, and we manage to jostle into position, the height of our open game drive vehicle a distinct advantage and guaranteeing us the best possible view of the waterhole. It’s mid-morning, and Chudob is teeming with wildlife.
Herds of zebra are milling in the distance, with a motley crew of impala, springbok and kudu quenching their thirst at the water’s edge. Dense flocks of red-billed queleas are descending in a flurry of wings, jostling for space amongst double-banded sandgrouse and guineafowl. The cacophony of their wingbeats and chirping is deafening.
An eland bull and oryx emerge from the dense mopane shrub, and a warthog mom trots towards the water, with four piglets in tow.
Suddenly there is a collective “Ahh” from everyone in the parking lot, as a black rhino emerges from the distant line of trees! He breaks into a trot, making a beeline for the water, scattering the jittery antelope into a panicked stampede in the billowing white dust.
Lunchtime beckons, and as we head back to the lodge, we make a final detour via Fisher’s Pan, named after Lieutenant Adolf Fischer who was stationed at Namutoni during the 1880s. During the rainy season, which usually starts in December and can last until April, Fisher’s Pan is a haven for several wetland and migratory bird species, especially flamingo.
Now bereft of water, the pan is a vast flat white expanse in a shimmering haze. A lone elephant is the only sign of life on the pan, which is flanked by undulating fields of yellow grass.
Cheetahs love to frequent the area, and it was not more than a few weeks ago that I was privy to seeing one of them use one of the many termite mounds frequenting the landscape as a scouting point for possible prey opportunities.
Clockwise from left: 1) A cheetah sentinel near Fishers Pan; 2) Elephants and zebra at the Nebrowni waterhole; 3) Photographing elephants at Okerfontein. All photos Anja Denker
Back at the lodge, a dip in the sparkling blue pool refreshes body and mind, followed by a delicious light lunch and brief siesta in the tastefully decorated and air-conditioned room. Yes, life is indeed good.
The afternoon game drive starts early and is scheduled to take us to the various waterholes in the Halali region, one of the three main camps in Etosha.
The Goas waterhole does not disappoint. A breeding herd of elephants congregate around the wide, blue expanse of the waterhole. The youngsters are frolicking in the water and wallowing in the mud. A pair of mating lions are reclining in the shade of a huge purple-pod terminalia (Terminalia pruniodes), and a motley crew of spotted hyenas are fast asleep a little distance away; while a few scattered springbok remain vigilant.
The access road winds around the two water sources, allowing for fantastic sightings of the animals drinking and moving to and from the water – game viewing at its best and one of the things which makes Etosha so very special.
High hopes are set on tracking the resident female leopard at the Rietfontein waterhole, which she has been frequenting for quite some time now. She is a formidable huntress and habituated around vehicles. We wait for a while, binoculars scanning the area. No luck this time and we move on.
At Salvadora waterhole a bull elephant is dowsing himself in white mud from the pan, giving him a distinct ghostly white appearance. (The Nebrowni waterhole near Okaukuejo is another fantastic place to spot the famed ‘white’ Etosha elephants.)
Salvadora offers a stunning vista of the pan stretching far into the distant horizon and derives its name from the evergreen mustard tree (Salvadora persica) found in the area. It is one of my favourite waterholes, and as we gaze out over the vast expanse of the pan, I reflect on the many unforgettable moments I have experienced here – from lions killing zebras to a cheetah chasing across the plains and those unforgettable sunsets as the red sun melts into the distant horizon.
We have quite a distance to cover back to our lodge, and soon the night shift of aardwolf, bat-eared foxes, aardvark, and small-spotted genets will make their appearance.
We have one last surprise in store for us. Driving past Rietfontein in the dying light, the Rietfontein female leopard makes an appearance, surveying her domain in the golden glow of the afternoon sun with no other vehicle in sight. It was breathtaking!
We are stunned into silence, and the atmosphere on our game drive vehicle as we leave is one of contentment and wonder, brought about by the shared experience of fabulous game viewing, surprises, breathtaking scenery of contrasts and colours, wide-open spaces and the smells and sounds of the African bush. The essence of Etosha.
Etosha is the perfect year-round destination, with each season having its particular charm and beauty. I cannot think of a time in the park where I have not had special encounters.
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Etosha is a wildlife-rich, arid savannah that is wrapped around an enormous salt pan, which floods to various degrees during the rainy season. The gravel roads are in good condition and easily navigable in sedan cars, making it the perfect location for a self-drive Namibia safari. Expect excellent sightings of lions, leopards, cheetahs and hyenas, and also expect to get very close to elephant, giraffe, zebra, rhino, springbok, black-faced impala, gemsbok and other species. At the same time, you relax at the waterholes waiting for the animals to come to drink during the dry winter season from May to October. Etosha has approximately 340 bird species, including the kori bustard – the world’s heaviest flying bird.
There is basic self-catering and camping accommodation inside the park, with very popular night-time floodlit waterholes. Still, we recommend staying in one of the private lodges based just outside the park – where you can go on night drives and bush walks, which are not permitted inside the park.
Etosha is an easy drive on tar roads from Windhoek, but many choose to fly directly to the park when deciding to travel in Namibia.
SEASONS
The best time to visit the park is during the dry winter season when many of the animals are concentrated at waterholes, and the grass is low, allowing for a better viewing experience.
Winter: May to October is the dry season and provides the most action in Etosha as the wildlife congregates around the waterholes. This is the busiest season for visitors, who are attracted by the mild weather and better wildlife sightings.
Summer: November to April is the rainy season, with January and February generally enjoying the most rainfall. This is also when temperatures rise to 40° Celsius, and visitors should take precautions against the intense sun. It is in these months that the usually dry salt pan of Etosha floods and is transformed into an exquisite birder’s haven with thousands of flamingos and migratory birds. However, it is harder to guarantee game sightings during this period, as the widespread pools of water mean that animals do not need to visit the waterholes. Many of the bigger mammals such as elephants move towards the eastern side of the park at this time, especially the Namutoni area, as this area enjoys more rainfall than the western/Okaukeujo area.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR, Anja Denker
I follow the wild things… “When a person starts to talk about their dreams, it’s as if something bubbles up from within. Their eyes brighten, their face glows, and you can feel the excitement in their words”. ~ John C. Maxwell. This quote pretty much sums up my passion for wildlife – especially lions – and nature. I have always followed a career in the arts, from fashion design to postage stamp design, before taking up wildlife photography – the camera firmly welded to my hands ever since! Living in Namibia, the country of my birth, I strive to convey emotion through my work, be it through photography, visual art or through words.
An analysis of Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) research establishes that dozens of cheetahs are being advertised for sale each year via popular social media platforms. Further, it infers the Internet’s role in driving the trade of cheetahs is prominent, and engaging social media companies should be part of any solution. The analysis, which covers the period between January 2012 and June 2018, aims to determine the extent to which illegal cheetah trade exists online and to document the most relevant threats.
Cheetahs are listed under Appendix I of the Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES). This means trade in wild-born cheetahs is permitted only in exceptional circumstances. However, CCF data analysis shows that 1,367 documented cheetahs were offered for sale through 906 adverts, which is approximately one-fifth (20%) of the world’s remaining wild cheetah population. Cheetahs are on a swift decline, dropping from an estimated 100,000 individuals a century ago to fewer than 7,500 today.
The most utilised platforms are Instagram, 4Sale (a mobile app) and YouTube, comprising fifteen countries. However, the Gulf Cooperation Council accounted for over 90% of the adverts, with Saudi Arabia totalling more than 60% of those. The analysis focused on the three top sellers, all of whom are based in Saudi Arabia and posted 20% of all adverts. Of these sellers, one alone accounted for 12% of all adverts analysed and was found to offer multiple species that include lions, tigers, jaguars, wolves, gibbons and chimpanzee.
“The illegal trade in live cheetahs impacts the smaller, fragmented populations in East Africa most. Mitigating the threat requires a concerted effort by governments to not only to confiscate the animals but to embark on a major awareness campaign to reduce demand for endangered species as pets”, said Dr Laurie Marker, CCF Founder and Executive Director. “Already vulnerable cheetah populations, particularly those in Ethiopia and Somalia, are at risk of local extinction because of poaching for the illegal pet trade”.
CCF estimates put the number of smuggled cheetahs out of East Africa at 300 per year. Many more die before being shipped to the Middle East.
“CCF maintains a ‘safe house’ in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, where a team of animal keepers are caring for eleven confiscated cheetahs. Eight were confiscated within a three-week period, and two were just three-weeks-old when intercepted. One of the youngest died a few days after confiscation”, said Patricia Tricorache, CCF’s Assistant Director of Illegal Wildlife Trade.
CCF has been working to counter poaching and trafficking since 2005. Since 2011, CCF has assisted the Somaliland government with the surrender or confiscation of 50 cheetahs. On 28 August, a landmark victory was achieved in Somaliland courts when two subjects charged with wildlife trafficking were sentenced to three years in prison and fined $300 USD and their vehicle seized – the first conviction for illegal cheetah trade in Somaliland.
Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) is the global leader in the research and conservation of cheetahs. Founded in Namibia in 1990, CCF maintains a research programme studying the biology, ecology and genetics of the cheetah and operates the only fully-equipped genetics laboratory at an in-situ conservation site in Africa. CCF has created a set of integrated programmes based on this research that addresses threats to the cheetah and its entire ecosystem, including human populations. CCF operates from the principle that only by securing the future of the communities that live alongside the cheetah can you secure a future for the species.
I am standing still, deep inside Uganda’s Kibale National Park. It is dark, way too early in the morning, and a lush canopy above my head mantles today’s dawn. There is an eerie and almost deafening silence, unlike the conspicuously noisy forests I have visited in West Africa, South America and southeast Asia.
My aim today is to listen out for the green-breasted pitta, to track it down to its perch and stealthily approach it to take a decent photo. I tell myself to stay focused – perhaps my luck will change today. I close my eyes and scan the silence with my ears. I am listening for a quasi-imperceptible frog-like “proop”, from somewhere in the forest canopy. The call itself is a rather subdued tremolo – more like a frog than a bird.
So how then was this bird ever found in this forest you may ask? And why have only a handful of birders ever laid eyes on a green-breasted pitta before? The answer is truly charming…
The re-discovery of the green-breasted pitta in Kibale National Park, as told by Ranger Harriet Kemigisha
“I was a ranger guide in Kibale National Park, mostly taking out clients for birding and chimpanzee tracking in this beautiful rainforest. On June 21st 2005, I had a group of six clients which I took out for chimpanzee tracking.
We came across a fruiting fig tree (in an area well-known to us guides) where we found chimps feeding high up on the fruits. We watched them for about 30 minutes until they all descended and started walking on the ground at a very fast pace, so we decided to follow them. Somehow I lost sight of them, but I could hear them calling from a distance of about 300 metres. Blindly following the chimps we had wandered off the trail and were now thoroughly lost!
The good thing was that I had a radio and was able to get in touch with my other colleagues in the forest. I called Godfrey and talked to him in our local language Rutoro, to make sure that the clients don’t know that we were lost in the forest.
‘Nyowe Mbuzile nabagenyi timanyile ambilendi’, I said to him, which basically means: “I am lost with visitors and I have no idea where I am”.
He told me to walk towards the sounds of the chimps, which I did, all the while making sure that my clients thought their guide was looking for more chimps and not totally lost.
As I walked in the direction my colleague gave me, I spotted a beautiful bird hopping on the ground like a thrush. I turned to my clients in excitement and said, ‘That’s a pitta!’. My clients were not interested in birds at all and they ignored my pitta.
I kept watching the bird as it carried nesting materials, but my clients were impatient as they were only interested in seeing the chimps. We continued following the calls of chimps until we ended up at the same fig tree where we were at before, to find more chimps feeding. We were not lost anymore!
This helped me to estimate the distance from where I had seen the pitta. We walked back to Kanyachu visitor centre and I shared my good news of the pitta and quickly picked up the bird book to properly identify it – but the book only had one species of pitta – the African pitta, which didn’t look like the one I had just seen in the forest.
I called Hassan Mutebi, who had left Kibale a few days ago with a Spanish birder Ignacio Ufera. I told him that I had seen a pitta but did not look like an African pitta. Hassan shared the news with his client and they immediately changed their itinerary and came back to Kibale the next day.
I guided them to the exact spot where the bird was and we all started looking on the ground when I heard Ignacio shouting, ‘I have seen it, there are two!’.
Since then, the news of the green-breasted pitta in Kibale has spread all over the world. Pitta experts say that this is the most difficult and unknown species of pitta in the world.
After this discovery, there was an increase of birding groups to Uganda by 80%, and I was getting many bookings for guiding from various birding groups – and with each group I successfully located the pitta.
I have now learnt the pitta’s various behaviours, from feeding and breeding, to displaying and territories. I feel like I know this bird like I know myself.”
Ranger Harriet Kemigisha
And that is how the green-breasted pitta became a traceable species in Kibale, part luck, part know-how and a healthy wallop of grit, determination and birding passion.
So here I am in Kibale, with Harriet as my guide. It’s my sixth time trying to catch a glimpse of this iconic species. I have prayed to each and every birding god I know for assistance, as I am not sure I can handle being stood up yet again. As it is, this pitta already holds the dubiously honourable rank of number ONE African bogey bird in my books, a title am hoping to lose today.
Timing is key, for hearing its call is essential to narrowing down the search area. They are most likely to call in (February and June) and one is more likely to hear it when the forest is quiet, in the morning, just before the usual dawn chorus – at other times forest soundscape drowns out the soft call. Alternatively, they are known to breed in June-July and the bird guides in Kibale have realised how sought-after this bird is, and have developed a stellar approach to showing nesting couples to clients, from a safe distance, without affecting breeding. Outside of these months, one has almost no chances of catching a glimpse of this bird on the forest floor.
Suddenly, there is a subdued and distant “proop”, and we all lock onto the sound. Torches off, and with brisk but mindful steps we close the gap. Harriet orchestrates the best approach, knowing already which individual it is and his perching preferences. It takes another 5 or 6 “proops” for the bird to drop off from the canopy, and soon enough the “prooping” emanates from a mere five metres off the ground and right in front of us.
“Scan that tree,” Harriet orders.
And my word… after two sweeps my eyes land on a mossy, sunlit branch where the distinct shape and colours of my quarry appear as if by magic! Seconds later I see the coveted ‘twitch’ display, as it hops into the air whilst “prooping” and claiming stake to this patch of forest.
I am elated, excited, riveted as I absorbing every second and my brain buffers as it downloads the sights and sounds of this stunning bird and its stellar display. For the next 20 minutes a number of sun-flecked branches are used to call and display, until the bird eventually drops to the forest floor. And disappears.
We relocate it, and follow it for an hour. It is easy to lose sight of this dumpy, thrush-like bird – as colourful as it is. Green-breasted pittas will dash from one dappled shadow to the next, slaloming past sun flecks on the forest floor, revealing itself on its own terms. Like a puff of smoke, this Houdini will evaporate from plain sight as it blends into the background, and appear yonder as if to tease you. It is clear to me that one cannot observe a green-breasted pitta if it does not want to be seen. Needless to say, one needs to be focused and save the blinking for later.
Stealth is paramount. Maintaining the right distance, pre-empting its next dash, and understanding the terrain are important factors to consider in order to get a decent, prolonged view. One wrong move, and it will disappear, or worse, it will flush and fly into a densely wooded area, or straight up to the canopy. Gone.
Thank you Harriet, for sharing your forest, knowledge and awesome green-breasted pitta.
Watch the green-breasted pitta in action, filmed by Christian Boix in Kibale National Park – don’t forget to turn up the sound to hear the “proop” and the chimps!
Should you be interested in trying your luck on a ‘Pitta Quest’, have a look at our 4-night itinerary here, and do not hesitate to contact us should you require further information. Whether it is African (Angolan) or the green-breasted pitta, we will do our best to deliver.
The best time of the year to see green-breasted pittas is mid-June, July, August, and February/March, plus early April.
There are two pitta species in Africa, and approximately 42 elsewhere in the world, mostly in southeast Asia. They are all drop-dead gorgeous, but the African representatives are much harder to find (in my opinion).
The Horn of Africa brings to mind treacherous coastlines patrolled by AK47 wielding pirates, unforgiving desert plains and fiercely proud tribes. And there is Djibouti, a land of stark beauty with blinding salt flats, mysterious moonscapes, petrified forests and remote mountains hidden away, far off the beaten track, waiting to be discovered.
It was hot. I didn’t need to hear the expletive escaping my brother’s mouth to confirm this as we descended down the plane’s steps. Nor did I need to double check my Lonely Planet copy which helpfully stated, “May-Sep: Some like it hot… some like it hot.”
It was the first week of July. It was no less than 50 degrees Celsius. I could barely breathe. We found temporary respite in the airport. We spotted no other tourists; it looked like we had Djibouti all to ourselves. The perks of travelling in the low season.
We had no plan, just a vague idea about what we wanted to see in the next six days. Our French was terrible, my only carefully rehearsed phrase being, “What type of beer do you have?” It was not used much. Still, this was Djibouti and there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed.
Salah, a friend we made on the plane, soon hooked us up with Ibrahim who had just started his own business venture aptly named “Ibrahim Tours”. We were to be his first customers as we sketched out an itinerary with hand signals on a dirty napkin in Club Ethiopia (a place with the only affordable beer in town).
“There is nothing out here.” I mused as I stared out of the window as our Land Cruiser ate up the sands of the desert.
All signs of life had disappeared the moment we left the outskirts of Djibouti City, morphing into the barrenness of the Gran and Petit Barra depressions. It was a parched landscape etched with intricate patterns into the clay, windswept over millennia. It seemed unending.
As the sun dropped low over the horizon a land of pre-historic limestone chimneys emerged in the distance, rising from the desert carrying with them the angry heat from the depths of the earth. Our skilled Afar guide, Abdul, carefully navigated us through the quicksand-ridden expanse on unmarked roads. We watched the resilient Afar herdsmen stand guard on hilltops and draw near in a cloud of dust guiding their cattle to the precious water, a lifeline in these parts. Humanity can carve out an existence in the most extreme of places.
Lac Abbe was not a place for the faint-hearted. Lightning ravaged the skies and the wind tore at our clothes as we slept under the stars. In the morning, the thick mist obscured the chimneys as they hauntingly emerged and disappeared at a moments notice. Lac Abbe was positively apocalyptic in every sense of the word.
We left Lac Abbe behind and headed for Lac Assal, a crater lake located in the centre of the country deep in the Afar Triangle, known to be many times saltier than the ocean.
At 150m below sea level it is the undisputed lowest spot on the African continent.
A storm loomed large over the lake as we arrived at the blindingly white salt flats. The turquoise waters danced in the wind as we carefully stepped into the shallows. The salt was sharp like razor blades under our exposed feet. I screamed into the wind. I felt alive.
As night fell our Land Cruiser crawled its way up high into the remote Goda Mountains in search of the settlement of Dittilou located on the border of the famed Foret du Day.
We arrived deep into the night at a local camp and sleep came easy. The morning revealed the most incredible mountain vistas.
Hiking deep into the mountains in search of plane crashes and waterfalls was a privilege. Our journey continued on to another settlement in the mountains: Bankouale, a place where the elusive leopard is still said to roam.
We left the mountains in our wake as we headed for the gritty Port City of Tadjoura, Djibouti’s oldest town, once ruled by the mighty Sultans of the gulf.
Today all that remains is camel strewn streets and a brand new Chinese port that sees no ships.
Another mystery that we weren’t going to solve that day – instead we headed for Sables Blancs, a beach only accessible by a steep ramp from the plateau above. The water was magical.
Djibouti is a place like no other. It’s a place made for the intrepid traveller who is searching for an experience that’s different and untouched by mass tourism.
Make no mistake, Djibouti is outrageously expensive but would I go again…? Probably!
Etosha National Park in Namibia is the perfect year-round destination, with each season having its particular charm and beauty. It is one of Africa’s top safari destinations and a photographer’s dream – probably one of the best places in Africa to photograph wildlife, whether you’re a beginner or an expert. Elephants, zebras, black and white rhinos, lions, leopards, cheetahs, herds of springbok, giraffe, and wildebeest all call Etosha home in plentiful numbers. The landscapes are also spectacularly photogenic with wide, vast vistas, and barren salt pans under stunning blue skies. In this gallery we are celebrating Etosha in all its glory with a selection of some incredible photos taken by Simone Basini – a guide, wildlife photographer, and a Photographer of the Year competition entrant – from his time spent in Etosha.
For accommodation options at the best prices visit our collection of camps and lodges: private travel & conservation club. If you are not yet a member, see how to JOIN below this story.
Opinion post by Dr FJ (Erik) Verreynne – a wildlife and livestock vet with a post-graduate wildlife management degree, who has been practising in Botswana since 2002.
Driving on the white gravel road from Seronga, past Eretsha, Betsa and Gudigwa, to the village of Gunostoga in the northwest of Botswana marks the boundary between the flood plains of NG12 to the south and the dry mopane veld of NG11 and NG13 in the north. The Namibian border is roughly 80km to the north. To the north from here, along the Caprivi strip, is one of the areas reported to contain the so-called strewn carcasses of the many poached elephants.
There is no better area to seek perspective on the BBC article where Elephants without Borders raised the alarm on large numbers of elephants being poached in Botswana.
The gravel road connecting the area is here because the people are here. And the people are here because the water and the floodplains are here. And so are the wildlife. It has been like this for many years, long before the areas to the south and east were re-classified as photographic safari areas. Long before local people were stopped from hunting or herding their cattle to the apple leaf sandy ridges to the south.
People were and are still working their fields in the wet season, or herding their cattle on the floodplains during the dry season. They are fishing from mokoros and harvesting reeds for building shelters and houses.
The elephants have always been here, mixing with people and other wildlife and taking chances with raiding crops. But they were perceived as much less of a menace then, reportedly because they were fewer in number. In general, people got by without major issues and life at large was peaceful. NG12 was a controlled hunting area, and elephants and other wildlife were hunted in a controlled manner, supervised by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, while communities benefited either directly or indirectly by means of employment, money or meat.
The nearby open international borders posed a poaching threat and the Botswana Defence Force was deployed along the border after two recent episodes of near-total extinction of rhinos by poachers.
It all changed a few years ago when the hunting of elephant and other wildlife in the area was banned. The ban was put in place after little consultation, motivated by blaming dwindling wildlife numbers on overhunting with no tangible evidence of real cause. Hunting concessions were then converted into photographic safari concessions.
Photographic tourism was subsequently greatly promoted, and labelling Botswana as a safe haven for elephants and rhinos was at the core of the tourism marketing drive. Elephant population numbers were manipulated and inflated to as much as 200,000 to celebrate the conservation success and to lure more people. Tourism, as one of the main earners of foreign exchange, grew tremendously and surpassed agriculture as part of the GDP, while the influx of elephants resulted in dispersal all over Botswana, causing widespread human-wildlife conflict and vegetation damage, and placed enormous strain on Botswana’s compensation and anti-poaching resources.
To achieve greater control over the nature-based tourism growth process, wildlife resources were centralised, and local responsibilities and benefits were largely taken away from the communities. The benefits of tourism only benefited a few large companies, leaving the communities behind with the stark reality of the sheer number of elephants (and predator conflict). While the world was celebrating Botswana tourism stakeholders with rewards and accolades, the picture in rural Botswana looked quite different – that of locals paying a high price.
So here is part of that dark picture. This remote area, which Thalefang Charles refers to as “Overseas”, has about 16,000 people and 18,000 elephants. More than 16,000 cattle graze the floodplain between Seronga and Gudigwa. Small settlements dot the area between the villages all along the road, on the floodplains and into the dry north.
As you drive along the road, signs by a conservation NGO indicate the elephant corridors that the elephants use to reach the water on the floodplain. This is to prevent future development but does not safeguard the houses and fields already established in the way of the ever-increasing elephant herds.
To some extent, these signs are rather ironic. The short stunted mopane shrubs strewn with skeletons of large trees interspersed with well-worn elephant paths and heaps of elephant dung where they cross the road is stating the obvious.
As the rain-filled waterholes in the north are drying up, the elephant herds need to walk south to the floodplains to drink every day, not only intensifying the human-wildlife conflict, but causing an ever radiating devastation to the vegetation which is now also starting to affect the large trees on the islands of the floodplains.
They arrive at dusk and leave again at dawn, preventing human movement in the dark. Where it used to be only elephant bulls hanging around on the floodplains during the day, now some cow herds do not leave, staying close to villages and preventing free movement of people from working their fields or tending to their livestock – even during the daylight hours. For not only water, but also browse is getting scarce in the north. And the crop-raiding during the rainy season has escalated and some people have stopped planting.
Close to the road on the floodplain near the village of Gunotsoga lies the carcass of a female elephant, with vultures cleaning the hollows in her skull where her tusks have been removed. This is the matriarch of a small herd. She killed an old man on the road three weeks ago. He left on foot for the village from his settlement at about six in the morning but never got there. His mutilated body was found next to the road by a passerby, with the story written in the sand – a tale of unprovoked fury by the cow elephant.
She must have been enraged by a very bad experience with people. She charged at him from nearly 80 metres away, tusking and tossing him several times before rejoining her herd far on the opposite side of the road. She was shot by an officer of the Department the same day, and the tusks removed for safekeeping. The community was furious about the killing of the old man, and two other elephants were apparently killed shortly after by community members in retaliation, the bodies left with the tusks intact…
So back to the BBC article and the pure hate and condemnation it has provoked from some circles. Allow me some perspective while remembering the souls of the old man and the elephant matriarch, and so many old men and elephants in villages all over the north of Botswana. No good will come from their deaths if it based on lies.
Firstly, the anti-poaching units were never disarmed. Their military weapons were removed as it is against the law in Botswana and they are already assisted by the Botswana Defence Force which is suitably armed and equipped. The APU’S still have their semi-automatic weapons. So blaming the poaching on the “de-weaponising” of the law enforcement agencies is not factual or logical.
The areas in question are close to the Namibian border, and away from the core areas usually covered by the APU’s where a number of Defence Force Units are already deployed. Despite the presence of these units, the alleged killing of such large numbers of elephants in such a short period of time was not noticed. Some areas involved are prone to anthrax-related mortalities. As such the spatial and time scale claims, and the cause of mortality as claimed by the BBC report, are to be questioned.
Furthermore, the statement that the scale of poaching recorded by EWB was not witnessed before, seems sensation driven since East Africa lost 30,000 elephants per year (80 per day) not so long ago.
Botswana does not approve of poaching on any scale. Our past track record is proof of that. But Botswana as a safe haven is a marketing stunt. It does not exist and will never exist because no such haven country exists anywhere in Africa.
With the number of elephants in Botswana, the scale of human-elephant conflict, the geographical challenges and the regional onslaught, it is inevitable that we will experience a degree of poaching. And poaching will most likely increase. But with an annual elephant population increase of 5%, on 154,000 elephants in Botswana, even the BBC reported poaching rate is insignificant and will not threaten elephants as a species in Botswana. To hold Botswana responsible for the conservation of the whole African elephant population is unfair.
No international vocalisation will reduce the scale of poaching in Botswana. Poachers do not read newspapers or Facebook. It is our responsibility and we are not afraid to take it on. That also includes admitting when things are not working.
The previous exclusive conservation policy has now been proven to be disastrous and very expensive to our national budget. Not only the elephants, but also people and other species like the rhinos in the Delta are in jeopardy.
Change is imperative and you need to give us that chance.
We need to shift the emphasis of our poaching mitigation in Botswana away from our ability to arm our APU’s or to ban hunting, or even on the size of the tourism industry. We need to base it on our ability to restore a safe and stable rural, political and economical environment combined with pragmatic conservation measures where local communities are part and parcel of the responsibilities and benefits of sustainable conservation.
We also need to redefine co-existence – not to fulfil a western conservation doctrine, but to include a workable definition based on sustainability for communities and wildlife.
Culling the elephants is not a solution due to the numbers involved. As such the proposed lifting of the hunting ban will not negatively affect the numbers. The annual elephant trophy hunting quota for Botswana never exceeded 400 animals per year, complemented by a small number of citizen hunting licenses. But hunting may provide a fast track to tangible benefits for the hardest-hit communities until a better sustainable solution can be established. And hunting in hot spot conflict areas may induce elephant movement out of those areas, as has happened in neighbouring range states (to our detriment).
Additionally, we need to shift the emphasis of our tourism marketing drives.
For too long we have built our nature-based tourism industry on a false illusion of “pristineness” that excludes any signs of human existence. It is these illusions that allow for the current hype of emotions based on misleading reporting. The wilderness areas in Africa were never without people and will never be without people. By excluding people, and allowing elephant numbers to get out of hand in Botswana, we are running the risk of losing more elephants and other wildlife through the conflict, poaching and starvation than are sacrificed through hunting. And I dare not imagine the cruelty that goes with that scenario.
At the same time, we should educate tourists to accept that people and livestock are part of the environment and the safari experience that they are paying for.
Our President needs support in his conservation approach. He does not deserve the condemnation that followed the BBC article. If any are to be blamed, then perhaps look at neighbouring elephant range countries and their lack of taking responsibility for their own elephants.
It is the right of Batswana to live in a safe environment. It is embedded in our Constitution, as it is in most countries’ Constitutions. And to impose measures that we can afford. Only when we are feeling safe and secure will we be able to conserve our rich wildlife heritage. And for now, we are threatened by our own success.
Give us some room? Change is never without pain. Especially to those who benefited most in the past.
Dawn is just breaking when Kamunu Saitoti sets out across the Amboseli bush in search of lions. At first glance, he appears much like any other Maasai warrior: Lean and tall, his dark red shuka is wrapped around his torso and waist concealing his only weapon, a long knife with a simple wooden handle. Brightly coloured beads adorn Saitoti’s neck, ears, forearms, and ankles, and his feet, far more weathered than the rest of his body, are only partially covered by dusty sandals fashioned from discarded car tyres.
“I killed my first lion when I was 21,” Saitoti says as he scans the horizon. In all, he has killed five lions. This, he says, was an integral part of his family history, part of being raised as a moran, a Maasai warrior. “My brother and father have also killed lions.”
The Maasai are traditionally a nomadic people subsisting almost exclusively on the milk, blood, and meat of cattle grazed on East Africa’s vast rangeland, amidst what once appeared to be endless numbers of wild animals. In the past, lion killing for the Maasai was as much about tradition as it was about protecting livestock from predators. To hunt and kill a lion was a critical right of passage known as olamayio – how young Maasai males became men. The tradition has also created a powerful connection between warriors and lions, with each young moran receiving a lion name after his first successful hunt. Saitoti’s lion name, Meiterienanka, means “one who is faster than all the others.”
But traditions are beginning to change.
On this day, in place of a spear, Saitoti carries a radio telemetry kit. He unfolds the antenna in a manner suggesting he has done this countless times before and looks around in search of a hill – not an easy task in a landscape as flat as this. He settles for the remnants of an abandoned termite mound and begins to scan for a signal. Once he has a sense of the direction the signal is coming from, he packs away the kit and starts walking, dust trailing his brisk march along the well-used track.
For the next three hours, Saitoti stops only to look for signs of lions, or to talk to herders. Most tracks he sees are too old to bother with, but as the sun nears its zenith, he finds a set that elicits visible excitement – a departure from his otherwise solemn demeanour. Lion cubs, young ones, and very fresh. Patience, however, will be required here. The narrow trail leads into a maze of dense shrubs, and that is no place to follow a lioness with cubs – even for someone as experienced as Saitoti.
At 36, Saitoti is a seven-year veteran, and one of Kenya’s three regional coordinators, of an organisation known as Lion Guardians. Established in 2007, the program is dedicated to finding ways for Maasai and lions to coexist. At its core is a shift in the relationship between the moran and the lion: Hunters have become protectors.
This profound change in perspective is a critical component of East Africa’s lion conservation efforts. But the Guardians have a lot of ground to cover – just 45 Maasai warriors patrol about a million acres of Kenyan rangelands – and human-wildlife conflict is a bigger problem than one organisation, or one approach, can solve.
Lion Guardians is just one of several small- and medium-sized efforts by government officials, NGOs, and locals to reduce human-wildlife conflicts in Kenya and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. As human populations in the region have exploded, consuming increasing amounts of wildlife habitat in the process, the numbers of some of the region’s most iconic and important species have been in steep decline.
Populations of many of Kenya’s large herbivores have fallen by 70 to 90% since the late 1970s. And as their prey has become more scarce, so too have lions. Scientists estimate that lion populations have fallen by more than 40% in the past 20 years, and the 20,000 or so wild lions that remain occupy just 8% of the species’ historical range.
In many ways, the need for such intervention has never been greater. Yet, in a region where droughts are frequent, and famine is never entirely out of sight, finding a path toward peaceful coexistence between herders and the predators that hunt their livestock will require a great deal of persistence, creativity, and a shift in how the region’s wildlife is valued.
For most Maasai, the response to finding a leopard in your goat pen, surrounded by several slain goats, would be quick and straightforward: Kill the leopard. There would be no repercussions, as Kenya’s wildlife laws allow citizens to dispatch so-called problem animals. And this young male, like his mother before him, would certainly fit that description. He had been terrorising the village of Ngerende and several neighbouring communities for years, killing hundreds of goats – losses keenly felt in what is one of Kenya’s poorest regions, and a hotbed of human-wildlife conflict.
With the leopard’s paw now caught in the fencing of the pen, or boma, as livestock enclosures are called here, there seemed to be only one possible outcome. But the owner of this particular boma, Mark Ole Njapit, is no ordinary Maasai.
“I understand the value of wildlife for the future of our people,” says Njapit (48), a Ngerende community elder known by most as ‘Pilot’. “Everyone was agitated and wanted to spear it, but I calmed them down and called KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service).” Fortunately for the leopard, KWS officers were treating some elephants nearby and responded quickly. After tranquillising the cat, they were able to cut him free and move him to an area where he would be less likely to get into trouble.
That was six months ago. Today, Pilot is supervising as members of his village – in partnership with the Anne K. Taylor Fund (AKTF), an organisation working in its own way to reduce human-wildlife conflicts – construct his new boma.
The enclosure they’re building is formidable, with welded corner posts interspersed with termite-proof eucalyptus timber poles, all set in concrete. The chain-link fence is stretched tight, 7 feet above the ground and another foot buried in the soil; the fence is designed to be virtually impossible for a predator to push over, climb, or dig beneath. (While a leopard could easily scale a similar-sized fence constructed entirely of wood, they tend to avoid chain-link fencing.)
Today, after more than two years and nearly a hundred of the latest iteration of AKTF bomas constructed, the program’s record remains intact: Not a single livestock animal protected by one of these enclosures has been killed by a wild predator.
The effectiveness of the new bomas means they’re in high demand. And while AKTF doesn’t usually work in villages as far north as Ngerende, when Pilot reached out, the program’s construction director, Felix Masaku, made an exception.
“Here is a man whose small village loses maybe ten goats a week choosing not to kill the leopard that is doing much of that damage. That is very unusual, and it is important to support this man so others might follow his example,” says Masaku.
In general, AKTF priorities cases in which livestock losses have been most significant.
“This is about conservation and co-existence,” Masaku continues. “We want to minimise conflict and retaliatory killings. If someone is losing five goats and two cows every week, that person is more likely to try to kill predators than someone who loses maybe one goat a month.”
By reducing the vulnerability of livestock to predation, this program and others like it aim to reduce, if not eliminate, retaliatory killings, known as olkiyioi. This practice poses a grave threat to lions in particular, especially when angry cattle owners turn to poison rather than spears to wipe out entire prides of lions. In recent years, there have been several high-profile killings. For example, several members of the Marsh pride (of BBC Big Cat Diary fame) were deliberately poisoned in the Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) in 2015, and six lions, including two cubs, were speared to death outside Nairobi National Park in early 2016.
One troubling detail about the slaughter of the Marsh pride members is that it was carried out by Maasai seeking revenge for cattle killed while being grazed illegally inside the reserve. This practice is not uncommon. In fact, a paper published in the Journal of Zoology in 2011 estimated that by the early 2000s, livestock made up 23% of the MMNR’s mammal biomass – up from a mere 2% a few decades earlier. Today, this figure dramatically exceeds that of any resident wildlife species in the protected area except for buffalo. This is as much a sign of declining wildlife populations as it is of human incursions into the reserve, and it underscores significant challenges both in terms of protecting livestock and preventing human-wildlife conflicts.
As Anne Taylor, the founder of AKTF, put it: “Inside the bomas is one thing, but keeping cattle safe if they are literally brought into the lions’ den is virtually impossible.”
For many Maasai today, lions and other predators have become an expensive nuisance at best, and a source of deep-seated resentment at worst. In general, this resentment is not directed toward the predators themselves, but toward a government – and the world at large – which often appears to place more value on the big cats (and the tourism dollars they generate) than on Maasai lives and livelihoods.
National parks and reserves cover a mere 8% of Kenya’s land area and support only a third of its wildlife. The remaining two-thirds of the country’s wild animals inhabit private and communal rangelands. This is land they share with the Maasai, Samburu, and other pastoral people. Many think it is here, outside of the parks and reserves, that the future of Kenya’s wildlife will be decided.
According to a report co-authored by Panthera, WildAid, and the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, loss of habitat due to agricultural expansion, which invariably pushes wildlife into closer contact with farmers and pastoralists, is the underlying factor of all major threats that lions face.
To many, the conversion of unprotected rangelands to agriculture might seem inevitable as the region’s population grows. Still, Calvin Cottar, a fourth-generation Kenyan whose great-grandfather emigrated from Iowa in 1915, disagrees. According to Cottar, it all comes down to economic security.
“We are talking about some of the world’s poorest people,” Cottar says. “For them, it is about survival. Why should we expect them to care about lions or elephants when they are struggling to put food on the table – if they even have a table? Wildlife is costing them money, not earning them money, and that is what has to change.”
Toward this end, while working with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), Cottar initiated several district wildlife associations in an attempt to help landowners acquire ownership rights to the wildlife residing on their lands. Because all wild animals in Kenya have historically been considered the property of the state, benefits to local communities having to co-exist with these creatures have generally been few and far between. Now in his 50s, Cottar says there’s much more to be done. He is more convinced than ever that the future of Kenya’s wildlife lies with the people sharing the land with them – and with a shift in government policy.
“It’s really quite simple,” he says. “We all have to pay for ecosystem services. Pay the Maasai landowners a monthly lease for their land in return for leaving it intact. The problem is that wildlife has no value to them, whereas cattle and commercial agriculture do.”
While removing snares, building livestock enclosures, and monitoring lion populations are all essential management practices, Cottar says, they don’t solve the root cause of human-wildlife conflict. Wild animals are basically a nuisance and a liability to the Maasai, he explains. “We have to make maintaining wildlife the most productive land use, and preferably in a way that respects the Maasai lifestyle and culture.”
That is why Cottar now finds himself sitting in a circle with perhaps 50 Maasai – young and old, men and women. The topic, just as it has been for the last three years, is the formation of the Olderkesi Conservancy, on the land where Cottar’s safari camp currently stands. In general, the conservancy model consists of land being leased directly from its owners for conservation purposes. Olderkesi is slightly different in that the 100,000-hectare ranch has yet to be subdivided, making it the last communally owned ranch left in Kenya. As a result, the land will be leased from a trust representing all 6,000 landowners, and because the agreement involves the Maasai, a complete consensus is required before anything can be signed. In Maasailand, patience is not so much a virtue as an absolute necessity.
One of the community’s most respected elders joining Cottar in the circle is Kelian Ole Mbirikani (58), a member of the Olderkesi Land Committee and Chairman of the Olentoroto landowners group, which owns the land immediately surrounding Cottar’s camp. He is also one of the driving forces behind the conservancy initiative.
“The Maasai depend almost completely on their cattle,” Mbirikani explains, “so convincing them that it is possible to have both wildlife and livestock at the same time has been our biggest challenge. In their experience, when land is set aside for wildlife, all of the cattle disappear. That’s what national parks do.”
Mbirikani is convinced the conservancy concept can work, though. He and a group of other Maasai travelled with Cottar recently to conservancies as far north as Samburu. There, they saw wildlife and met landowners who are still able to graze their cattle. “The people are really benefiting,” Mbirikani says. “Their children are being educated all through university level with the money from the conservancies. That is what we want for our people, too.”
There are nine other conservancies around the MMNR, and a handful more in other parts of the country, which all make regular, direct payments to local landowners. Similar approaches have been employed by Wilderness Safaris in Namibia and the Nature Conservancy in the United States, among others. While none of them can be said to offer financial benefits on the same scale as Olderkesi, Cottar is not alone in seeing this as a promising solution.
Indeed, two studies published last year demonstrate the effectiveness of Kenya’s conservancy approach. According to one of these assessments, despite lack-lustre political support conservancies managed to achieve “direct economic benefits to poor landowner households, poverty alleviation, rising land values, and increasing wildlife numbers”. The other study saw a direct positive effect on lion populations within Kenya’s conservancies, with a nearly three-fold increase in just ten years.
However, while these results seem promising, there will always be areas outside of conservancy boundaries – borderlands and buffer zones – where human-wildlife conflict are bound to continue. There’s not enough funding available to expand the conservancies enough to eliminate these conflict zones. The question, then, is whether people can learn to co-exist with lions and other wildlife even when there is no monthly payment to be collected.
The lions and their Guardians
As Kamunu Saitoti waits patiently, hoping to glimpse the new lion cubs when they finally appear from the thicket, he is joined by a younger Lion Guardian, Kikanai Ole Masarie. Not long after, a battered Land Cruiser arrives with one of the organisation’s founders, Director of Science Stephanie Dolrenry. The two warriors pile into the vehicle, and they all set off in search of the cubs.
“These lions are not like those in the parks,” Dolrenry explains. “There’s no tourism here, so they are not habituated to people or cars. We’ll be lucky if we find them at all. They can be extremely shy, especially with young cubs.”
But this is a lucky day, it seems. With thorny acacia bushes screeching against the glass and metal of the bouncing vehicle, the team suddenly finds itself in a veritable crowd of cats. Dolrenry, like the Guardians, can identify them all. Mere metres from the car, Meoshi, her three cubs, and her mother, Selenkay, lounge in the shade. A few dozen paces away, but on their way to join them, Meoshi’s sister Nenki with her own four cubs. Much smaller than Meoshi’s, these were the young lions whose tracks Saitoti was following. This is the first time anyone has laid eyes on this new generation.
“Selenkay is a bit of a celebrity around here,” Dolrenry says. “She causes problems like no other lion, but she’s a tough one, and it’s hard not to admire her.”
Saitoti nods. Selenkay is his favourite lion – her guile and tenacity are something to be respected. She and her family frequently target cattle and give the Guardians plenty of headaches. She has been hunted more times than anyone cares to remember. One of her sisters has fallen victim to poison, and so too has one of her mates, while another sister was killed by spear. She has endured three male takeovers and has even attacked a Maasai moran to protect her young cubs. Like the owners of the livestock she frequently kills, she is a true warrior.
But her legacy is far greater than her own reputation. Her longevity, itself the result of the unyielding commitment of Saitoti, Masarie, and the other Guardians and the growing tolerance of the Maasai inhabiting these rangelands, has helped to connect populations in vital conservation areas and has added much-needed genetic diversity to established prides. One of her sons has made it as far north as Nairobi National Park where he is now breeding successfully.
Saitoti did not become a Guardian because he loved lions. Instead, he was in trouble and needed a job. Arrested for being part of an illegal hunt, his father had to sell three cows to have him released on bail. That made him reconsider his path. Killing lions, despite bringing prestige and honour, also brought hardship.
“For the first two years my feelings about lions were the same,” Saitoti says. “This was just a job. But slowly, things began to change. They give food for my family, and they help educate my children. I even buy veterinary medicine for my cattle with my salary from the lions.”
“And we still get the girls!” Masarie chips in with a broad smile, referring to the social status that killing lions – and, more recently, protecting lions – can bring to a young Maasai man. At 24, he is part of a younger generation of Guardians, and his words are significant, as they hint at an ability for long-held Maasai beliefs and traditions to change.
“The other warriors mostly stay at home, but we are close to the lions every day, tracking them and finding lost cattle. The girls know we must be very brave!” Masarie adds.
Saitoti smiles and continues: “For me, now, I feel there is no difference between the lions and my cows at home. I care about them equally.”
Marcus Westberg is an acclaimed photographer and writer, focusing primarily on conservation and development issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. A photojournalism finalist in the 2015 Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Marcus works closely with several non-profit organisations and projects across the continent. He is a conservation and community development advisor for Luambe Conservation in Zambia.
ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE
Exploring Africa’s Oceans Gallery
Home to some of the most spectacular and treasured life, the oceans and seas surrounding Africa contain a multitude of creatures that thrive in the warm and cold currents that run along our continent. Various bodies of water surround Africa – the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the east and southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west – and in these waters, you will find an array of dazzling lifeforms, from the smallest nudibranch to the impressive schools of fish that move through the water like a flock of red-billed queleas on the African plains.
The DEA has released its rhino management report for 2018, to the end of August. The report is thorough and worth reading in its entirety. Notable figures coming from the report (this is not a complete summary):
1. 508 rhino were poached in South Africa, compared to 688 for the same period in 2017;
2. 292 rhino were poached in Kruger National Park, compared to 333 for the same period in 2017;
3. 83 rhino were poached in KwaZulu-Natal, compared to 163 for the same period in 2017;
4. Approximately 400 suspects have been arrested (162 in Kruger) on a range of charges including rhino poaching, and 13 wildlife traffickers (five Chinese nationals and eight South Africans) were arrested by the Hawks while en route to China, Hong Kong and Vietnam at the time of their arrests;
5. Elephant poaching is on the increase, with 58 elephants were poached in the Kruger during 2018 to date;
6. Rhino horn trading: Since the lifting of the moratorium on the domestic trade in rhino horn in 2017, a total of 28 permits have been issued for the trade of rhinoceros horns and 12 permits actually granted to 16 buyers for the sale of 1,219kg rhino horn.
The South African Department of Environmental Affairs has released a statement highlighting their progress on the Implementation of the Integrated Strategic Management of Rhinoceros. The report back covers the period 1 January to 30 August 2018.
The Integrated Strategic Management of Rhinoceros approach was adopted by Cabinet in 2014 and draws together the work of the Department together with the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) Cluster Departments and Agencies. This is supported by the work of South African National Parks (SANParks), the provincial conservation authorities, the South African Revenue Service (SARS), the Asset Forfeiture Unit, the Financial Intelligence Unit in the Ministry of Finance and National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
Importantly, the ranger corps continue to play a key role in the conservation of South Africa’s fauna and flora; and in government’s anti-poaching efforts.
Compulsory Interventions
Intensive Protection Zones (IPZ)
The Intensive Protection Zone approach has allowed government to effectively allocate limited resources to ensure maximum protection in areas of greatest importance.
There has been success with the IPZ in Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) in particular – as a result of collaboration between the SAPS and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife. Early detection and rapid response, not just within the IPZ but the parks in general, has been bolstered by the use of additional technology that we have been able to procure with the support of the Peace Parks Foundation (PPF). SANParks continues to provide K9 support as well as personnel training.
The integration of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife within the SAPS National Operation Rhino information gathering, operations and case management system is also proving to be critical.
The collaboration between Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and the provincial SAPS KwaZulu-Natal Stock Theft and Endangered Species Unit has also yielded benefits.
Game-changing technological interventions
The Department through SANParks is actively pursuing appropriate technologies as force multipliers. Superior connectivity and situational awareness not only reduces risk to the rangers, it also ensures more proactive engagement and the utilisation of resources in a cost-effective manner.
The Department is currently piloting home grown solutions between the parks as end users, the CSIR and industry; such as a mobile radar system. This system has ensured the decrease of rhino poaching in high density areas by more than eighty percent; and has ensured that the rangers now can dominate the night hours as well.
Operation Rhino
Following on the successes of Operation Rhino 1 to 8, implementation of Operation Rhino 9 is progressing well; operating from the respective Mission Area Joint Operations Centres (MAJOC’s) in Acornhoek, Phalaborwa and Hluhluwe.
Since January 2018 approximately 400 suspects have been arrested on a range of charges including rhino poaching.
Additional successes recorded under Operation Rhino 9 include:
• The initiation of intelligence-driven operations in Mpumalanga resulting in the seizure of numerous unlicensed firearms and ammunition;
• The seizure of an assortment of incriminating evidence, including cell-phones and axes, during arrests;
• Securing a range of sentences following a number of convictions with the maximum sentence being 9 years imprisonment.
Arrests, investigations and prosecutions
Arrests
In addition to the arrests effected by Operation Rhino 9, a total of 13 wildlife traffickers (five Chinese nationals and eight South Africans) were arrested between 1 January and 31 August 2018 by the Hawks. These Level 3 and 4 traffickers were en route to China, Hong Kong and Vietnam at the time of their arrests.
More than 60.92kg of rhino horn was confiscated and linked to poaching crime scenes in KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape.
For the Kruger National Park, the number of arrests of alleged poachers stands at 162 for the period 1 January 2018 to 31 August 2018.
A total of 145 weapons have been seized in rhino-related incidents both inside and outside the KNP since the beginning of 2018; and a total of 83 rhino horn confiscated in the same period.
It is still of concern that our own personnel are being arrested for rhino poaching related offences. Since January, four officials have been arrested by SANParks enforcement staff in the Kruger National Park for poaching-related offences. These include members of the SAPS and the SANDF.
Since SANParks introduced integrity management throughout the organisation to support ongoing anti-poaching efforts, a number of officials have been dismissed following disciplinary processes. A number of these have also faced criminal charges.
Investigations and Prosecutions
One of the challenges facing new enforcement when it comes to poaching-related offences is that suspected poaching kingpins and syndicate members hide and even dispose of the proceeds of their alleged activities as a result of lengthy trial delays. A welcome development is that a number of rhino poaching related cases are now being dealt with by the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU).
Investigations
There are currently 530 rhino poaching related cases on the court roll involving 750 accused and 1,738 charges.
Close to 300 of these cases are trial-ready.
The charges range from rhino poaching, to rhino horn trafficking, to the illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.
Some of these high-profile cases include:
I. State v Groenewald and 8 others (Pretoria High Court) Trial date: 1 – 12 February 2021
II. State v Ras and 9 others (Pretoria High Court) Trial date: 7 December 2018.
III. State v Gwala and others (Mtubatuba Regional Court) Trial date: 26-30 November 2018.
IV. State v Nyalungu and 9 others (Nelspruit Regional Court) Trial date: 23 November 2018
V. State v Landela (Skukuza Regional Court) Trial date: November 2018
VI. State v Ndlovu and others (Grahamstown High Court) Trial date: 26-30 November 2018
VII. State v Petrus Sydney Mabuza, Nozwelo Mahumane, Moshe Thobela and Romez Khoza (White River Magistrates Court). Next court date: 26 October 2018.
Prosecutions
From January to August 2018 a total of 70 cases, involving 163 accused were finalised. The trials have resulted in 93% guilty verdicts, translating to 288 years in sentencing.
Ports of Entry and Exit
The Green Scorpions continue with their work at OR Tambo International Airport and assist the DPCI with cases where illegally traded rhino horn have been detected. To mark World Wildlife Day 2018, the Green Scorpions, Hawks and SARS K9 unit and customs and excise officials participated in an awareness raising day at OR Tambo International Airport, reaching thousands of international travellers as they passed through the arrivals hall.
Training
The Department’s Environmental Management Inspectorate (Green Scorpions) has been regularly training officials based at ports of entry and exit on matters pertaining to the illegal trade in wildlife, such as rhino horns and other parts and derivatives. Over 2,000 officials from 2017 to date have been trained at South African ports. This includes members of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) responsible for patrolling border lines between ports.
Awareness-raising
Commodity identification manuals, audio visual training resources and awareness material have been developed through a collaborative project between the DEA and the World Wildlife Fund South Africa (WWF-SA) – with funding provided by the US International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL). These manuals and associated posters are being distributed as part of an on-going port and borderline training programme and target law enforcement authorities, port operators and road traffic officers.
Joint Operations
In line with the Integrated Strategic Management approach DEA, SANParks and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife have initiated joint planning, and operations to combat rhino poaching.
This includes deployments into provincial parks with rhino populations to provide back up, support and clandestine operations to take place in a joint, but independent, manner.
The placement of Kruger National Park operations staff into provincial parks in KwaZulu-Natal with rhino populations is allowing independent operations to be planned and executed.
In addressing the increase in rhino poaching in the province, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife has also made some critical appointments of field rangers into the Parks which has improved the observation and reaction ability in all areas.
The improved sharing of information between all law enforcement agencies has allowed for more focused prevention, effective investigations, and successes.
Managing Rhino Populations
Translocation
Translocation of rhino has proven to be an effective tool in enhancing the safety of these animals, encouraging population growth and expanding rhino range. The emergence of bovine tuberculosis in rhinos in Kruger, however, has placed some constraints on the full benefits of white rhino strongholds. SANParks is now using innovative ways to overcome risks associated with diseases.
Biological Management
The integrated initiatives of SANParks to manage its rhino population have had varied successes. In our rhino parks that are more than 50,000ha on average, black rhinos of both sub-species are increasing and they now boast 63 south-central and 199 south-western black rhino.
White rhino populations in other national parks are also increasing, with 250 counted by the end of 2017.
In 2017 the black rhino population in the Kruger National Park was between 427 to 586 animals. SANParks’ Black Rhino Guardian initiative has most likely contributed to halting the decline in black rhino numbers in the Kruger National Park.
White rhino numbers in the Park, however, continued to decline, with the population estimated at between 4,759 and 5,532 individuals during 2017. White rhino, unlike black rhino, were affected by the drought – with natural mortalities increasing from 1% to 1.5% during the drought, while the birth rate dropped from approximately 9% to 5% one year after the drought.
Poaching Statistics
There has been a decrease in the number of rhino poached nationally compared to the same period in 2017, with nearly all provinces experiencing dramatic declines.
Between 1 January 2018 and 31 August 2018 508 rhino were poached, compared to 691 for the same period in 2017.
Rhino poaching numbers in the Kruger National Park also continue to decline. In the period under review, a total of 292 rhino were poached, compared to 332 in the same period last year.
This decline comes despite a dramatic escalation in poacher activity inside the Park, ranging from sightings, to poacher camps found, to incursions. A total of 1,873 incidents were recorded in the period under review. This is compared to 1,702 in 2017.
It is also particularly pleasing to note the decline in the numbers of rhino poached in KwaZulu-Natal during the period under review.
In the same period in 2017, 163 rhino were poached, whereas this year the number stands at 83. This is extremely noteworthy and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, working in collaboration with the SAPS, are to be commended.
The provincial and national breakdown for the period 1 January to 30 August 2018 is as follows:
National
2017 (8 mths)
2018 (8 mths)
Kruger National Park
333
292
Gauteng
3
0
Limpopo
54
25
Mpumalanga
31
38
North West
56
50
Eastern Cape
4
13
Free State
28
4
Northern Cape
19
3
KwaZulu-Natal
163
83
Western Cape
0
0
Total
688
508
Regrettably, elephant poaching is also on the increase. A total of 58 elephants were poached in the Kruger National Park between 1 January and 31 August 2018. Specific risk areas have been identified and strategies to address the threat are being adapted and implemented.
Long-term Sustainability Interventions
Export of live rhinoceros
In line with requirements in the Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Department of Environmental Affairs has recommended the export of a total of 538 live rhino from South Africa since 2014. The exports were both for zoological purposes and for reintroduction to range states.
The majority of the exports (361) were to former and existing rhino range states, including Botswana, Chad, Namibia, Rwanda and Zambia. The translocations form part of the plans outlined in the African Rhino Range States Conservation Plan, which seeks to establish new rhino populations within the continent as well as the African Rhino Conservation Plan.
One such translocation was of six black rhino that were translocated to the Zakhouma National Park in Chad in May 2018. It is the first time in 46 years that there are rhino in Chad.
The remaining total of 177 rhino were recommended for export to non-range states in North America, Asia, Middle East and Europe.
It should be noted that the export of live rhino from South Africa to international zoo facilities is restricted to facilities that are either members of the World Associations of Zoos and Aquaria (WAZA), institutional members of an affiliated member of WAZA or an accredited member of a regional zoo association. These institutions must be recognised by the CITES Management Authority of the state of import as a reputable association.
Domestic sale of rhino horn
Since the lifting of the moratorium on the domestic trade in rhino horn by the Constitutional Court in 2017, a total of 28 permits have been issued for the trade of rhinoceros horns.
In terms of the permits issued, 12 permits were granted for the sale of 1,219kg rhino horn, while permits were granted to 16 buyers.
Stockpiles
The Department commenced with full compliance audits on private rhino horn stocks in August 2018. This process will ensure that all audits conducted by the provinces have been correctly done.
The DEA’s Environmental Management Inspectors will ensure that all rhino horns in private possession have been correctly audited by the provinces, including marking with an external number and a microchip and measurements and weights of each horn. It will further be confirmed that DNA samples and photographs were taken of the horns and that the information on the horns is correctly entered into the National Stockpile Database, either through the Department’s Electronic Document Management System or the eRhoDIS App (from the University of Pretoria’s Veterinary Genetics Lab). These audits will also include horns that have been traded legally since the lifting of the moratorium on domestic trade.
The rhino horn stockpiles must comply with the Norms and Standards for the marking of rhinoceros and rhinoceros horn and for the hunting of rhinoceros for trophy hunting purposes.
One of the new additions to the soon to be published amended Norms and Standards is the reporting of any rhinoceros mortality, irrespective of the cause of such mortality, as well as the theft of a rhinoceros horn, which must be reported to the permit issuing authority within five working days of discovering the death of such rhinoceros or the theft of such rhinoceros horn. Rhino owners and managers of farms where rhinoceros are kept have to ensure that they comply with the amended Norms and Standards.
Communities
By creating a legitimate economy for communities, particularly those in the rural areas where most of our national parks are situated, it is hoped that people will be deterred from rhino poaching-related activities. Giving them a stake in natural resource management and ownership will enable poverty-stricken communities to access greater economic opportunities. This is one of the aims of the government’s National Biodiversity Economy Strategy (NBES).
The 3rd Biodiversity Economy Indaba (BEI) hosted by DEA earlier this year ended with pledges by stakeholders in the wildlife, bioprospecting and bio trade, and eco-tourism sectors to ensure greater inclusivity and transformation of the sector.
Among the pledges included a SANParks undertaking to donate 3 000 head of game to emerging wildlife farmers and communities in the next three years, the pledge to donate 1,200 head of game over four years by Ezemvelo KZN wildlife, and the promise to donate 1 500 animals by the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency in support of transformation and mobilisation of rural previously disadvantaged communities over five years.
Other community developments include:
• The identification of 11 community rhino hotspots, and the monitoring of and direct deployment of programmes there.
• Conducting skills audits to assess literacy levels, which will assist the Department with the design of relevant educational interventions in affected communities.
• The deployment of around 1,500 Environmental Monitors.
• Undertaking youth education and awareness programmes in partnership with local businesses
• Identifying offices in four provinces to support the creation of a communication and facilitation mechanism for liaison between the Department and rhino protection structures in the communities
• Partnering with the EWT to develop and drive a restorative justice programme guideline that will assist in creating alternatives to imprisonment, and provide offenders with an opportunity to share their experiences with communities
International and regional cooperation
International cooperation is a critical component of our overall response strategy to the scourge of wildlife crime. In this regard, we have continued to cooperate with a number of strategic partners across the world and activities are being implemented in terms of our existing MoU’s.
Mozambique
Significant progress has been made with the implementation of the MOU between South Africa and Mozambique.
Within the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTFP) the Mozambican government is in the process of moving 225 families from Bingo to Chitare. The relocation will take place in 2019 as the houses are currently being constructed for the relocated families.
Construction of 720 new houses for Mavodze village is also currently underway, and a tender process is also underway for the construction of 130 new houses in Salane.
In August 2018 a group of 70 Mozambican youth from the resettled communities visited the Kruger National Park where they interacted with South African youth from the villages surrounding the Park. The aim was to gain a further understanding of the issues around rhino poaching. They also took part in a soccer tournament.
With regard to enforcement, law enforcement officials from both countries continue to share information in an effort to curb wildlife crimes, particularly rhino poaching.
China
South Africa and China are this year celebrating 20 years of formal diplomatic relations. Over the past 20 years, the two countries achieved a significant number of bilateral cooperation agreements in areas including trade, investment, economic and people-to-people relations.
On the 6 February, SANParks received a donation of R200,000 for the fight against wildlife crime from the Chinese Embassy and the Chinese Community in South Africa. The Chinese government’s comprehensive efforts on wildlife are to be commended.
The Chinese Embassy has also been instrumental in assisting the Alibaba Foundation and Paradise International Foundation set up the first African Ranger Awards that were held earlier this year, and during which two SANParks rangers were acknowledged.
Conclusion
Rhino poaching is a national priority crime, and as such, all the relevant government departments will continue their close collaboration to ensure that this iconic species is conserved for generations to come. A recent example of this integrated effort, although it does not fall within the reporting period covered in this statement, is the arrest this week of at least six key syndicate members in Mpumalanga which is a significant breakthrough in the fight against rhino poaching and rhino horn trafficking.
The Department of Environmental Affairs calls on members of the public to report any suspicious activities around wildlife to its environmental crime hotline which is 0800 205 005 or the SAPS number 10111.
There is a great deal of mystique surrounding the Bushman/San and their tracking prowess. Fuelled by storytellers from Laurens van der Post to latter-day mythologists, the legends live on, rendered now deeply poignant by the plight of the remaining ancients. People on the brink.
The Ju/’hoansi of Nyae Nyae
The Ju/’hoansi of Nyae Nyae in Namibia are the last standard-bearers of southern Africa’s hunter-gathers. For, uniquely and tragically, only they have the full suite, however precarious: their signal click language, access to wild land, the legal right to hunt by traditional means, and a slender, unbroken knowledge bridge to millennia upon millennia of savanna-attuned living. They hold the flinted keys to surviving and thriving in a pre-agricultural, pre-industrial world.
I went to the remote //xa/oba settlement in north-eastern Namibia because there, as Louis Liebenberg told me, I would find three old-way geniuses: /ui-Kxunta, /ui-G/aqo and ≠oma Daqm. Indigenous Master Trackers. The only three formally recognised as such in Namibia, although there are others out there, scarcely known, talents unseen.
In the scrubby grasslands of Bushmanland they showed me how they could stay on the tracks of gemsbok (oryx) for as long as my water bottle lasted in the scorching heat (a couple of hours). They pointed out in the soft sand two sets of blurred parallel tracks of some four-legged creatures – a bat-eared fox and black-backed jackal, they said.
Now anyone who has walked through mopane thickets in Kruger knows how maze-like they can be. One tousled bush looks very much like every other. A good place to get lost. The same can be said of the terminalia scrub of Nyae Nyae. We set off following roan tracks and came across a mamba, the continent’s deadliest snake, disappearing into the bush. Some hours later, as the trackers threaded their way unerringly back through the uniform bushveld to wherever we had left the vehicle, we passed yet another indistinguishable bush. “That’s the mamba bush”, they said. Okay. No questions.
A rare skill, this tracking art. There are probably only a dozen masters of the intact African lineage left alive. And yet the bearers of this long and riveting history, the //xa/oba community, face constant food insecurity and are burdened by wholly treatable diseases, TB foremost. Little by way of employment. Hunting and gathering has its limits in depleted Nyae Nyae. Poverty is their crushing condition.
Across the Kalahari Basin, this is the 21st century signature of being San.
Displaying extraordinary tracking prowess in the Kruger
About a million and a half tourists visit the Kruger National Park each year. About ten thousand of the more serious devotees go on wilderness walks. Walking through the bush brings all the senses into play, the full symphony, along with a sense of trepidation – you are back where it all began, on the African savanna. Predators, prey, and dust.
And so, on 28 June 2018, the three Namibian masters plus another tracker, Dam Debe (last seen in the movie, The Gods must be Crazy, as a child) arrived at Kruger’s northern Pafuri Gate. The first day in the Makuleke Concession was for orientation, and sightings of civets, white-tailed mongoose, bushbuck, and nyala were all unknown animals to them, though not for long – once seen they became firmly imprinted in their minds.
They tracked an eland – totem of many a Bushmen clan. They narrated its movements for us: “Here the bull stopped, half-turned and looked back at us. Then it went on. Here it nibbled at the end bits of the mopane. See the moist twigs. See the crumbs on the ground. Now it has trotted off at speed. We won’t be seeing it again.”
The next day we went far off the beaten track to Makuleke’s bushman painting site. The last San walked this precipitous sandstone terrain perhaps three hundred years ago. Our local lead guide went a little astray, as she wound her way over-circuitously through heavily vegetated gullies and ridges to the gallery.
The trackers, even though they were walking behind us, cautioned us of the buffalo in the thicket ahead before we even heard or saw them. No oxpeckers around to give us their rasping warning chirrups.
That figurine on the cave wall which everyone had seen as an eagle was in fact a person wearing a kaross, they told us. That which we thought was a human was an animal, but the forelegs had been washed away by centuries of seepage.
In jest, I asked one of the trackers to take us back to the vehicle – hills and dales away. Nyae Nyae is boundlessly horizontal – plains and pan country, without rocky outcrops. The occasional baobab spears the distant perimeter. Makuleke’s bushman paintings are tucked away in the hills, just before the land plunges down to the Luvuvhu River. Clarens sandstones, basalt ridges, thick vegetation, mosaic topography – an utterly alien 3D world for a 2D Kalaharian.
“Sure”, he said. It had taken us forty-five minutes to labour away through the crumpled landscape to the paintings. It took our tracker twenty minutes to cut his way directly back to the road, just short of the vehicle.
“Could have come out at the vehicle,” he said. “But quicker to hit the road first.”
The Bushmen of old had a pact with lions: We don’t hunt them, they don’t hunt us. It had worked for /ui-G/aqo years ago in Nyae Nyae when, alone on a hunting trip and sleeping up in an acacia thicket, he was surrounded in the middle of the night by a pride. He told us that the lions of the human spirit told the others to leave him alone, and they did.
I was wondering about the currency of that pact as we tracked lions in Kruger’s Nyalaland wilderness.
The trackers then pick up the tracks of a paired lion and lioness.
“They have switched from ambling to hunting,” they say.
“How so?” I ask.
“Because now they are walking apart and see, their paw prints have become slightly smaller. Their muscles are tensing.”
Then the trackers stopped where the lions had frozen a little earlier, and looked ahead to the right. They walked twenty-five paces in that direction.
“Come here,” they beckon us over. “This is where a buffalo bull meandering along suddenly smelt the lions, stopped and stared at them. Then he bolted away – look at the dig mark in those tracks. The lions bounded after him, but not far. They gave up.”
Over six walking trails, four in Makuleke and two in Nyalaland, and the masters never did lose any of the tracks we chose to follow, even when the quarry turned out to be beyond our endurance to find. This was no problem to us at all, as the fascination was in the twisting journey, not an embodied destination.
We had some knowledgeable people on the trail, including accomplished Kruger guides – and their faces said it all. Each tracking episode ended with guest and guide shaking their head in stunned appreciation, then handshakes all round. It was better than an opera and in the best of opera houses.
Home to some of the most spectacular and treasured life, the oceans and seas surrounding Africa contain a multitude of creatures that thrive in the warm and cold currents that run along our continent. Various bodies of water surround Africa – the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the east and southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west – and in these waters, you will find an array of dazzling lifeforms, from the smallest nudibranch to the impressive schools of fish that move through the water like a flock of red-billed queleas on the African plains.
Join us as we take a glimpse into the underwater world of our African oceans and seas through the eyes of photographers who submitted their photos into our Photographer of the Year 2016, 2017 and 2018 competitions.
“The life-sustaining benefits of rainforest to our planet is more commonly known than those provided by a healthy ocean, but in fact, the ocean contributes even more – and I wanted to capture a photo conveying this message. The school of fish represents the ozone, and the reef below is Earth. Sadly, when it comes to the ocean, the ‘out of sight out of mind’ way of thinking often applies. This has led to major pollution and overfishing. Should we carry along the same path, it’s estimated that there will be no fish left in the ocean by 2050. However, all is not lost as marine reserves around the globe have proven what a remarkable recovery the marine ecosystem can make if given full protection. Sodwana Bay is the oldest marine reserve in South Africa and its healthy reefs and rich; diverse marine life is a prime example of this.” ~ Geo Cloete
“The tiger rock cod is a rare saltwater fish species. Not a lot is known about the species, but they occur in deep water reefs and is vulnerable to overfishing. They are solitary and derive their name from the beautiful colour and spots.” ~ Peet J. van Eeden
“I went diving at the newly discovered Atlantis reef. The visibility was less than five metres, and it was a disappointing dive. I saw this compass jellyfish at the safety stop at five metres after completion of the dive. I was swimming slowly after it, blacking out the background to highlight its vivid colours.” ~ Peet J. van Eeden
“Sail southwest from Cape Point and eventually you will be surrounded by the blue horizon in all directions. It’s here, in the deep, pelagic waters, where blue sharks (Prionace glauca) call it home. It’s a beautiful part of the world – this blue ‘desert’ with its hidden abundance of life. Inshore, people often mistake the pectoral fin of a sunfish floating on the surface to be that of a shark’s dorsal fin. Out here in the deep blue waters, the fin indeed belongs to a blue shark, swimming just below the surface. Blue sharks have the largest distribution range around the globe, and are unfortunately the shark species targeted the most by fishermen for their fins.” ~ Geo Cloete
“In 2016, I published a photo of an unusual and yet to be described behaviour displayed by box jellyfish. The scene was of a huge congregation which consisted of a densely stacked (but spread out) base. From the base, several ‘columns’ stretched up high into the water column. Due to the sheer size of the smack of jellyfish, it was impossible to capture the complete scene in a single frame, even though I was using a fisheye lens. This photo depicts a portion of the base of the smack, illustrating the dense concentration of jellyfish.” ~ Geo Cloete
“The Aldabra atoll has one of the highest shark densities of anywhere in the western Indian Ocean. This particular shark was cruising with the outgoing current towards the lagoon entrance as a storm front darkened the sky on the horizon. Within minutes, the blindingly bright white flats had been obscured by the downpour, and I lost the shark in the rain. Fast as they are, I doubt this shark was quick enough to outrun the storm.” ~ Adam Mitchell
“Giant sea clams typically occur on the east coast of Africa in clear water of less than 10 metres. They are filter feeders by their specialised gills. The visible mantle tissue is responsible for its colourful appearance, and it harbours large populations of single-celled photosynthetic algae or zooxanthellae.” ~ Peet J. van Eeden
In early 2018, I set out to journey across the three largest of the African Great Lakes: Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Victoria. My objective was to traverse the region by “fair means”: solo, self-sufficient, and entirely human-powered. I would start in the south, and make my away across the lakes via kayak, paddling each day and coming to shore each night to sleep, while between lakes I would travel by bicycle. Without engines and guides, I would have no choice but to embrace the landscape and its people without any degree of separation. And, if I succeeded, it would be in a style that I could be proud of.
My journey through the Great Lakes of Africa began as a student in the research lab of the University of Colorado, as we explored inhabitants of Lake Tanganyika. I quickly discovered that the Great Lakes has a massive impact on global biodiversity, as well as the lives of millions of people who call the region home. This formed a seed of inspiration for me to gain a more ‘hands-on’ research experience alongside local nature conservancy the Tuungane Project.
I designed this expedition to be the purest and most challenging form of expedition travel. I planned to enchain the African Great Lakes by human power – kayaking each lake and bicycling in between – without a support team, solo, and carrying all of my equipment along with me. In that way, by exposing myself to the insecurities of being alone and the rigours of human-powered travel, I would strip down the expedition to its purest elements.
I knew that a trip of this scale, with this level of commitment, is something that shouldn’t be entered into lightly. The most important thing that I needed to do to succeed on the trip and remain safe was to prepare sufficiently, but that preparation comes in myriad forms. For me, this expedition was the culmination of years of preparation: studying the region in university, sharpening my wilderness survival skills in the Amazon, educating myself on tropical diseases, spending time in Africa becoming acclimated to the culture and learning about dangerous animals and how to avoid them, mastered the use of my field equipment, and countless days spent on the water. This expedition was something that I had aspired to for a long time, but I only decided to move forward with it once I thought that I was sufficiently prepared.
That said, I also needed to do significant research into the different areas, routes, and potential problems that could present themselves along the way. Even things as banal as border crossing procedures aren’t necessarily so straightforward when you intend to cross the border on water. I spent months online researching topics from crocodile attacks to weather patterns. Where possible, I also reached out to people who could provide information, such as lodge owners and NGO workers, and they were very generous with their time.
A trip like this isn’t for the faint of heart. Risk comes with the territory, but if I was going to succeed in this endeavour, I needed to be an expert in my craft, trust my instincts, and remain hyper-aware throughout the trip. All of these things are significantly magnified by being alone. At a baseline, I was certainly more at risk when alone and had fewer options for recourse if things do go wrong, but perhaps more challenging is the psychological aspect of spending months making decisions that have significant consequences, and then dealing with the endless internal monologue that is second-guessing each decision. There’s no comforting consensus when you are alone, and it takes a certain amount of resolve to be able to, or willing to, push through the excruciating loneliness and isolation.
When I would arrive in a village, I would immediately be greeted by a crowd of curious onlookers. The thing is that wherever you go in the world, people are people. Connecting on a human level, even when there was a language barrier, was relatively effortless.
Every community extended to me great warmth and welcoming, despite virtually all of the communities experiencing the daily struggle to a certain extent. Poverty is a great challenge through the entire region, and yet it didn’t impede the kindness that I experienced in every village.
Camping alone, however, was slightly concerning, and in general, I didn’t like to camp near people without speaking to them. That is to say, I only ‘bush’ camped when there was no one around, and no one knew of my presence. If that opportunity didn’t present itself, then I would go into a community and introduce myself and ask if it was alright for me to spend the night there.
By declaring my presence and asking for permission, I felt as though I belonged, even if only for the one night.
That said, no expedition like this is without significant danger. On the third day, while paddling north along the shoreline of Lake Malawi, I heard a splashing sound from the water. When I turned to look, I saw that a four or 5-metre crocodile had surfaced and was staring at me icily before it disappeared back under the surface. After that, I took even greater precautions to avoid crocodiles – paddling several kilometres offshore, avoiding river mouths and wetlands, and staying away from the water at night, and I was mostly able to neutralise that threat.
Still, I looked over my shoulder every few minutes for the remaining months of the trip, hoping that I wouldn’t find a large predatory reptile behind me.
During my trip, I realised that the main issues are overfishing, unsustainable fishing practices, unsustainable agricultural practices such as bush charcoal production and steep hillside agriculture which lead to significant sediment inputs into the lake, climate change, and introduction of invasive species. The local human impacts, such as fishing pressures and agriculture, are particularly compounded by rapid population growth in the region.
Despite this, communities are very receptive to learning about sustainability. The local people understand that fish populations are decreasing over time, and they are hungry for education that can empower them to protect their resources.
I spoke with many fishermen and farmers who stated exactly this and voiced their understanding that these resources need to be protected so that they will continue to provide for local people well into the future.
At the same time, some of these people are barely getting by, so alternative means of producing income is essential. When people are desperate, they are going to do whatever they have to do to survive, even if it’s a short-term gain that has significant long-term consequences. There also needs to be enforcement of fishing regulations, whether it’s conducted by the government or by a local community group such as the Beach Management Units, so that a few bad actors don’t damage the shared resource.
What the Tuungane Project is trying to do is to educate and foster growth in sustainable means of agricultural production and fish yields, alternative income, and grassroots enforcement of fishing regulations. They’re also working with Pathfinder International, another NGO, to improve family planning education and access to birth control, which will allow women to decide how many children they want to have and may reduce population growth. All of these working in conjunction is the only way forward.
I want to continue to be an ambassador for The Great Lakes region and continue to promote conservation initiatives. I think that the most pressing issue we need to consider is population growth, which leads to an increase in consumption and a correspondingly bigger footprint. More people will need more fish, which produce more plastic and turn more forests into agricultural lands, and so on.
But population growth is only experienced for a while; then it tends to level off, especially when people are empowered with knowledge of family planning and have access to birth control. So, I think that it’s essential that people get out there and help to educate others on sustainable behaviours so that the environment can be preserved.
The African Great Lakes are a series of lakes that make up part of the Great Rift Valley lakes in East Africa. The lakes hold approximately 27% of the world’s fresh water and 10% of the world’s fish species.
The major African Great Lakes include Lake Victoria (26,563 sq mi), Lake Tanganyika (12,355 sq mi), Lake Malawi (11,428 sq mi), Lake Turkana (2,472 sq mi) and Lake Albert (2,046 sq mi). There are other smaller lakes in the region which include Lake Edward (977 sq mi), Lake Kivu (857 sq mi), Lake Mweru (1977 sq mi), and Lake Rukwa (759 sq mi). They are classified based on river basins, the presence of a draining river or its absence, and the size of the lake.
The exact number of lakes considered part of the African Great Lakes varies by list, and may include smaller lakes in the rift valleys, especially if they are part of the same drainage basin as the larger lakes, such as Lake Kyoga that is part of the Great Lakes system but is not itself considered a Great Lake, based on its size of 660 sq mi.
The three Great Lakes that Ross Exler traversed were Lake Tanganyika, the second largest lake in the world by volume, the second deepest lake, and the longest lake in the world; Lake Victoria, the second largest lake in the world by surface area; and Lake Malawi, thought to have the most species of fish of any lake in the world and is the fourth-largest by volume.
The Great Lakes region comprises of Burundi, Rwanda, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and northwestern Kenya and Tanzania – the areas lying between northern Lake Tanganyika, western Lake Victoria, and lakes Kivu, Edward and Albert. The term ‘ Great Lakes region’ is used in a broader sense to extend to all of Kenya and Tanzania, but not usually as far south as Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique nor as far north as Ethiopia, though these four countries border one of the Great Lakes.
An estimated 107 million people live in the Great Lakes region and depend almost exclusively on natural resources for their livelihoods – the lakes being a significant source of food, water and income. Overpopulation is now competing for the habitat used by many endangered species, including the mountain gorilla and the forest elephant. Resources have already deteriorated due to unchecked or unregulated exploitation, invasive species, habitat degradation, pollution, and eutrophication, though governments in the region are attempting to lessen the impact through integrated conservation and development projects
Development and conservation of the lakes and their basins are complicated by the fact that they are shared by more than one country, with actions often being implemented at national levels in the absence of regional institutions to coordinate and harmonise efforts among countries.
Even those lakes with regional authorities, such as Lake Tanganyika Authority or Lake Victoria Basin Commission, struggle to implement lake management programs due to limited access to funding mechanisms and limited to no enforcement powers.
Ross Exler is an ambitious world adventurer, passionate about biodiversity and the sustainability of ecosystems in Africa. So much so, he decided to embark on a journey to become the first person to complete a solo, man-powered crossing of the African Great Lakes. His aim? To understand more about sustainability, conservation and the balance between humans and the environment.
Ross’s choice of man-powered transportation when crossing these natural wonders reflects the necessity for humans to power real environmental change in and around Lake Malawi, Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. To read more about his journey through the Great Lakes of Africa, click here.
ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE
Maasai Mara Specialist Photographic Safari
This is possibly the most exciting photographic safari to Kenya’s Maasai Mara that we have seen in a while. Award-winning photographer Arnfinn Johansen will host four lucky Africa Geographic guests for nine days / eight nights, making use of a specially-adapted vehicle and an off-road driving permit to secure epic wildlife images.
Botswana initiated on Wednesday a month of public hearings to decide whether to lift the 2014 hunting ban, including elephant hunting. The review comes just days after the advocacy group, Elephants Without Borders, said that about 90 elephants were slaughtered in recent months for their tusks in Botswana. The government disputes the group’s claims, saying the report was exaggerated to thwart the review of the hunting ban.
The prohibition on big game sports hunting was the work of ex-president Ian Khama, a keen conservationist, to shield species decimated by hunting and habitat loss.
But lawmakers from the ruling Botswana Democratic party have been lobbying to overturn the ban, especially on elephant hunting. According to them, elephant populations have grown rapidly, with other elephants coming from neighbouring countries to seek refuge from poachers, prompting an increase in human deaths and declining incomes in farming communities.
Khama’s successor, President Mokgweetsi Masisi will meet with researchers and will then address a kgotla (traditional gathering) on the issue. The report from the hearings will be submitted to cabinet next month.
With its unfenced parks and wide-open spaces, landlocked Botswana has the largest elephant population in Africa, at over 135,000. The number of elephants on the continent has fallen by around 111,000 to 415,000 in the past decade, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Parliament is concerned with issues related to the trophy hunting of Kruger National Park animals and specifically with the contractual relationship between the Kruger and neighbouring private reserves whereby Kruger animals are hunted in the Greater Kruger area, outside of the Park. The Greater Kruger area is an open system permitting Kruger animals to roam across private reserves. Some of the private reserves utilise trophy hunting to generate revenue that is ploughed into reserve running costs, which are now higher than ever due to increasing anti-poaching efforts. Parliament’s concern also includes the alleged lack of inclusion of benefits for broader society stemming from this contractual relationship between Kruger and the private reserves.
The Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs today (September 12) had an engagement with the Department of Environmental Affairs, South African National Parks (SANParks) and Mpumalanga Tourism & Parks Agency Board on issues arising from our recently held Colloquium on Captive Lion Breeding, particularly hunting in the Greater Kruger National Park and the implementation of TOPS (Threatened or Protected Species) regulations.
The recent hunting of a male lion which took place in Umbabat Private Nature Reserve in Mpumalanga on the 7th of June 2018, highlighted wider issues of concern, both in terms of law governing hunting in the Kruger National Park and the contractual arrangements between the Kruger National Park and the Association of Private Nature Reserves (APNR).
The committee is extremely concerned that 10 years after the promulgation of the amended TOPS regulations in 2008, Mpumalanga Tourism & Parks Agency is not complying with the regulations, especially those relating to the hunting of listed species in the regulations like lions, based on a flawed technical argument that the regulations are in conflict with the Provincial Act as they have not been taken through the NCOP. The committee has thus directed that the department should ensure that these regulations are processed through the NCOP before the end of the year and that the Mpumalanga Tourism & Parks Agency should ensure compliance with these regulations by January 2019. Baiting as a form of hunting of TOPS-listed species should cease immediately.
The committee would further like to urge the Minister of Environmental Affairs to expedite the process of realising full compliance with these regulations, through the MINMEC process in order to have a uniform standard for the whole country.
The other matter which concerns the committee is the agreement between the Kruger National Park and Association of Private Nature Reserves (APNR) concluded in 1996. We believe that this agreement needs to be revised to ensure that there is sharing of benefits arising from the collapse of the fences in the western boundary of the Kruger National Park in the interest of the broader society. The committee believes that issues of transformation and beneficiation should be taken into account in this agreement. In this regard, the committee has directed SANParks to develop a concept paper on this matter for discussion with the committee in October/November 2018. The committee will hold public hearings to determine the best way forward after its engagement with SANParks.
The committee also wants discussions to take place around the current hunting protocol that allows hunting of animals in the Greater Kruger National Park as a result of an open system arising from the taking down of the fences between the Kruger National Park and Association of Private Nature Reserves. The committee wants this protocol to be interrogated to properly account for this system, for which the Kruger National Park prohibits hunting inside the park, but nonetheless, animals are hunted when they roam over to private nature reserves.
A group of prominent scientists have questioned the reporting by the BBC of the elephant poaching crisis in Botswana. Their conclusions, which differ significantly from those of the BBC, were derived from the same information provided by Dr Mike Chase of Elephants Without Borders.
In addition to the analytical response below, the scientists also emphasized the following two very important matters, which have been falsely reported:
1. The Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks is still armed with high-caliber weapons, but no longer carry automatic assault rifles;
2. The Botswana military, which is also dedicated to anti-poaching and patrols throughout the country, removes tusks from all elephant carcasses. The process to remove the ivory is the same as that used by poachers. It is thus not possible to distinguish between elephants that died from natural causes and those that were poached. To determine if an elephant has been poached, one would need to consult with the Botswana Defence Force.
The response by the scientists, as sent by them to BBC:
Response to recent BBC Report of Elephant Poaching Crisis in Botswana
In a recent BBC report, Mike Chase of Elephants without Borders reports what has been interpreted as massive poaching of elephants in Botswana, findings which arise from some preliminary aerial survey results. This “discovery” has gone viral on social media, creating digital hysteria and global concern and even some condemnation of the Government of Botswana.
In the BBC report, Chase is quoted saying, “When I compare this to figures and data from the Great Elephant Census, which I conducted in 2015, we are recording double the number of fresh poached elephants than anywhere else in Africa.” Such assertions are important in terms of elephant conservation but they also have important consequences that impact international perceptions of Botswana and its citizens. As scientists working in conservation in Botswana, we have received numerous requests for comment on the BBC report.
In order to do so, we rely on the numbers recently reported and Chase’s published paper of the 2015 surveys (Chase et al, 2016, https://peerj.com/articles/2354/ ) for comparison – comparative data referred to by Chase himself. We find it difficult to reconcile the information provided in the published paper with Chase’s recent numbers and assertions that unprecedented poaching is now occurring in Botswana.
Says Chase: “The scale of elephant poaching is by far the largest I’ve seen or read about anywhere in Africa to date.” (BBC News/world-Africa). The following is a quote directly from the publication of the 2015 Great Elephant Census (Chase et al, DOI: 10.7717/peerj.2354), “The highest fresh carcass ratios were found in Angola (10%), Cameroon (10%), the W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) Ecosystem (3%), and Mozambique (3%), suggesting high levels of recent elephant mortality in these countries.”
By comparison, in the same table, Botswana is reported to have a fresh carcass ratio of 0.1%, equalling 130 fresh elephant carcasses identified during the 2015 survey in a population estimated to be at 130,451 at their last count. This can be compared with 340 and 288 fresh elephant carcasses reported for Angola (total pop est. 3395) and Mozambique (total pop est. 9605), respectively, during the same time period (DOI: 10.7717/peerj.2354/table-2).
The current EWB report of 87 fresh carcasses in Botswana in the 2018 survey (to date) cannot be characterised as an extreme loss of elephants compared to other range countries nor to numbers reported for Botswana in past surveys unless, for some reason, the current Survey Intensity is not comparable to previous surveys.
We appreciate the importance of survey work and population monitoring and share the concerns that elephant poaching remains a threat throughout the elephant range, including in Botswana. In conclusion, using Chase’s numbers directly, we find no scientific basis for the dramatic assertions made in the recent BBC report and question why such a report was disseminated to the media prior to completion of the current survey and data analysis.
Opinion post written by:
Kathleen Alexander, DVM PhD, Board President CARACAL, Botswana; Professor, Virginia Tech, USA
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Image caption: Simon with photographer Frank Gabriel
As a former field guide and teacher, Thea has combined her passion for the English language and love of African wildlife, travel and culture in her previous work as Africa Geographic editor. When not in front of the screen she makes time to get out and explore the beautiful Cape Town countryside in search for her favourite reptile species (and other fascinating creatures, of course).
Natalia Gaal
Samuel Cox
