The African leopard (Panthera pardus) is an elegant and powerfully-built predator. It is the most secretive and elusive big cat, and arguably one of the most beautiful members of the entire Panthera genus.
Here are 11 facts about the African leopard that you need to know:
1. Because of its adapted retinas, leopards can see seven times better in the dark than humans.
2. Black leopards are seen infrequently in parts of Africa. The difference in colour is not indicative of a separate sub-species, but rather dominance of the dark-coloured pigment melanin in the skin, and is the opposite of albinism. Talking about the leopard’s physical appearance, there is a considerable variation in the coat colour and rosette patterns depending on the location of the animal. In East Africa, the leopard’s rosettes are more circular but tend to be more square-shaped in southern Africa. The yellow coat is paler in the desert regions.
3. Portrayed as the most seldom seen, leopards are actually the most widely distributed African big cat. They can be found in a variety of habitats ranging from desert country to equatorial forests, high mountains to coasts. Few can also be spotted on the outskirts of large cities like Pretoria, Harare and Nairobi.
4. Leopards are spectacular hunters! Not only are they quite fast and can run up to 58km/h, but are also famous for their incredible agility and strength to climb trees while dragging a kill that is sometimes heavier than their body weight.
5. Leopards survive on a variety of prey. For example, in some regions of southern Africa, 80% of their diet comprises of rock hyrax. In the Kalahari Desert, they are known to favour bat-eared fox. Leopards also eat fish, insects, reptiles, birds, rodents, porcupines, mongoose, baboons, genets and monkeys.
6. How do you tell the difference between a leopard, cheetah and jaguar? Look at the spots! Leopards have rosette spots on the body and solid black spots on the legs, head and sides. There are also no black facial stripes, unlike cheetahs. Compared to jaguars, leopards do not have smaller spots inside the polygonal rosettes.
7. To recognise a male from a female take a look at the difference in size. Males are usually much larger and stockier and have a significantly bigger head and paws compared to females. Male bushveld leopards can weigh up to 90kgs, with female’s around 60kgs. The Cape leopard (not a separate species or sub-species) is much smaller with males around 35kg and females around 20kg.
8. African leopards mate throughout the year, but a higher sexual activity is recorded during the wet season.
9. Female leopards protect their young cubs by hiding them in lairs. Lairs can be found in a variety of places, including outcrops of granite boulders, old aardvark holes made in the side of termite mounds, or dense thickets at the bottom of deep galleys. These hiding places serve as a refuge for when the mother is away, as lions and hyenas pose a significant threat to the cubs. The mother changes the lair every few days to eliminate the chances of discovery by other predators.
10. Leopards make a variety of sounds, including a territorial hoarse, raspy cough, a contented purr, and a threatening hiss.
11. Even though most photographs show leopards in trees, research reveals that they spend most of their time on the ground. Leopards use trees as the perfect escape point from predators; to keep their kills out of the reach of scavengers, and to get the best vantage point.
She goes from lazy and beguiling to a raging beast capable of pounding a man and his ambitions into submission. Indeed, the Zambezi River is quite a lady…
Most people know the Zambezi as that intoxicating cauldron of the elements and humankind at Victoria Falls – where that massive river inhales and forces itself into a few narrow channels, before plunging a hundred hurly-burly metres onto the rocks below. Mosi-oa-Tunya – ‘the smoke that thunders’. That heady, somewhat eclectic, mix of 5-star luxury safari and backpacker basics, of gentle sunset cruises and bruising white-water rafting …
But the Zambezi is more than that – far more than that. It is the lifeblood of southern Africa, providing drinking water, food, irrigation, transport, tourism services and more. Many significant, east-flowing rivers in the region marry into the Zambezi kingdom before completing their quest to reach the Indian Ocean. Yes, the Zambezi gobbles up the likes of the Chobe, Kafue and Luangwa rivers on her way to complete dominance.
I am one of the privileged few who have charted her waters from source to sea, an experience that will forever remain etched in my memory.
The 2,574km-long Zambezi River has a 1,390,000 km2 catchment area, making her the fourth-largest river in Africa, after the Nile, Congo and Niger rivers.
She goes through three phases in her journey from source to mouth, and visits six countries – Zambia, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. First, she is a vast floodplain in remote western Zambia, and then a river as we know it as she squeezes between five countries, and finally a delta at journey’s end in Mozambique – the Indian Ocean. Of course, man has tried to tame her wild ways along the way, and the dams Kariba and Cahora Bassa, both of which generate hydro-electricity for the region, create brief moments for pause in her journey. Kariba Dam holds back the world’s largest man-made lake, at 226km long and up to 40km wide in places; and 86 men lost their lives before construction was completed in 1977.
A travellers’ paradise
Along the way, the Zambezi offers a multitude of experiences for travellers. If you scan the famous names below, you will cover most of southern Africa’s top safari destinations!
If you seek isolation and zero infrastructure, then Barotseland, Liuwa Plain and Sioma Ngwezi in western Zambia are the ticket. Look out for the annual wildebeest migration in Liuwa Plain, but be warned that this entire area is not to be taken on unless you are well prepared, or with an experienced operator.
Much of this area becomes a vast mass of water during the wet summer season, with people, livestock and wild animals fleeing to higher ground. The famous Ku-omboka is a ceremonial enactment of this annual pilgrimage as the Lozi chief leads his people to dry ground. Dry land could, of course, be a small mound surrounded by rising water – as a few trillion ratty ants and I found out one evening during my sojourn from source to mouth…
If you seek more traditional safari experiences then the stretch of the river forming Zambia’s international border with Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique are where you should head. Isolation is still the keyword in much of this section, but of course, areas near Victoria Falls are very accessible. Famous names like the Caprivi Strip, Chobe National Park, Lake Kariba, Mana Pools and Lower Zambezi National Park provide legendary wildlife encounters. And then, of course, there is Victoria Falls.
If you enjoy the relaxed coastal life, then head for the mouth of the Zambezi. The river spreads out into a myriad of mangrove-infested channels before meeting the Indian Ocean in a heaving display. But be warned that the mouth of the river is almost 100 kilometres wide, with tidal swings of four metres, and you will undoubtedly get lost if you head into the mangroves without an experienced local guide. Even GPS co-ordinates are not a guarantee for not getting lost, as my fellow adventurers and I found out…
The Zambezi is a lady for all seasons. Birding is generally better during the hot and wet summer months (October to March), whereas game viewing is best during the cool, dry winter months and cusp seasons (April to October). White-water rafting at Victoria Falls is available all year round but sometimes postponed if the conditions are considered too dangerous.
You could spend your lifetime exploring the Zambezi and surrounds. You can do this in supreme comfort or rustic simplicity, and anything in-between. Whether your interest lies in big game or bird watching, bushwalking, water sports or any of a myriad of activities, and whether your style is hammock or high-adrenaline, the Zambezi is the place to go. Short excursions from the river get you to northern Botswana’s predators, Kafue’s diversity, Liuwa’s migrations and much more. There are remote river lodges where you will not see another soul for weeks, and hotels are brimming with activity. Such is the diversity of the Zambezi.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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.’
After the fire in Knysna, in South Africa, there was so much devastation for everyone to consider. People had to salvage what they could, start rebuilding their homes, and continue to work hard to prevent further flare-ups. And in the midst of the chaos there were some conservation-minded folks who had yet another urgent question on their minds: where were all the chameleons?
The Knysna dwarf chameleon (Bradypodion damaranum) is a species of chameleon that is endemic only to that area. With no defence against the fast-moving fire, it is highly unlikely that any chameleons survived in the areas that were burnt. There is a small pocket of remaining indigenous forest that serves as the last refuge for the chameleons, along with suburban gardens – but this man-made landscape holds many dangers the chameleons aren’t prepared for, from hedge trimmers and garden shears to domestic cats and crows. Life for the urban-dwelling chameleon is a peril-filled affair.
Luckily for them, a small team of dedicated individuals have set out to change the fate of these unique creatures. Knysna resident, Aldo Kleyn, had already set up a successful chameleon-breeding project before the fire, but sadly lost 17 breeding pairs when his house burnt down. Now, in the aftermath of the fire, Aldo is rebuilding his sanctuary. He is also lending his support to Alex, Jezebel and their team from Garden Route Guardians (a community-based environmental organisation), who are working to expand this model of chameleon conservation by creating a network of guardians.
Signing up to be a guardian means committing to having a small sanctuary set up in your garden, that will house a breeding group of chameleons. Each breeding group consists of 1 male and 5-6 females, and the older the female, the more babies she births in every litter. While becoming a chameleon breeder may sound like a novel idea, the program is strictly monitored, with check-ups conducted on a regular basis.
It is also important to note that this breeding scheme does not require any chameleons to be removed from the wild. Instead, in the dark of the night, these wildlife rebels head out to prospective building sites, armed with flashlights, and gather up all the chameleons they can find. When day breaks construction will begin, which means certain death for any chameleons or other small creatures left behind. The reason these hunts are carried out at night is that chameleons are much easier to spot with a flashlight. All the chameleons rescued are taken back, and either paired up and placed in a breeding sanctuary or released into a chameleon-friendly garden.
Despite being nicknamed ‘slow foot’, these little creatures make use of around seven gardens as their home territory. For this reason, the team is encouraging residents to set up chameleon corridors, whereby an entire row of houses commits to keeping their gardens chameleon friendly. These wildlife corridors prove especially vital on the urban edge, allowing chameleons to move safely from the gardens to the indigenous forest and back again. Another advantage to having your neighbours on board is that it ensures that when ‘your’ chameleons climb over the fence, there isn’t a pet cat or a lawnmower waiting for them.
If enough guardians volunteer their backyards, the breeding project has the potential to make a real impact for the chameleon population. As it stands the Knysna dwarf chameleon is listed as least concern, on the IUCN Red List, but there has not yet been a re-count after the fire. With very little scientific population data available, the breeding program may seem like a cautionary measure. But it is very possible that it ends up being the reason this species is able to bounce back. The vision is that roughly a thousand young chameleons from the breeding program will be released back into the nature reserve every year. The babies are kept in the sanctuaries and only released back into the wild when they are bigger and have a better chance of survival. It is unlikely all thousand will survive, but even just 100 survivors would mean a boost for the population.
A few weeks ago three new chameleon babies were born. No bigger than a R5 coin at birth, it will take a while before they are big enough to be released. The Knysna Dwarf Chameleon Project is currently awaiting permits from Cape Nature before the first release can take place.
For me, there are two factors that set this project apart from a lot of other species preservation projects. Firstly, it allows individuals to be actively involved in a breeding program, and secondly, it makes use of a local solution for a local problem. This is just the beginning for the Knysna Dwarf Chameleon Project, but I believe it marks an exciting turning point for the little slow-foots.
GET INVOLVED
If you want to become a chameleon guardian, create a chameleon-friendly garden, or volunteer to help with the rescues, get in touch with Alex.
Naked mole-rats are weirdly spectacular – they are bare-skinned, wrinkly and buck-toothed, and they live in large underground colonies in East Africa where only the queen breeds, with a few selected males. They produce a unique protein form called hyaluronan, which has anti-cancer properties, and they don’t go through menopause and can breed at any age. They can also live without oxygen for up to 18 minutes. What’s more, they live for more than 30 years – about five times longer than other mammals of similar (mouse) size.
But there is more…
Did you know that the risk of dying in humans doubles every eight years after the age of 30? This mathematical equation that describes ageing is known as the Gompertz’s mortality law, and applies to most species.
But naked mole-rats ignore this norm – their risk of dying remains constant as they advance in age! They share this trait with a few other animals and plants, like some species of jellyfish, tortoises and trees. They do eventually die, of course, but the reasons for death are still being researched – and seem to relate to predation, infection, starving or lack of water.
According to a recent study, these fascinating creatures have a flat mortality curve.
Says Buffelstein: “Research has shown that the chance of dying for mammals such as humans, horses and mice, among others, increases exponentially with age, according to the Gompertz law. Our research demonstrates that naked mole-rats do not age in the same manner as other mammals, and in fact show little to no signs of ageing, and their risk of death does not increase with age. These findings reinforce our belief that naked mole-rats are exceptional animals to study to further our understanding of the biological mechanisms of longevity.”
The researchers based their findings on 3,329 naked mole-rats living in colonies in their research facility over more than 30 years. They found that on any given day, an average mole-rat’s chances of dying were 1 in 10,000. “Most naked mole-rats never breed, but the small proportion of mole-rats that do breed fared even better”, said study co-author J. Graham Ruby.
In May 2017 a pride of three lions (one male and two females) arrived at their new home – Somkhanda Community Game Reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, from Phinda Private Game Reserve. This translocation was carried out as part of Phinda’s lion management strategy, supported by Empowers Africa and inspired by the powerful feature documentary – Blood Lions®.
The lions were released from the boma into the greater reserve in August 2017 and have roamed freely over approximately 12,000 acres ever since.
“Soon after their release the male was seen mating with one of the females and we suspected she was pregnant,” said Wildlands’ Strategic Manager of Conservation, Dave Gilroy. “The teams then saw some signs that indicated the female had given birth and we have been anxiously waiting for her to bring the cubs out into the open. Our monitoring team finally had their first glimpse of the female with her cubs (and had a camera in hand) and we can confirm that there are four healthy and happy cubs in the litter. These cubs are the first wild lions born on Somkhanda in the past 50 plus years since lions were persecuted and exterminated from the area.”
“This introduction was supported and guided by the Emwokweni Community Trust and Gumbi Community’s vision to create a premier Big 5 game reserve on their land,” said Wildlands CEO and Executive Producer of the groundbreaking film, Blood Lions®, Dr Andrew Venter. “It has been a privilege to work with the Gumbi community to enable the successful re-introduction of lion onto their ancestral lands. Their vision and courage has been inspirational and sets a real example of how a deep rural community can use its land assets sustainably to stimulate local economic development. The Somkhanda lion cubs demonstrate that it is possible to expand lion range in South Africa, through real grass root conservation efforts, rather than the immoral and unethical approach adopted by South Africa’s lion breeders, who argue that they breed for conservation, yet the reality is that they simply breed for profit.”
“As one of the founders of Somkhanda I am very excited about the news of the cubs,” said Nathi Gumbi, a member of the Gumbi tribe and Wildlands’ Strategic Manager for Community Engagement. “The female will now play her role as a mother and the male will guard his cubs and their territory, keeping his family safe. This is a good example of how animals are actually similar to us as human beings. We share our lives with nature. Our ancestors and my community have welcomed the lions and we are very proud.”
“Blood Lions fully supports the conservation of lions in the wild,” commented Pippa Hankinson, Producer of Blood Lions®. “When one sees a great example of lion conservation in a natural area, such as the Somkhanda lion translocation project, it once again raises the question as to why South African decision-makers continue to support the captive breeding and canned hunting of lions? As lion ecologists repeatedly state, captive-bred lions have no conservation value and attempts to reintroduce these animals into natural areas is not a viable conservation option. When visiting South Africa, one cannot surpass the incredible experience of seeing lions roaming free in the wild, as opposed to seeing them in small enclosures with no possibility of ever leading the wild lives they were born to live. There is a rapidly growing global movement away from all forms of wildlife interactive tourism, and this can be measured by the support of the Blood Lions ‘Born to Live Wild’ tourism campaign and pledge.”
“We cannot thank our loyal donors and partners enough for their support in making this translocation possible,” said Venter. “We must extend huge thanks to Empowers Africa, the Emvokweni Community Trust, Blood Lions®, Different.org, WildlifeACT, Jonsson Workwear and Phinda Private Game Reserve.”
You also have a chance to contribute, no matter how big or small, to enable a safe and secure home for this pride of lions. If you would like to donate or potentially Adopt-the-Pride contact us via info@wildtrust.co.za or visit our support page.
Every year, the Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year competition showcases a plethora of phenomenal photos from around Africa by professional and amateur photographers, alike. The lucky winners are awarded incredible prizes that reflect their talent.
Wildlife photographer Willem Kruger won first place in the ‘travel’ category in 2017 and enjoyed a memorable trip to Klaserie Private Nature Reserve in the Greater Kruger as his prize. The following is an account of his magnificent experience, in his own words.
As one of the winners in the annual Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year for 2017, I received as my prize a two-night stay in Klaserie. My wife and I decided to use the prize during our first available free time, which was at the end of September 2017.
Not long into our first game drive, we were alerted over the radio about a group of wild dogs about 20 minutes away. We reached the sighting just in time to find the puppies starting to play. Unfortunately, it was a cloudy afternoon, and the sun was already setting, but nevertheless, we got some interesting photos of the young wild dog cubs playing while waiting for the adults to return from their hunt.
We spent the rest of the late afternoon with them until the adults arrived. The puppies were very playful but ever so watchful for any signs of danger.
Unfortunately, the adults were not successful during their afternoon hunt, so the puppies left with the adults to continue hunting. We tried to follow them, but it was already dark, and they disappeared into the thick vegetation. We decided then that it was the perfect time to enjoy the evening under the rising stars with sundowners, and soon after that found ourselves driving slowly back to camp, listening to the sounds of the nightlife of the veld. Arriving back at camp, we had an excellent dinner thanks to Steven, the chef.
Before we knew it the morning had arrived, and we were back on the game drive vehicle before sunrise, keen for some interesting sightings.
Once again, the game drive delivered great excitement as a male leopard had been sighted about 30 minutes away from our current position. The message was that it was “mobile”, so we had to rush to the sighting or else lose it to the thick vegetation. When we arrived, we were thankful that he hadn’t moved off, and were pleasantly surprised to see he was in the process of stalking a steenbok – a first for us!
We stayed with the leopard and waited patiently, but not to get too close – in order not to interfere with the hunt.
We had the privilege of staying with this leopard without the pressure of making way for other parties of tourists, thanks to no other game drive vehicles being in the vicinity.
It took the leopard about 30 minutes to get close to the steenbok – about 15 metres – but not close enough. The leopard suddenly made a go for the steenbok (perhaps more out of frustration) but unfortunately was unsuccessful in capturing it. The disappointed leopard stood in the same spot where the steenbok was a few seconds earlier – you could almost see the frustration in his body language.
Afterwards, we made our way back to camp, while enjoying the birdlife along the way, and were treated to a hearty breakfast on the deck overlooking the waterhole in front of the camp.
After some downtime at the camp (spent relaxing while downloading photos), we headed out for our final afternoon drive, which started with a fantastic sighting of a herd of elephants.
Afterwards, we were lucky enough to come across the same wild dog pack we saw the previous evening next to a dam. It was interesting to see how cautious they were and did not head straight to the water to drink – they probably had previous encounters with crocodiles.
This time the pups were not so playful as the previous evening. The adults, however, were trying to encourage each other to start with the evening hunt. Shortly afterwards they took off as a group to hunt before darkness caught up with them.
Nikon D4 camera with Nikkor 600mm lens, 1/500 sec, F4, Exposure = -0.67, ISO 2000, 32 metres from the wild dogs
By this time it was overcast and already very late in the afternoon, so I tried to play around with a slow shutter speed to create a more interesting photo (one of the most challenging shots to capture in photography – a lot of luck involved and you cannot ask the dogs to run again and again until you get it right). Sometimes you only have one of two opportunities to capture the moment of wild dogs running by.
Nikon D4 camera with Nikkor 600mm lens, 1/2500 sec, F4, Exposure = -0.67, ISO 6400, 40 metres from the wild dogs
We tried to follow them as they were hunting, but it was just too challenging to keep up in some of the more bushy areas, and soon after gave up and continued with the drive back to camp. The evening was concluded with a special guest lecture for staff and friends regarding a rhino protection project – shipping rhinos to Australia for conservation purposes. Again we were treated to an excellent dinner.
The last morning was cold, windy and rainy. Not much to see except for a leopard kill up in a tree and a red-crested korhaan saying farewell to us from a termite mound.
Nikon D4 camera with Nikkor 600mm lens, 1/2000 sec, F4, Exposure = 0, ISO 400, 15 metres from the spurfowl
My message to take home…
This was our first trip to this area of the Greater Kruger. For wildlife photographers, it is essential to get away from your home, your familiar environment and even your comfort zone (including the photographic areas you are familiar with). Exploring new territories as we did during this trip is a great way to find inspiration and try to get some alternative images. The Greater Kruger is not always seen as the ideal photography destination, but then that is the purpose of visiting other destinations – a world away from your comfort zone. Remember, when visiting a new photography destination, think outside the box, break out of your rut and use alternative methods to capture those unique, innovative images.
Until next time, keep on shooting!
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Nikon D4 camera with Nikkor 600mm lens, 1/8000 sec, F4, Exposure = -0.67, ISO 800, 32 metres from the leopard
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Capturing the moment in time to be appreciated in the future is the vision for my photography. I am Willem Kruger from Bloemfontein, South Africa. I am a public health specialist.
My interest in photography was motivated mainly by my wife because of her love for nature and wildlife. Because of my passion for nature and originally coming from the rural area of the Free State, it is just logical that the focus of my photography leans heavily towards wildlife photography.
To learn more about me and my travels, you can visit my blog.
North of Chimala, in the Usangu wetlands, at the border to Ruaha National Park in Tanzania, is the land of the Sukuma people. The dwellings of different families are spaced far apart, often fenced in with thorny acacia twigs. As pastoralists their whole pride are their herds of cattle and goats – and their wives, as wealthier men can afford more.
Recently we had been invited to the marriage of a Sukuma friend who got married to his third wife. It turned out that my role was mainly to act as the wedding photographer.
The ceremony lasted for two days, and we had been invited for the afternoon of the second day. When we approached in our Land Rover, we were confused as the farm of our friend seemed deserted. It turned out that everybody was hiding inside the huts or in the stripes of shadows along the walls of the huts to escape the burning sun and hide from the wind and the dust.
Now in August, after many months of dry season without a single drop of rain, the land has turned into a desert of fine, penetrating dust. Unfortunately, most of the acacia trees had been cut for firewood.
After a friendly welcome by the family, we were shown into a little hut for shelter to wait for the start of the festivities. The bride and bridegroom were still getting dressed.
I had a little bit of time to study our surroundings. The hut was a simple square construction made of bricks, but the roof of our hut was made from reeds expertly weaved together with strips of animal skin. Outside in the scorching sun in the central area of the farm, food was simmering in large, covered aluminium pots on fire places arranged with bricks.
I got out my camera to take a few shots and that attracted the attention of some young men who wanted to pose for their picture. It turned out that everybody wanted a picture!
The steady beating of a drum announced the start of the festivities. The guests had gathered in a half circle opposite the main hut from which the bride and bridegroom and close family members were emerging. The bridal couple was adorned with several strings of colourful plastic beads around their necks, wrists and ankles.
The colourful dresses of the men and women were in stark contrast to the monotonous surroundings of grey dust. The rhythm of the following series of games and challenges that the couple had to master was set by the beat of the drum and the hypnotic song of the wedding guests.
They were dancing and running and singing, their stomping feet raising dust that was taken up by gusts of wind and whirled away. The bride pair and family were then seated around a table and speeches and more song in their Sukuma language followed, which included receiving money presents in two pots – one for the bride and one for the bridegroom. The whole procedure was accompanied by lots of laughter!
After the first part of the ceremony the food was served. We were brought back to our hut where a table had been set with plates of rice and bowls of meat. Water was brought to wash our hands and everybody was eating with their hands while at the same time chasing away the hordes of flies that seemed equally hungry as us.
After the meal, the drummer gathered the family and guests back into a circle. This time everybody had brought a stick and accompanied by the beating of the drum and song, they ran to the middle of the circle and brandished their sticks as if fighting. The air was thick with dust! I had not been prepared for this and hurriedly fled from the scene to avoid getting in the way.
The last game involved less dust as the couple had to balance a bowl of pumpkins on their head, while everybody else was trying to steal a pumpkin from the bowl.
Finally my great moment as official wedding photographer arrived and everybody gathered for pictures. Exhausted and covered with dust, but exhilarated and happy, we left the wedding in the already setting sun.
We’re halfway through our Photographer of the Year 2018 and entries are filling up our inbox at an incredible pace. Last week, we featured a photo of a lion cub looking at the camera from inside a buffalo carcass, taken by Bobby-Jo Vial. This was quite the shot and we were interested to find out more about the scene. So here Bobby-Jo shares with us this amazing wildlife encounter that she managed to capture on camera.
On the 7th February 2018, I photographed the Avoca lion pride eating a fresh buffalo kill. I have been photographing this pride of Timbavati lions in the Greater Kruger for over four years now but this time was different…
The pride have been struggling lately and two lionesses and their cubs were looking extremely thin and weak. We were very concerned about their well-being but as always, nature surprises us.
The next morning we found them with the buffalo carcass. It was an incredible relief to see the mothers and their cubs gorging themselves on the buffalo. The cubs were very aggressive and growling at the adults. I noticed that one cub, in particular, was very possessive of the buffalo and he started to climb inside the carcass from the stomach area.
I then noticed that the adult lions had eaten the backside of the buffalo first and I knew that this could be a unique photo opportunity.
We positioned our vehicle so that I could capture the cub’s face through the carcass. At first all I could see was a pair of little yellow eyes staring back at me and I pressed the shutter. This photo is a celebration of nature in all her gory. The little cubs will get through another day in the Lowveld.
The African elephant (Loxodonta africana) is the largest land mammal in the world and one of nature’s great ecosystem engineers, being a major contributor to maintaining the balance between wooded and grass ecosystems. Their beneficial impact on biodiversity in large unfenced ecosystems and their potentially negative impact on same in fenced environments, make them a key species in Africa.
Here are 17 facts about African elephants that you need to know:
1. 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 breath, drink, eat, smell, snorkel, wrestle, communicate, touch, feel, hold, grab and pull. We can’t think of any other appendage that is so versatile.
2. Elephants cannot jump, gallop or canter. They can only walk at various speeds – from a slow walk to a moderate ‘amble’ and fast shuffling ‘run’ where their stride remains the same but the leg speed increases. Their top speed is about 24 km/hr. For more information, read our article Can elephants run, or do they just walk faster?
3. Elephants are either left or right ‘handed’. They are born not knowing how to use their trunks and learn as they grow. Like humans, they show a preference between grasping objects to the left or right. You can tell which side elephants prefer – tusks are shorter on the preferred side (because they get worn down more on that side).
4. 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.
5. Many tree species rely on elephants to spread their seeds. But that is not all. Many seeds are more likely to germinate having passed through an elephant’s gut. Elephants transport these seeds for many kilometres as they process their food, before depositing them in their dung balls – a vital fertiliser and moisture package for those seeds, and a kick-starter to life.
6. 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.
7. Elephants are the heaviest land mammals, at 4 to 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.
8. Elephant herds are led by older cows (matriarchs), with young bulls forming their own smaller herds after leaving the breeding herd. Old bulls often roam on their own, or with a few companions (often referred to as askaris), meeting up with breeding herds as cows come into season.
9. 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.
10. Bull elephants periodically go intomusth, when testosterone levels are up to 60 times higher than normal. Symptoms include unpredictable and aggressive behaviour, urine dripping from the penis, discharge from the temporal glands behind the eyes and a strong odour.
11. Elephants grieve their dead and carry out ritual greetings at old carcasses – covering bodies of deceased elephants in plants and frequently visiting old carcasses to linger, gently touch and pick up bones. They also exhibit signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
12. Bull elephants have internal testes, much like the rock hyrax – a rodent-like mammal and close relative to the elephant.
13. Elephants candetect 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.
14. Elephants starve to death once their teeth wear out. They produce six sets of teeth in their lives, with each set pushing forward from the back of the jaw to replace worn teeth at the front. After six such sets, elephants run out of teeth, cannot chew food, lose condition and either fall prey to disease or predators or starve to death. Contrasts this with humans, where one set of adult teeth is produced from the top and bottom of the jaw, to replace the original set of baby teeth.
15. An adult elephant requires up to 300kg of food and 160 litres of water per day.
16. African elephants are listed as CITES I (threatened with extinction) in all African countries except for Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, where they are listed as CITES II (not necessarily threatened with extinction, but in which trade must be controlled to avoid utilisation incompatible with their survival).
17. On average, 96 elephants are poached every day for their ivory – out of an estimated total population of 350,000 savanna elephants. The population of savanna elephants declined by 8% per annum during the years 2007 to 2014. It is estimated that there are only 25 to 30 ‘tuskers’ left (bulls with tusk weight of more than 45 kg on each side), with poachers and trophy hunters threatening the remaining individual elephants. Read more about tuskers in our online magazine featureAfrica’s big tuskers.
It was in the early 2000s when my father started seriously talking about gorilla trekking as one of his bucket-list adventures. But it would take another 16 years of reading, research, and reluctance before it would finally become a reality. Finally, on the 1st of July 2017, my father, along with my two brothers, sister-in-law and I set off from Cape Town to Uganda for an incredible 16-day cross-Uganda trip, arranged by Africa Geographic.
After touching down at Entebbe International Airport and clearing customs, we were met by Bosco, our driver and tour leader, and Gerald, our birding guide.
In total, our party was comprised of seven relatively fit and avid lovers of the bush, eager for a Uganda adventure of a lifetime, and the opportunity to spot some of the rarest wildlife on the planet.
Uganda is landlocked with more than 15% of the country covered by lakes. This leaves relatively little space for its 40 million people. As much as 90% of the agriculture is subsistence farming, and driving through the country, you’ll see everyone from children to adults working the land, growing bananas, coffee, tobacco, tea, groundnuts, cassava, more bananas and other staple starches. You get the distinct sense that they’re not doing it to make a living – they’re doing it to survive.
Every town in Uganda has a bustling pavement economy which means you’re never far from a local market, street-side butchery, pork joint, liquor shops or bodabodas. Bodabodas is the nickname for the millions of cheap Indian motorcycles used by East Africans to cross borders, transport produce, and commute.
Everywhere you go in Uganda you’ll see them, but it’s predominantly men who drive them as in some parts of the country women are discouraged from driving them or, as our guide put it, not allowed to.
And amidst this organised chaos, people are warm, friendly and seem content. You’re made to feel welcome and safe to wander around freely.
From day one we set off to see as many as possible of the 1,100 bird species that Uganda has to offer, and eventually, we succeeded in ticking off just over 400. But for the first and foremost on our list, we went wading through the waters of the Mabamba Swamp – roughly two hours west of Entebbe – one of the world’s last remaining habitats for shoebills.
The swamps are navigated with old wooden boats fitted with outboard motors and oars (for when the boat inevitably gets stuck in some of the shallow, overgrown canals). Each boat has a captain and spotter who are in contact with the other boats via cell phones, trying to locate the elusive species.
It took a little over two hours, but finally, we got word that there was a shoebill spotted about a 30 minutes’ ride away. The odds were slim, but we took the chance, and it paid off.
Whatever preconceptions you may have of seeing a shoebill up close and in the wild, forget them. If you’re fortunate enough to find one (many people travel from across the globe without any luck) you’re hit by an overwhelming sense that this is a distinctly prehistoric creature. An animal that has laid claim to the slowly disappearing environment it lives and breeds in far before we humans imposed. It’s this dichotomy of awe and compassion that makes the moment you see a shoebill one that will be with you forever.
After ticking off the shoebills, we headed north to the Masindi District. It’s a long drive from Entebbe, and even on a Sunday, the Kampala traffic can be a bumper-to-bumper nightmare. But once you break through the city and hit the road, you get to take in the ever-changing landscape and spend time with your guides, learning more about the people of Uganda.
The Masindi district is home to two of Uganda’s biggest attractions, Murchison Falls and the Murchison Falls National Park. Undoubtedly this is the main reason most visit the district, but it’s also a wonderful place to see how the locals earn a living.
The area in and around the Murchison Falls National Park has plenty of accommodation, and staying on the banks of the River Nile is the way to go. A word of warning though – hippos often roam through the camps when they come out to feed at night.
Other wildlife to spot in the park includes patas monkeys, Ugandan kob, hartebeest, buffalo, elephant, the very rare Rothschild’s giraffe, and lion. You can also drive along the banks of the Nile, which offers more birding opportunities.
Murchison Falls is not to be missed. It’s the world’s most powerful waterfall where the White Nile is funnelled through a 7-metre wide gorge, at a rate of 300 000 litres per second, and plummets 45 metres. It’s worth visiting the falls from the top (by road) and booking a cruise to approach it from below as well to get a sense of its awesome power.
The Murchison Falls National Park is reached by crossing the Nile with a ferry and best done early in the morning to avoid queuing.
Kibale National Park is one of the best places to visit for chimpanzee trekking, and with approximately 1,450 chimps in the forest, about 120 are habituated. As ready as we were, we soon discovered that coming face to face with a chimpanzee or mountain gorilla isn’t something you can ever really be prepared for.
It’s a lot like unexpectedly running into an old friend you haven’t seen in years, or being startled by your reflection. For a moment, you freeze as you try and make sense of it all. Simply put, it’s impossible not to be moved.
We spent a full day with two different chimp groups. We saw elders with grey beards, dominant alpha males, and females with newborn babies. But we saw more than just wild animals. We saw intelligent beings that use language, tools, and make a ‘home’ to sleep in come dusk. We saw a society. We saw a family.
Photographing them made it even more evident. There’s everything you’d find in a human face: emotion, thought, intelligence, and something mysterious. It was more like taking photos of people than of wildlife.
Whether you set off on your gorilla trekking from Ruhija or Buhoma, there’s no way of knowing how strenuous your hike will be.
It’s down to luck. You could either be drenched in a torrential downpour and hike for several hours up and down muddy slopes. Or, as in our case, you could stay dry and have a short hike the one day, and a long hike the next. One thing’s for sure, the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park truly lives up to its name.
It’s one thing expecting to see a gorilla at eye level, but seeing a 220kg silverback perched 20 metres up a tree, breaking branches the width of your arm as if they’re twigs; or a month-old gorilla play aimlessly, but under the watchful eye of its mother – there are no words. There’s just pure awe.
When it comes to photographing mountain gorillas, one of the hardest things was deciding which individual to follow and focus on. You simply don’t have enough time to capture all of them. In the end, whenever they were too far or too close, or moving too quickly for a decent shot, the best thing to do was just to enjoy the moment. To simply be with them and connect.
Lake Mburo National Park seems to be suffering from low game numbers due to poaching and as a result of the encroachment of farmers on wildlife habitat. When we visited, our guides told us only one lone male lion remains in the area.
The park itself is home to leopard, zebra, giraffe, buffalo, and many other antelope species. For birding, visiting Lake Mburo itself is a definite must. Cruises during the early morning and late afternoon magic hours get booked up quickly, so plan in advance.
Some of the highlights include the elusive African finfoot, and ample opportunity to get up close with most of the common African waterbirds and wildlife such as fish eagles, pied and malachite kingfishers, monitor lizards, hippos, crocodiles, and more.
Uganda blew us away and we hope to return one day!
For Ugandan 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.
Born in Johannesburg, raised in Robertson, now living in Cape Town, Gerhard Pretorius writes, films, and photographs many different types of topics. He especially loves to travel and capture moments that will last a lifetime.
“We are deeply saddened to report a mass poisoning incident in the Wildlife Management Area (WMA) just outside Ruaha National Park, Tanzania. We received a ‘mortality alert’ from one of our collared lions, and the team responded rapidly. When they arrived at the site, they found a devastating scene – six lions (the collared adult female, three sub-adult females and two sub-adult males) had been killed, apparently from poison as they were all found close to a scavenged cattle carcass.
This event had additional tragic consequences, with dozens of critically endangered vultures found dead or badly affected. RCP worked closely with colleagues from WCS Ruaha-Katavi, Tanzania, the Parks authorities and other local agencies, and they eventually found 74 dead vultures as well as the six lions. Thanks to the skills of the WCS team, four other sick vultures were able to be taken to the Park for treatment. Sadly, one died shortly after arrival but the others are currently doing well.
The authorities are investigating this incident, but it appears as if someone poisoned a carcass after lions attacked cattle. Alarmingly, poisoning is a common response to conflict, and this highlights how vital it is to do all we can to prevent carnivore attacks on stock, and reduce chances of retaliatory killings. Cattle are extremely important to local people, and carnivores can cause major economic and cultural hardship when they attack stock – and, when people don’t benefit from lions, it is unsurprising that they resort to killing them. Thanks to support from many partners, we have made great progress in reducing such attacks, for example by predator-proofing enclosures and engaging communities, but there is much more to be done across the landscape, and protecting grazing livestock is particularly challenging. It is also vital to secure the Wildlife Management Areas and – probably most important of all – make sure that local people receive real benefits from wildlife, so they eventually see them as more of an asset alive than dead.
This kind of event is truly devastating, but it does highlight the value of our collaring programme – without alerts from the collars, we are very unlikely to find out about such incidents, especially when they occur in remote areas. It also highlights the importance of close collaboration on the ground with partners such as Wildlife Conservation Society, Ruaha National Park, Tanzania National Parks and others, as the rapid and coordinated response meant that at least some animals could be found alive and treated.
Although this incident occurred in the WMA and not on the village land where we do most of our work, it is an extremely distressing reminder of the impact that conflict can have on wildlife. It reinforces how crucial it is to continue and expand our conflict mitigation work across the landscape. Although it is hard to measure, we are certain that by protecting livestock, providing local benefits and engaging communities, we have prevented many similar incidents occurring on village land over the past few years. The challenge now is to redouble those efforts, including collaring more lions, to learn the true scale of conflict-related mortality around Ruaha, and work as hard as possible to reduce it. This has affected the whole team, who work tirelessly day and night to prevent carnivore killings, but we thank everyone who supports us, as together we know we can reduce these terrible impacts in the future.”
A fascinating study has revealed that although elephants can move at a considerable pace, there is a question as to whether they can run.
The study was published in Nature and reported on in the Stanford News Service way back in 2003 by Dawn Levy. An oldie but a goodie!
The study suggests that, even at fast speeds (up to 15 mph/24 km/h), it might seem to the casual observer that elephants don’t run. Their footfall pattern remains the same as that in walking, and never do all four feet leave the ground at the same time – a hallmark of running. But an elephant’s centre of mass appears to bounce at high speeds, which meets the biomechanical definition of running.
“We do find evidence that elephants run in a sense,” said first author John Hutchinson, a Stanford postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “It’s an intermediate sort of gait, but it looks like what we biomechanically would call running. They don’t leave the ground, which is the classical definition, but they do seem to bounce, which is the biomechanical definition.”
For their experiments, Hutchinson and co-researcher Dan Famini palpated the limbs of captive Asian elephants to find their joints and then marked the joints with large dots of water-soluble, non-toxic paint. They videotaped 188 trials of 42 Asian elephants walking and running through a 100-foot course and measured their speed with photosensors and video analysis.
So, what turns a walk into a run?
It isn’t just speed, although that plays a part.
Kinematically, one thing that distinguishes walking from running is the footfall pattern. Typical quadrupeds use a walk at slow speeds, a trot at medium speeds and a gallop at fast speeds – and each gait has a different footfall sequence/pattern. But elephants are weird because no matter how fast they go, their footfall pattern doesn’t change. They use a walking footfall pattern even at top speed. That pattern has the left hind foot moving first, followed by a brief pause, after which the left front foot moves. Then there’s a long pause, after which the same thing happens on the right side.
An all-aerial phase, where no feet are touching the ground, also kinematically differentiates running from walking. But elephants never have all their feet off the ground. Other species also do not leave the ground when running, including many ground birds.
A deeper biomechanical mechanism may explain running better than the aerial phase frequently observed. Animals shift from a walk to a run because at faster speeds, walking becomes less energetically efficient, or more mechanically stressful, than running. But again, elephants seem to avoid that shift in gears.
Hutchinson said “walking is a stiff, pendulum-like gait; the limb stays pretty straight and swings back and forth. Running is a bouncing gait in which the limb actually compresses and bounces back with a spring.”
The researchers’ kinematic measurements suggest that fast-moving elephants may switch from a pendulum-like gait to a bouncing gait – a bit like a pogo stick, but without leaving the ground. If they do, they fit the biomechanical definition for running. But to measure this, the elephants would need to move across a device that measures their impact on the ground. And that needs to be a very sturdy device.
So, do elephants actually run? We think so, but the jury is still out…
Rumour has it that Mount Nyiragongo, home to the largest lava lake in the world, is said to attract only a small number of ballsy travellers who are looking for an extraordinary, out of this world adventure. It’s not an all-inclusive, everyday charter destination, so I suppose it does help to be a little nuts to attempt a hike to the summit.
Which is precisely why I was there, in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, getting ready to set out to explore the fascinating natural wonder of the world. I was embarking on a (relatively) safe and almost spiritual adventure to what some refer to as the ‘gates of hell’, and was sure I would be creating memories that would stay with me for a lifetime.
The experience of a lifetime was about to begin, but the welcome sign didn’t feel all that inviting. I checked my backpack for the 87th time and took a moment to reflect: I was about to climb one of the world’s most beautiful and active volcanoes. Chills went down my spine. Had I completely lost my mind?
Once I had met up with the group I was hiking with I started to relax. Everyone seemed pretty cool. I had a chat with a few Russians not looking the least concerned – like we were about to go for a Sunday stroll in the park – and I soon realised that thankfully I wasn’t the oldest guy in this kamikaze crew. But then I had a closer look at their gear: very expensive-looking wind jackets, barometer watches and all sorts of high-tech survival gear. I looked down at my old crumbling boots. Was I ready for this?
I looked up at the volcano, but the clouds hid it. Maybe that was a good thing. Seeing its glowing, Mordor-like peak before the hike might give me second thoughts. I handed my permit to a member of staff in the office and found myself chatting with three other guys from the group, some seasoned Americans working with humanitarian aid in other parts of Africa. In other words, not your regular charter tourists.
There were about 12 of us in the group. We were coming from all parts of the world, and we were all driven here by that same lust for adventure. Our guide started to explain the rules: “Stay together. Drink a lot of water. Walk slowly. All fine”. Until now, everything sounded just like the information I had got on other, regular hikes. But what about the military guy with the Kalashnikov next to him? What was he doing here? I decided not to over-analyse it. I had already left my brain at the hotel.
From this point, there was no turning back.
And off we go!
The first segment was a warm-up stage: just a 45-minute trek over reasonably flat ground in the jungle. But the hike started at 2,000 metres, which my body found hard to acclimatise to. We made our way through dense rainforest resembling scenes from Jurassic Park. This seemed like the perfect time to chat to the people in the group, to find out where we were all from and what the hell had brought us to the Democratic Republic of Congo to climb an active volcano. Everyone looked as fresh as spring roses and smiled for the camera – but that was all about change.
After only about an hour, it was time for the first break. It didn’t feel necessary. My worries had been replaced with a false sense of bravery. I was eager to push on. I hadn’t come halfway around the world for a picnic, and I was ready for adventure! Not tea and cookies.
But when I sat down, I collected my foolish thoughts. “Don’t get cocky,” I told myself. That’s always a beginner’s mistake when attempting to climb a mountain. I started chatting with a couple from the Netherlands. Looking at their thin Converse sneakers and blue jeans, I knew that if worse came to worst, I probably wouldn’t be the first to go down.
We packed down our lunch packs and continued. We left the rainforest behind, and suddenly the lush landscape was replaced by rocks and boulders. Back in 2002, Nyiragongo had erupted from its flank, sending a two-metre high wave of lava down into the city of Goma. We were now walking on that same ground where it had all begun.
After another two hours, it was time for our second lunch break. We were halfway there. We got some more bananas, peanuts and baked cookies, and enjoyed the breathtaking views. Everyone was in a good mood, chatting and taking pictures. But then I turned around. Dark clouds came rolling in over the volcano. The rain was on its way, and I knew there was not going to be a warm, 5-star hotel waiting for us at the top.
Reenergised with fresh coffee, we pushed on. But the second segment was a real slog – it was the longest part of the hike, far steeper than the stages we’d encountered before.
We were gaining altitude rapidly now, taking huge steps continually upwards with little time for rest. Some of the guys who had initially hiked up the trail like Olympian gold medallists now looked like a bunch of panting seniors in need of their walkers. I kept looking up at the big, black clouds building up. You didn’t need to be a meteorologist to understand we were heading towards trouble.
I was starting to push myself hard now, and even though I was exhausted, the views just got better and better, and I made several stops to enjoy the stunning valley below. I almost had to pinch my arm – I was getting closer and closer to one of the world’s most active volcanoes, and it wasn’t a dream. The overwhelming sense of adventure overtook the pain in my legs. But just as I got my positive energy back, I felt a raindrop hit my head.
Rain. Just what we needed after four hours of fighting the elements. In a few minutes, the sky opened up. My feet were swimming in my soaking wet boots, and each step made a loud, slurping sound. I looked around but could hardly see the guys in front of me. The rain even got through my ‘waterproof’ poncho. Nobody said a single word as we continued with the remaining 60-minute hike to the summit. I knew I could make it – not even the volcano having a full eruption was going to stop me now.
As the skies cleared up, our good spirits returned, but now we could feel the altitude. Breathless at 3,350 metres high, an unbelievably steep climb was stretching in front of us to the top. There wasn’t much of a path to follow any longer, just a side of a volcano to scale, choosing whichever route that made the most sense; none of them any easier than the other. Up we climbed, some of us on our hands and knees, all of us taking it slow and steady, the smell of sulphur now beginning to penetrate our nostrils.
Just before reaching the top, we stopped at a small cabin to change clothes and get ready for the final walk to the summit. Our aching bodies were steaming in the cool air, and we shared the last of the baked cookies. I couldn’t forgive myself for not having followed the packing advice: Don’t forget to bring a second pair of dry shoes. Luckily, I found two plastic bags and wrapped them around my feet. Desperate times call for drastic measures.
The last part was all about determination and focus. I didn’t care about having the world’s best view behind me. And I completely ignored the fact that I was almost at the top of a volcano that only a decade ago had destroyed a whole village and put over 400,000 people on the run. The only thing I was thinking about was how to put the next foot in front of the other.
But with only about thirty metres left to the rim, my head was getting even more messed up – I could hear the ocean. Seconds later, I realised it wasn’t waves. It was the sound of the fierce, rolling lava.
Reaching the summit
There are some things you never forget. Like your wedding day (for better or worse) or when your team won that big championship. For me, seeing Nyiragongo’s crater lake was one of those moments. It was like watching an IMAX movie. I’d spent so much time planning for the adventure that now that I was finally here, it didn’t feel real. I was so in awe that I had to keep blinking to prove to myself this wasn’t a dream. I sat down on a nearby rock, inhaling the fumes, watching the sunset, and thinking to myself that this would be something I’d still remember on my 90th birthday.
“General Nyiragongo,” my guide said and smiled. “Because when he comes, everyone runs.”
But when looking down at the lava lake, I didn’t feel any fear. Just pure, bubbling joy. I started to think about what my friends were doing. Most of them were probably at work right now or stuck in traffic. Here I was, in the middle of the planet staring down into the ‘gates of hell’. It was like time had stood still here. Like we had been transported to this wonderfully weird place in time machines, back to a prehistoric era when dinosaurs roamed the planet and the continents were still taking shape. I glanced around a few times to make sure there wasn’t a T-Rex sneaking up behind my back.
Remember when you were a little kid? When playing in the sandbox was a great adventure, and everything you saw or did was a great, first-time wonder? That’s how we all felt up there. There is no better feeling than a new, overwhelming experience. As we get older, hardly anything ever surprises us. Been there, done that. But when seeing Nyiragongo with your own eyes, you turn into a little kid in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. The only difference is the chocolate is 900° Celsius hot lava, and the factory is a 3,470 metre-high volcano.
Watch the video below for a taste of what you can expect…
Living on the edge
As we sat and drank hot cups of coffee together, we discussed whether you’d feel any pain if you were to fall into the sea of lava or whether you’d be obliterated in an instant.
We spoke about how this was one of the coolest things we’d ever seen and shared stories of other amazing places we’d travelled to around the world. Everyone agreed that few experiences matched up to this one.
We sat there enjoying the view as it changed every minute, and as the evening turned to night, we found the lava got so bright you were tempted to wear your shades. Funnily enough, the volcano suddenly reminded me of one giant barbecue fire – the only things we were missing were some sticks and hot dogs. As the winds calmed down, you could feel the comforting heat from the fiery turmoil. I looked around, and everyone looked like they were meditating. I think everyone would have agreed that this was one of the best coffee breaks in their lives.
Getting a closer look, the lava almost seemed to cannibalise itself as pockets of fire engulfed new areas. It looked like what one could imagine the entrance to hell to be like or a graphic, abstract painting with its distinct orange patterns. After a warm dinner of rice and beef stew, we sat at the crater’s edge and passed around bottles of the local beer.
Part of me considered sitting up on the rim for the night, shivering while watching the lava crash like ocean waves against the crater’s walls. Part of me knew I’d regret not making the most of my time in such a special place, but I also knew that I had a long climb back down the following morning, and I needed to get some rest.
A thick mist gave the next morning an illusion of calm. The descent was much tougher than I had imagined. The four-hour hike was punctuated by yelps and the sound of sliding rocks. The first section was the toughest of the day. It was the steepest part of the hike and consisted of loose lava rocks that fell away as soon as you attempted to transfer any weight to them.
Taking deep breaths, I hovered a tentative foot down, windmilling my arms in wide circles as I tested every rock with my toes. There was little way of knowing which ones would tumble away until it was too late and you were tumbling down with them.
When finally reaching back to the base camp, it all felt like one big dream. And it sure was. One big dream that finally had come true.
Björn Persson is a photographer and travel writer who’s been to over 20 African countries. His favourite destination is Kenya, but the Nyiragongo hike was one of his most memorable adventures. Besides being an avid traveller, Björn also has a degree in wildlife conservation and uses his photos as a weapon against poaching. Later this year, he will release his new wildlife photography book, The Real Owners of the Planet. A big part of the profit will go to wildlife conservation.
Africa has the largest remaining area of untransformed (uncultivated) land on Earth, but research suggests that the combined impact of increasing human populations and the decimation of native species over the last few centuries by colonial hunters, means that livestock populations now vastly outnumber wildlife.
Do livestock species restore ecological processes, by serving as comparable replacements for native herbivores?
A fascinating study has been published about the impact on ecological processes and ecosystems of the ongoing extinction of native African herbivore species and the increase in livestock populations. This report compares current data with estimates of herbivore biomass since the Pleistocene period (11,700 years ago).
Here are 7 interesting findings:
1. Herbivore biomass change
Total herbivore biomass has decreased across Africa, mainly due to the removal of elephants by hunters. Only arid regions have experienced increases, largely due to the use of artificial water points and forage for livestock.
Relatively speaking, livestock biomass now surpasses native herbivore species biomass.
2. Herbivore functional diversity
African rangelands are now dominated by three species – cattle, goats and sheep – which account for 90% of current herbivore biomass. In other words, Africa has undergone a vast contraction in herbivore diversity. The removal of elephants has had a particularly pronounced impact, due to their beneficial impact on density and diversity of forest saplings and on seed dispersal – but the removal of other specialist browsers and frugivores has also been felt. The result has been an increase in bush encroachment and a reduction in seed dispersal.
3. Fires versus grazers
Fire is a significant alternative consumer of vegetation to herbivores and the balance between the two shapes ecosystems. Conceptually, grazers can suppress fires when they consume so much grassy material in the wet season that there is insufficient fuel to carry fires in the dry season. Fewer grazers therefore means more fire, and vice versa – all of which is subject to rainfall levels.
4. Woody cover
Herbivores, directly and indirectly, affect woody cover. The report predicts that the increasing dominance of livestock over native herbivore species will enhance woody cover in African savannas, in addition to other factors such as carbon dioxide levels.
The substantial contraction of elephant distribution ranges and populations has and will result in more woody cover as fewer trees are toppled. Moreover, the increase in grazer densities (livestock) has reduced fire across much of the continent, thereby also increasing woody cover. However, mitigating this to a degree is the increase in small-stock browser farming and subsequent increase in consumption of woody cover.
5. Greenhouse gas emissions
Carbon is stored above and below ground. The increase of woody cover increases the above-ground carbon stocks and therefore influences the carbon cycle – but the exact extent is not known. More easily measured is the methane emissions of herbivores. Methane has 28 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. Ruminants (mammals that first partly digest food in one stomach, then regurgitate it and chew it further before re-ingesting it) such as cattle, sheep, antelope and giraffes produce considerably more methane than non-ruminants such as elephants, hippos and zebras. In addition, larger animals produce more methane per body mass. The dominance of livestock in Africa has resulted in a significant increase in methane emissions – up to 15% of the global emission levels.
6. Movement of nutrients
Animals move nutrients from nutrient hotspots across ecosystems, thereby increasing overall fertility. The dominance of livestock has resulted in widespread loss of nutrient dispersal – with current levels estimated at being less than five percent of previous levels.
7. Ecosystem susceptibility
Mesic habitats (those with a balanced supply of moisture) have experienced biomass losses while arid habitats have experienced biomass increases.
The imposition on arid habitats of increased livestock biomass (mostly sedentary), is causing disturbance to vegetation that usually has a seasonal dynamic. For example, year-round trampling and grazing may increase grass tuft mortality and thereby increased soil erosion by wind and water, and reduced water infiltration due to soil compaction and greater run-off.
The removal of elephants from mesic habitats holds more substantial ecological implications, by increasing woody growth and reducing movement of nutrients in these typically highly leached, nutrient-poor ecosystems. Humans are replacing some of this elephant functionality by harvesting fuelwood, and currently, woody biomass is reducing over much of the continent, despite the ongoing encroachment of woody vegetation.
Human hunting is likely to remain the greatest threat to large mammal herbivores in Africa’s tropical forest ecosystems, exacerbating current effects on seed dispersal, recruitment and vegetation structure in the forest understory.
The general shift from migratory native to resident livestock herbivore populations represents a ubiquitous distortion of large mammal herbivore ecology. Only a handful of ecosystems now retain the diversity of functional seasonal resources necessary to support large, migratory herbivore populations that can adapt to inherently variable ecosystems. Populations that cannot migrate are more susceptible to drought and are subject to considerable natural fluctuation in herbivore densities.
Sourced from third-party site: Traveller24, written by Simon Bloch
The world’s largest hunting club, Safari Club International (SCI) has slammed the door shut on South Africa’s canned lion industry, announcing it will no longer allow captive-bred lion operators to advertise or market captive-bred lions (CBL) at its annual convention, and will reject all captive-bred lion entries for its record books.
According to the SCI website, the SCI board’s latest decision came into effect on Sunday, a day after its 46th annual convention wraps up in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“This outcome should have an immediate effect on government policy going forward,” a local professional hunter told the author.
He said sources at the SCI convention reported seeing a special representative dispatched by Minister for Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa, assessing the situation there.
According to global opinion, the canned hunting and captive-bred lion industries have caused severe reputation damage to the image of South Africa and Brand SA.
Three weeks ago, the Dallas Safari Club joined a host of America’s most reputable hunting institutions that have rejected the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa’s (PHASA) recent reversal of its policy around captive-bred lion hunts.
Speaking to the media, Stan Burger, the former president of Professional Hunters Association of South Africa (PHASA), says, “I can’t tell you how happy I am. This is like a crowning achievement for me, and the culmination of two years of hard work. I have been through two years of suffering and anguish because of certain people in the hunting industry. But now this is proof I am finally vindicated,” he said.
Last year, Burger was ousted as the PHASA’s president for trying to enforce its anti-CBL hunting policy and purge the association of CBL operators. He was made to sign certain non-disclosure agreements and later quit the association in disgust.
Johannesburg director for CACH (Campaign Against Canned Hunting), Linda Park, said, “I was over the moon when I read the SCI statement. The leadership at SCI have listened to the voices of reason and acted, and for that, they should be congratulated. We were all anticipating an announcement from SCI, but what they were going to say, nobody really knew.
“SCI’s position at this crucial time in our campaign is most welcome and adds to our firm belief that the end of this wretched and deplorable practice is in sight.
“Our own government should listen and follow these examples, and close down these pitiful lion breeding operations, as well as the ruthless killers who market and conduct these disgusting hunts.
“That will be the ultimate vindication for all those who have been fighting to close this shameful industry down. To paraphrase Neil Armstrong: ‘one small step for man, one giant leap for lions’,” she said.
In its statement, SCI says: “In considering that the practice of the captive breeding of lions for the purpose of hunting has doubtful value to the conservation of lions in the wild, and considering that such hunting is not consistent with SCI’s criteria for estate hunting, the SCI Board has adopted the following policy:
• SCI opposes the hunting of African lions bred in captivity.
• This policy takes effect on February 4, 2018 and applies to hunts taking place after adoption of this policy and to any Record Book entry related to such hunts.
• SCI will not accept advertising from any operator for any such hunts, nor will SCI allow operators to sell hunts for lions bred in captivity at the SCI Annual Hunters’ Convention.”
Stewart Dorrington, president of the newly-formed Custodians of Professional Hunting and Conservation South Africa (CPHCSA) says, “We commend SCI for their bold statement on captive bred lions and trust that other respected hunting associations will take note and follow suit.”
Established in 1370 as one of the original Swahili settlements, the charming town of Lamu in Kenya is one of Africa’s oldest and most authentic places. The chaotic narrow streets pulse with life, in a laid-back way, while the historic sights and rich aromas of spices transport you back to a time when the Portuguese, British and Omanis fought for control over the jewel of the Lamu Archipelago.
Our flight from Mombasa touched down at Manda Airport, located across the channel from Lamu Island, at midday. Navigating our way through the small airport was but a formality as the humidity settled in with a vengeance.
At the end of the pier, we watched the jostle for position amongst the boat captains with awe as each tried to secure a fair from one of the newcomers to Lamu. Captain Abdi was waiting to whisk us across the channel.
Wandering aimlessly through the narrow corridors, being careful to sidestep the odd donkey on the trot, is the best way to explore and immerse yourself in the fusion of Swahili culture that is on display waiting to be experienced.
Omar, one of the most respected guides in town, weaved us through Lamu with quiet confidence, stopping here and there to show us everything from the fort to the museum to the local market to one of the 26 exquisite mosques along the way.
Over the next few days, we fell into a comfortable rhythm. In the mornings we were awoken by the nearby mosques calling the faithful to prayer before heading out to explore the town while in the late afternoon we watched the dhows from our rooftop house patrol the channel as the sun set over the island.
In the early evening, we once again ventured out into the streets to sample the delicious street food on offer while enjoying the warm sea breeze.
With our time coming to an end there was one final place we wanted to see – the famed Shela Beach, located just a stone throw away from Lamu Town. Shela Beach is an expansive and completely empty 13km stretch of golden coastline flanked by silent sand dunes – it’s absolutely spectacular.
It took just under three hours to walk to the little settlement of Kizingo on the other side of Lamu Island. In Kizingo, our ever-reliable Captain Abdi picked us up and sailed us around the back of the island, stopping at little villages along the way to demonstrate how traditional dhows are painstakingly constructed.
Sourced from third-party site: Traveller24, written by Gabi Zietsman
US President Donald Trump has confirmed in an interview with Piers Morgan that he will not be lifting the ban on elephant trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe.
In an interview with Piers Morgan for the UK’s ITV that aired on Sunday, the president announced this month after it was first announced that the ban was to be repealed by the United States’ Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), later halted by Trump after a worldwide outcry.
His reasoning? That the money from hunting doesn’t go to conservation in those countries but instead was “going to a government which was probably taking the money, ok?”
He went on further to explain that the decision to repeal was made by a “high-level government official” that appears to have gone behind the president’s back.
“As soon as I heard about it, I turned it around. That same day – not even a day went by,” Trump said in the interview.
In 2014, the USFWS implemented the import ban on the basis that Zimbabwe had failed to manage its elephant population sustainably. And ongoing anaemic enforcement of wildlife laws has been widely criticised in Zimbabwe. Just last year, the country was shunned for exporting baby elephants caught in the wild, some of which died in transit to a zoo in China. The year before, an international outcry ensued after one of the most beloved and well-studied African lions, Cecil, was lured out of a national park and shot by a US hunter.
The Centre for Biological Diversity and Natural Resources Defence Council initially preempted the potential lifting of the ban by suing the Trump administration.
“Trump is correct that trophy hunting is not benefiting elephants and we hope he follows through on reinstating the trophy import ban, but a tweet is not a policy,” says Tanya Sanerib, senior attorney for the Centre in a tweet.
The USFWS consideration to reverse the ban also applies to trophies from Zambia, where, according to the Great Elephant Census, the elephant population dropped from more than 200 000 elephants in 1972 to just a little over 21 000 in 2016.
Recently there were reports that the new Zimbabwean president also had plans to ban the country’s highly controversial live elephant trade, though a lot of confusion arose about whether this was confirmed by the government, and there hasn’t been any updates confirming or denying it, except that the new regime will be reviewing their conservation policies in order to boost tourism.
It was like a scene out of the movie Jurassic Park. You know, that adrenaline-fuelled, chaotic scene when the bad guys arrive on the island in their vehicles and speed through the bush while dinosaurs scatter out of their way as they hunt for the ultimate dinosaur trophy. Well, this was like that, except I was on a Land Rover flying through the Kalahari bush with a guide at the wheel, with two other Landies driving parallel about 50 metres away. And rather than dinosaurs flanking our sides, there were wild dogs, and they were the ones hunting…
While trying not to lose sight of the dogs – who had transformed from big-eared, playful puppies to racing greyhound hunters in a millisecond – the guide weaved us around and through the scrubland bushes, dodging porcupine burrows and camel thorns, and it was here that I briefly questioned how on Earth I was here, in the middle of the southern Kalahari, when only just that morning I was still at home in Cape Town.
Well, it all started with a question.
“How would you like to go there?” my boss said, pointing to the screen displaying the most luxurious-looking lodge, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. My first thought was that it looked stunning; my second was: seriously?
Before I knew it planning was underway to send myself and our travel director, Christian, to Tswalu Kalahari Private Game Reserve in the southern Kalahari – a malaria-free, five-star exclusive lodge owned by the mining magnet Oppenheimer family – to experience the ultimate ‘bling safari’, accompanied with a level of service, cuisine and accommodation that would come to exceed all my expectations (and far beyond anything I could afford). This would be even more luxurious than the Namibian desert flying safari I recently enjoyed.
From Cape Town International Airport we were whisked away in a private jet from the Oppenheimer’s private hanger, Fireblade Aviation, flying directly to Tswalu’s airstrip in a seemingly brief two-hour flight.
The deep red sands of the Kalahari greeted us as we stepped off the plane and were directed to the ‘bush’ terminal where ice-cold wine and snacks were served while our bags were loaded into the Landies by our guide, Julian, and tracker, Ari. The ‘bush’ terminal, an open-air thatched building, had all the necessities required to freshen up before leaving for the lodge. It even included some entertainment, provided by the dozens of sociable weavers who reside inside a massive nest built under the thatch roof – they were constantly darting in and out from the numerous chambers, providing some great photographic opportunities.
We arrived at Tswalu’s The Motse lodge to warm hand towels and more refreshing drinks. From the moment I got off the Landy, I felt incredibly welcomed by all the staff I met – each one taking time out from their duties to come and introduce themselves. Everyone seemed to know my name – it was as if I was returning home to a large, extended family, rather than a first-time visit to a private, upmarket lodge. It was refreshing to be in such a friendly, welcoming atmosphere, and I was excited at the thought of what the next three days could hold in store for us.
Christian and I were staying in one of the three family legae (“dwelling” in Tswana) – there are nine legae altogether – where we each had our own room with en suite bathroom and outdoor shower. Massive king-sized beds faced large glass doors that provided unobstructed views of the Kalahari wilderness. As there are no fences between the legae and the wilderness, one of the first rules we were told was never to leave our patio and walk into the bush – who knows what lies in wait?
With that in mind, I was fervently scanning the landscape from the comfy of my excessively large wicker chair with a drink in hand – having raided the drinks cabinet as one does… – when all of a sudden, my eye caught something small, slinking over towards a hole about two metres away from the patio. I immediately got Christian’s attention from where he was sitting, and we quickly identified the stealthy animal: a Cape fox!
Suddenly she was joined by four baby foxes that zoomed out of their burrow to drink from her. Christian and I just looked at each other, our faces as expressive as an excited mime. We pulled a Matrix move stealthily and silently reaching for our cameras, to not disturb the mother and her babies as they went about playing and relaxing right under our noses. What a way to start our Kalahari adventure!
The exclusivity of Tswalu knows no bounds as guests each have their own guide and tracker, along with the freedom to decide your daily itinerary, and even when you want to eat – the chef is available 24/7. Don’t forget to fit in a spa treatment as well while you’re planning your day.
Because of this flexibility, the likelihood of spotting another game drive vehicle while out in the reserve is highly improbable. It also helps that Tswalu will only take 28 adults at maximum capacity.
It was fantastic to know that we had Julian and Ari all to ourselves. When asked what we were keen on seeing, we replied: “Everything!” And for how long do we want to be out? “As long as possible!”
And that’s precisely what happened. Every morning we were out by 6 am, returning briefly for lunch and a mini siesta for two to three hours, and then back out until returning for a late dinner at 9:30 pm.
Julian was an incredibly enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide, as well as a keen birder, so he and Christian had a lot to talk about, and were kept quite entertained by the myriad of bird species that they spotted. Ari was a phenomenal tracker, and I was amazed by his eagle-eyed spotting skills – even more so when he spotted a stunning rock monitor under a bush!
From spending time identifying an array of birds (many that I have never seen before) and getting up close and personal with the habituated meerkat colony, to tracking cheetahs on foot and then quietly observing the southern lion pride for over an hour – I was lost for words.
The four of us journeying around Tswalu non-stop for three full days was just marvellous, albeit exhausting by the end of day three, but we were in our element here in the bush and for that privilege, I would not change a thing!
So it was here, on the first afternoon drive at Tswalu, where I found myself grinning from ear to ear as we raced side by side with a hunting pack of four wild dogs. Typically only two vehicles are allowed at a sighting, but when it’s a hunt, then three are permitted.
Julian was always on the radio with the other two guides, keeping each other up to date on the fast-paced movements of the dogs, while Ari directed Julian from the tracker’s seat.
Suddenly we lost sight of the dogs, and while frantically searching for them among the thick vegetation of acacia trees and grasses Ari suddenly shouted: “They have something!… They’ve got a warthog!”
Pulling up beside the dogs we watched as they went after a large warthog, which didn’t seem to be putting up much of a fight – Julian suspected that it was not in good health due to the current dry conditions. The next thing the one dog grabbed the warthog’s tail and dragged it backwards. I looked away, suddenly recalling wild dog hunting techniques: they start eating their prey while it’s still alive.
I paled at the thought, at what was happening right before our eyes. It was the first time I was witnessing a hunt and a kill, and unable to watch such an event I turned away, trying to block out the squealing warthog. It seemed brutal, almost heartless in the way the dogs killed the warthog, and even though it was hard to stomach, I reminded myself that this was raw nature, this was the wild, this was real.
“I knew that warthog,” Ari said with a sad smile once everything had calmed down and the squeals were silenced, “it had half an ear missing, so it was easy to recognise”. C’est la vie.
With such an overwhelmingly eye-opening start to our stay, we didn’t think anything else could top that – but we were wrong.
Early the next morning, we made our way over to the Lekgaba section of Tswalu. This area is separate from the main part where The Motse is located because a service road (from the time when the area was farmland) still runs through, dividing the two properties.
The one thing that Lekgaba has, that the other does not, is Kalahari black-maned lions.
In Lekgaba the landscape seemed different, with rolling hills and mountains, the bush was thicker and the grass longer thanks to the smaller amount of grazers found on this side. It was quite a treat to experience two very different landscapes on the same reserve.
It didn’t take long for Ari to pick up two sets of tracks belonging to black-maned lion brothers, who are approximately eight to ten-years-old. “Just past their prime,” according to Julian. It was thrilling to think that there was a possibility of seeing my first wild lions – black-maned at that! I was starting to get goosebumps.
Another vehicle joined us in tracking the lions and together Julian and the other guide helped each other out with updates over the radio. At the same time, we slowly headed towards their last known sighting near to the border fence.
Then all too quickly, we found them! And it took my breath away. Tears formed in my eyes as I was taken aback with what I saw: two magnificent, incredibly large male lions strolling through the long grass in the morning sun, casually aware of us but at the same time not interested in our presence at all. I almost forgot to pick up my camera as I was mesmerised by their beauty and raw power.
Julian made sure to keep with the lions’ pace, but at one point the one brother came awfully close to us, glancing up at the vehicle and straight into my eyes.
“Are we not too close to them?” I whispered to Julian, “Will we be safe being so close?” I was starting to feel nervous, but Julian assured me that these two brothers were fine with the vehicle, and besides, “they are more interested in the zebra across the road”.
“Zebra? What zebra?”
And sure enough directly across the service road, behind the fence, was a Hartmann’s mountain zebra, following the lions as they kept on walking down the road along the border fence. It was hilarious and surreal at the same time – it was as if the zebra was almost mocking the brothers as if to say: “You want me? You want a piece of this? Well, you can’t, so there!”
I came away with one of the most incredible sightings of my life. I can still clearly remember the thrill of watching those two magnificent creatures walking so close to us, looking into their eyes, and feeling powerless and vulnerable in their presence.
Of all the animals that Tswalu featured on their list of wildlife species, the pangolin was one that I was most hopeful to see, though I knew the chances were slim.
However, I discovered that an academic researcher from Wits University, Wendy Panaino, who’s studying them as part of her doctorate, would be out in the field on our second night.
Waiting with baited breath, our prayers were answered late in the evening when we got the call that she was out and with one of the pangolins, ‘number four’, or fondly referred to as ‘Sir Charles’ by the guides.
Having published so many articles about the tragic fate that pangolins are currently going through with poaching and illegal trafficking, it was an ethereal moment when I met Sir Charles. He was going about his night digging and excavating ant nests while I stood a mere metre away spellbound. It was incredible to watch him in action, eating only particular ants and termites that make up his main diet.
Wendy told me more about her research while we observed Sir Charles rummaging through the bushes. Her doctorate is based around researching the consequences of climate change in the arid Kalahari and how it affects the availability of ants and termites, their social behaviour, the timing of the breeding season, and home range shifts. There are several pangolins that she studies in Tswalu, each fitted with a body temperature monitor and tracker.
We spent almost three hours following Sir Charles around in the dark, watching as Wendy took notes of his movements and collected samples of the ants he was choosing to eat.
Later that night I reflected on my encounter with Sir Charles, and realised that I couldn’t find the right words to describe the sort of emotions I was going through while being so close to such an endangered species – I found myself speechless, honoured and humbled to have met such an incredible creature that night.
Tswalu is all-inclusive, and that includes drinks (soft and alcoholic), as well as much as you want to indulge in. Sumptuous dinners take place in one of three locations, depending on the day, and the menu is catered towards your particular eating preferences. The meals are exquisite and decadent – flambéed Magnum ice-cream a la baked Alaska anyone?
Breakfast and lunch can be taken at any time during daylight hours, and I thoroughly enjoyed eggs benedict with salmon for one of my lunches.
Every afternoon the chef lays out a delicious high-tea spread, where sweet and savoury bite-sized snacks were on offer.
Of course, there is also the wine cellar and drinks bar in the lodge bar where you can help yourself to whatever takes your fancy.
Did I mention that there is a pre-game drive breakfast spread in the main lounge for early rises? Everything from croissants, muffins, yoghurt, fruit, cheeses, bread and a range of coffees and teas are available.
And then, of course, there are the midday snacks of nuts, fruit, date balls and rolled omelettes served with filter coffee while out on a drive.
Tswalu is a culinary destination where you bring your appetite and leave your diet at the door.
Christian and I were keen on seeing some creatures of the twilight, including the elusive aardvark and aardwolf. However, the most we got out of our evening/night drives were a lot of jackals, spring hares (humorously referred to as ‘Kalahari kangaroos’), and nightjars.
We started to joke that even an aardappel (potato) would suffice.
It was our last evening drive, and the sun was quickly making its way to the horizon as we ventured into an unexplored area, keeping an eye out for the “aards” and brown hyena.
As Julian rounded a corner and drove into a large open area, Ari quickly shot up his hand, pointing to a spot about a hundred metres away, we followed his direction, and our eyes landed on two black rhinos!
We had unknowingly stumbled upon the elusive black rhino mother and her year-old calf.
They were some distance from us, but unfortunately, the wind was not on our side, and she immediately picked up on our presence, and they disappeared into the safety of the thick bush. It was unbelievable luck to come across such a sighting (a first for me!), and in celebration, we brought out the sundowners and observed as the blanket of diamond stars began covering the darkening sky.
Sipping on gin & tonics, we reminisced about our brief but action-packed adventure in the wildlife-rich Kalahari, on how it had been such a phenomenal, once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.
Just as we were finishing up, we suddenly heard what sounded like thunder emanating from the darkness. It was deep, constant, and coming closer. Ari spun around, hands cupping his ears as he tried to pinpoint the source. It was the rhino, and according to Ari, she and her calf were aiming for the waterhole nearby, charging through the bushes in the dark. It sounded terrifying, and immediately I was looking for the quickest route into the Landy.
Fortunately, she must have taken a wide detour to the waterhole as she never appeared, but it was still a close call, especially in the dark where the vegetation was melting into the darkness.
Adrenaline pumping and eyes wide, we all looked at each other, nervous laughter spread through the group as we realised how close we were to meeting the rhino and her calf up close.
We decided that maybe it was best we packed up and headed back to the lodge for dinner… though… on second thought, perhaps just one more gin & tonic for the dusty red road.
ABOUT THE SOUTHERN KALAHARI
Situated in the Northern Cape of South Africa, the southern Kalahari forms part of the larger Kalahari Desert that covers 9,000,000 km² of arid to semi-arid land covering most of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa.
The name Kahalari is derived from the Tswana word “Kgala”, meaning “the great thirst”, or Kgalagadi, meaning “the waterless place”.
The southern Kalahari is also known as the ‘green’ Kalahari due to its location and climatic conditions – as it receives more rain than the central Kalahari.
It has been inhabited by Bushman for 20,000 years, who lived as hunter-gatherers in a harmonious relationship with the environment until the influx of Africans and Europeans.
Known for its stunning red sand dunes, vast landscapes and the incredible night sky, the southern Kalahari supports a variety of flora, such as acacias and grasses, and fauna. Animals that live in the region include brown hyenas, the Kalahari lion, leopards, cheetahs, meerkats, giraffes, warthogs, jackals, chacma baboons, and several species of antelope (including the eland, gemsbok, springbok, hartebeest, steenbok, kudu, and duiker), and many species of birds and reptiles.
Tswalu is South Africa’s largest private game reserve, situated on the edge of the southern Kalahari, surrounded by the beautiful Koranneberg mountains. Covering an area of over 1,100 km² (110,000 hectares), it is family-friendly and malaria-free.
Over 80 species of mammals can be found on the reserve, including black-maned lions, pangolin, aardvark and black rhino, together with approximately 240 species of birds.
History
The original reserve was created as a hunting property by Stephen Boler, a British businessman, who bought up 35 farms, totalling some 88,000 hectares. Stephen and Nicky Oppenheimer met only once but instantly recognised each other’s love and respect for the southern Kalahari. When Stephen tragically died, his will specified that Tswalu was to be offered first to Nicky.
The Oppenheimer family took ownership in 1998. Hunting stopped overnight, and the land was given back to itself. Breeding programmes for rare and endangered species, such as roan and sable antelope, were developed and academic researchers were invited in.
Further neighbouring farms have been gradually acquired and transformed, adding more habitats, more of the spectacular Korannaberg mountains, more diversity. Countless buildings have been demolished and removed. And everywhere, the grasses have returned.
Thea and Christian stayed at one of the three accommodation options at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve: two accommodation options, along with a sleep-out experience.
THE MOTSE
The Motse can accommodate up to 18 adults in nine individual thatch-roof legae. Each legae comes with an en suite bathroom, outside shower, and private patio providing sweeping views of the Kalahari landscape. Three of the legae are family units that come with two separate rooms with their own en suite bathrooms.
TARKUNI
Tarkuni, originally the Oppenheimer’s private villa, was transformed into a homestead that can accommodate up to 10 guests, ideal for smaller groups and family gatherings.
Each room has an en suite bathroom and outdoor star bed. All of the rooms open into an open-plan lounge and dining area. Guests can enjoy a swim in the private pool, or relax in the library or games room. A personal chef, vehicle, guide and tracker are at your disposal while at Tarkuni.
THE MALORI
The Malori gives guests the option of an incredible ‘sleep under the stars’ experience. Built on a raised platform, the Malori is fitted with all the luxuries, including a king-sized bed. A short walk leads you to the outdoor toilet, basin and shower. Guests can enjoy dinner prepared by their guide (or opt to make it themselves) while watching the sun set over the rolling red sand dunes of the Kalahari.
As a former field guide and teacher, Thea Felmore has combined her passion for the English language and love of wildlife to work behind the scenes as a content editor sharing African wildlife, travel and culture with a global online audience. When not in front of the screen she makes time to get out and explore the beautiful Cape Town wilderness in search for her favourite reptile species (and other fascinating creatures, of course).
Curled up in a blanket, sleeping next to their furry little friends, these two baby genets stole the heart of their caretaker, Erika, at ZURI Orphanage in Namibia. The two genets arrived at different times and are being raised for release back into the wild.
Here is what Dr Erika de Jager shared with Africa Geographic:
“I received a phone call from one of my clients asking me if I would like to take care of a baby genet. It was love at first sight! We fed him kitty milk and he loved it. During the same time, my cat had a litter of kittens. This was a lifesaver as the kittens loved to play with the baby genet. It is pure magic to watch them play. Then, it was an even greater surprise when Onguma Lodge asked me if I could take care of another baby genet.
“We are so grateful that they entrusted him to us as he was only a day old. We fed him with an intravenous catheter the first two days with kitty milk and then he started drinking on his own – his eyes only opened after 10 days. The genets are both doing very well and are still drinking from the bottle. They are not ready to be released yet.”
ZURI Orphanage is currently raising funds to build a large cage to prepare the genets to be released. Any donations would be appreciated. Please note that genets are wild animals and do not make good pets.
The 2017 rhino poaching numbers were released yesterday by Dr Edna Molewa, South African Minister of Environmental Affairs (DEA). We look at the numbers behind the numbers.
Year after year we hear the rhino poaching numbers on radio, watch them on tv or read them here at Africa Geographic. But what do those figures mean, and what’s actually behind them. Because let’s be honest, there’s so much secrecy in the fight against rhino poaching that a lot is kept from the public … in the interest of rhino security, sure, but so much is happening on the ground that the numbers don’t show. As filmmakers, we’ve been lucky to get access to all these role-players on the ground and this is our take on the numbers released for 2017:
“A minor decrease in the number of rhino poached nationally in 2017”. That’s the line Minister Molewa used in her report. A total of 1,028 rhinos were poached during the year 2017, down from 1,054 in 2016 – the second year in a row we have seen a slight decrease – mostly because of the reductions achieved in the Kruger National Park. Great news for Kruger, down 24% to just over 500 rhinos poached for 2017. But if we take a closer look at the provincial stats, we see the true story behind the overall decrease:
Apart from the Kruger region, only three other provinces achieve negative poaching numbers. Gauteng doesn’t really count with a drop from 6 to 4, and in the Eastern Cape, the drop from 17 to 12 was probably due to the arrest of one gang of darters. But Limpopo, down to 79 from 90, is great news! Bear in mind that Limpopo had four years of high numbers around the 100 mark. The bulk of rhinos in Limpopo are privately owned and the Limpopo Rhino Security Group (LRSG) was formed two years ago in an attempt to join the farmers in targeting the onslaught. The group has been working with various SAPS units (from stock theft to crime intelligence), private anti-poaching units and the DEA’s EMI enforcers to bring down the poaching. It’s been a huge effort and it’s paying off. The legalizing of local trade did have some impact in the province with several of the farmers telling us they would sell horn the minute it became legal to do so. Several owners dehorned in anticipation of sales – possibly an added benefit as a deterrent.
The rest of the provinces however have been hit hard. Kwa-Zulu Natal was a disaster area, with the well-publicized onslaught in the provincial parks. How can we forget the cow and calf killed right in the heart of iMfolozi, at the game capture bomas, just after the organization’s game auction. How shocking that two security guards with one weapon between them were protecting millions of rands of assets that had just been sold. Almost all of the 222 poachings in Kwa-Zulu Natal were government-owned rhinos – fewer than 5% from privately-owned reserves and farms. A massive dehorning effort from the private owners in the area throughout 2017 may have acted as a further deterrent. The vets were very busy in Limpopo and KZN during 2017.
North West suffered a 72% increase – with tourists to Pilanesburg reporting the massacres. Several private rhino owners in the province were also targeted. The Northern Cape and the Freestate continued their significant poaching increases from 2015 through into 2017 (100% and 124%). The bulk of rhinos in these provinces are privately-owned. We visited a farmer just outside Kimberley in the middle of winter last year who had lost 9 rhinos literally overnight. 9 rhinos!
Surely Kwa-Zulu Natal, the home of the white rhino, should be doing a better job of securing their future? Unconfirmed reports of alleged “capture” of some of the province’s judiciary and enforcement resources are a concern. And it’s sobering that even our own police minister tweeted last year that our police force has been infiltrated. We know from rangers on the ground in Kwa-Zulu Natal that many of the spoor from poachers they follow under the full “poachers moon” are of repeat offenders – caught previously with blood all over them, in possession of rhino horns. It’s simply not good enough that our dedicated rangers are putting their lives on the line, and yet not getting the support they need.
Contrast that to what is happening in the Kruger National Park. We’ve been filming with the rangers on the ground there as well as the SAPS investigating officers and the special prosecutors from the NPA. Everyone works exceptionally well together and you can see it in their convictions, almost doubling from 58 to 111 last year. One of the reasons why the poaching has decreased in the park, is not only new technology coming in over the past year but also, as Maj. Gen. Jooste always says, ‘technology can do a lot, but it’s the human element that makes the real difference’. And we’ve seen that success on the back of a team effort – from the Kruger ranger who ensures a clean arrest to the SAPS investigating officer who makes the case watertight, and the prosecutor who doesn’t let the well-paid defence team of lawyers get the poachers off on technicalities. Editorial comment: We reported on how teams in the Kruger are working well together: Good news for Rhinos.
In closing, it is with some heartache that we look at the figure of 222 poached rhinos for Kwa-Zulu Natal. Two of those rhinos we got to know well and filmed on numerous occasions – Gugu and Impy. Gugu and Impy were orphans who were saved and taken to Karen Trendler and her team at the Thula Thula Rhino Orphange. They were poached when the orphanage, now closed, was attacked in February 2017. Gugu was killed immediately, but little Impy suffered tremendously and had to be euthanised while battling to breathe through what was left of his face. It must’ve been an awful thing to see him struggling to keep his battered head up out of the mud that surrounded him, threatening to suffocate Impy through his open nasal cavities. The irony, is that when he was orphaned, he was found next to his mother’s carcass drinking her seeping body fluid and eating the mud surrounding her to stay alive. 18 months later, here he was suffering the same awful, awful death.
It’s tough for us to read the 222 statistic for Kwa-Zulu Natal and not think of Impy. For us this puts a real perspective on each individual rhino of the 1028 poached in 2017. What we can take away is what the minister said, “I know it doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s 26 fewer animals”. And that has to count for something … surely? Susan Scott and Bonné de Bod
Out among the red sand dunes of the southern Kalahari, with the sun setting on the horizon, you may be lucky enough to find a small armoured creature going about its evening, foraging and scratching around for its favourite food – ants and termites – seemingly oblivious to any human presence.
As a torchlight illuminates his way, ground pangolin ‘number four’ – or Sir Charles as he is fondly called by the guides – is unknowingly helping research to determine the real effects of climate change on the physiology of pangolins and how they might cope with increasingly hotter and drier conditions in arid environments. In the greater scheme of things, this research should hopefully contribute to the larger issue of global pangolin conservation and help to predict how pangolins may respond to climate change in the future. Ground pangolins are also called Temminck’s or the Cape pangolin.
And out there leading this particular research is Wendy Panaino. As part of her PhD at Wits University, she is currently conducting research at Tswalu Kalahari Private Game Reserve in South Africa, situated on the southwest edge of the ground pangolin distribution range. She has been heading out into the Kalahari wilderness practically every night for the past few years to track and monitor one of a number of tagged pangolins, thanks to a VHF receiver and antenna to help locate them.
Her research is mainly centred around determining the consequences of climate change on pangolins. For example, pangolins are primarily nocturnal but may shift their activity times to avoid the high temperatures during summer or become more diurnal to avoid the cold nighttime temperatures during winter.
In addition, the impacts on prey availability of specific ants and termites may affect their diet if drier and hotter conditions prevail, as insects are very susceptible to changes in climate and environment. One aspect affecting pangolin physiology and behaviour is increased temperatures, leading to an increase in water requirements and an increase in prey consumption (their main source of water).
One of four pangolin species found in Africa, the ground pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) is the only pangolin species to inhabit arid environments in the southern African region.
Because not much is known about the physiology and ecology of these pangolins, this long-term, detailed research (a first of its kind for this species) will determine how they may react and cope with increasingly warmer conditions in this arid region. Using miniature temperature data loggers implanted in the pangolin, Wendy has been able to investigate and measure core body temperatures of the pangolins and has documented several interesting behaviours and dietary patterns.
As Wendy follows Sir Charles around, she collects data in the form of ants and termites that he has just fed on, from which she can determine the type of ant/termite species he is eating, the amount of nutrients and water he is receiving in his diet, among other things. She is also observing his behaviour (activity levels, feeding habits, types of ants or termites eaten, distance covered, etc), and the availability of ants and termites in his habitat.
Wendy’s research on a wild population of pangolins at a regional scale will provide valuable information that can be used to ensure the survival of a species that is already severely threatened by the illegal wildlife trade.
You may be mistaken to believe that the Force is only found out in a galaxy far, far away, but in actual fact you can find it right here in nature. Next time you’re in a tropical rainforest, take a look under a leaf close to the ground and you may find a zombie ant, clinging to life while a deadly parasitic fungus uses mind-control to slowly feed off it and grow.
Zombie ants may sound like something out of a sci-fi thriller, but they do exist, and the culprit that uses it’s own dark version of the Force is the deadly Ophiocordyceps unilateralis – an insect-pathogenising fungus.
The parasitic fungus infects mainly one variety of ant – the carpenter ant – where its spores are picked up by the ant on the rainforest floor. (Normally the ants are located higher in the canopy, but sometimes they deviate from the normal trail and fall to the floor). Once infected, the fungus uses its powers to have the ant ascend the nearest plant stem where it settles under a leaf (or attaches to the stem itself) that is around 25cm off the ground – the ideal zone where the temperature and humidity allow the fungus to grow.
With the ant’s mandibles permanently locked onto the leaf (thanks to the fungus mind-control), the fungus will grow and feed off the ant’s non-vital organs. Eventually the ant dies and the fungus sends out a stalk through the ant’s head where fresh spores are released allowing for more ants to become infected.
Interestingly, it was only until recently that studies revealed how this parasitic fungus actually takes control of an ant. Initially it was thought to go for the brain, controlling the ant’s actions while feeding off its non-vital organs. However, it has now been discovered that the fungus actually infects the ant’s muscles and incredibly leaves the brain untouched. This means that the ant is still technically conscious of what is going on, but it cannot move as the fungus has control.
Now if that isn’t a horror story of minuscule proportions we don’t know what is!
Lions are threatened across their natural range, and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP) straddling South Africa and Botswana is a stronghold for the species.
A research project, conducted during 2013-2015 and published in April 2017, resulted in a population estimate of 246 (237–256) lions (most precise of three count methods) in the southwestern sector of KTP, which is higher than previous estimates.
Summary
A 30% population decline and 80% range reduction over the past 20 years has resulted in there being fewer than 20,000 wild lions remaining in Africa, across 65 natural populations. Ten of these natural populations are considered strongholds – and KTP is one of these ten strongholds.
Small populations of animals that are subjected to high rates of human persecution, such as Africa’s lions, have a greater likelihood of extinction, and so understanding trends in population size, age and sex is important.
Previous research over the preceding 40 years suggested a relatively stable Kalahari lion population of 517 lions in the entire KTP, but research in 2010 off a small sample suggested a male bias of 56%, compared to previous research reflecting a female bias of 58%.
The aim of this research, therefore, was to reduce uncertainty as to population size and key variables.
The research was conducted in the dune savanna semi-desert of the southwestern sector of KTP. The area of 14,250 km² covered the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa and a buffer strip to the east, in the Gemsbok National Park in Botswana. The researchers drove 49,784 km over 26 months, with 317 days of sampling. They counted 261 individual lions, from 1,162 sightings (of which 1,022 could be identified), and recorded 11 deaths. Of the identified lions, 74 were cubs born during the survey period.
Three methods of counting were utilised, producing the following results:
1. Mark-recapture: 246 (237-256) lions
2. Track indices: 242 (176-307) lions
3. Registration study (after removing known deaths): 250 lions
The report includes a detailed discussion about each of the three methods, including shortcomings and inaccuracies.
The price you pay for your safari lodge is primarily determined by when you travel, and so with a bit of flexibility as to the timing of your holidays, you can slash big chunks off your accommodation cost.
It helps to understand what it means to go on safari outside of the usual tourism seasons, and so we have prepared an explanation of the when and what of the safari seasons.
The HIGH / PEAK season – June to October
This is when most people take long leave (the northern hemisphere summer break), and go on safari.
The rules of supply and demand kick in, and lodges are priced at their peak – AND you will find that popular areas such as Botswana and South Africa’s Greater Kruger become fully booked during this period, far in advance. Some publicly accessible wildlife areas can be congested during this period, whereas lodges with exclusive traverse areas don’t suffer from this problem.
These are the dry and dusty months, when there is less vegetation to hinder your view and when animals congregate near water sources and are therefore easier to find. You are likely to see more wildlife during this period and have a higher chance of seeing predators in action.
The SHOULDER seasons – November/December & April/May
This is when most international travellers have gone home, and the local and regional travellers are left to enjoy the show.
Lodges drop their prices, and the crowds evaporate – an excellent time to travel!
November/December is a great time for safari because the height of the dry season has broken and the first brief rains bring change to the landscapes, as grass and buds start popping up everywhere. Cute babies start dropping all over the place, and resident predators have a field day. Migratory animals start dispersing after the first rains, but resident populations of most species keep the show on the road.
Migratory birds arrive, and most birds get stuck into breeding and are therefore more vocal and visible. Flying termites emerge and are preyed on by many species, from eagles and snakes to frogs and even leopards. Temperatures are more bearable than in September/October, and the usually infrequent rain clears the smoke and dust from the air.
In April/May, the rains have ended, and widespread water sources are starting to dry up, and animals start moving to areas with permanent water. Temperatures are pleasant, and the bushveld is particularly lush and beautiful.
The LOW / GREEN / EMERALD season – January to March
This is when all significant holiday periods (local and international) are over, and few people go on safari.
Lodges drop prices significantly as occupancies plummet. This a great time to negotiate reasonable rates and those extras that make you feel pampered and special!
This period sees trees, shrubs and grasses thicken up – making wildlife viewing more difficult. Rainfall (usually once a day in the late afternoon) means widespread water availability, and many species disperse to take advantage of specific food opportunities and to get away from predators. Many resident species remain though but are harder to see. For some experienced travellers, this is their favourite time – because nature is now at full throttle as many species are breeding and there is plenty of food for everybody.
Of course, these ‘rules’ vary regionally, and according to local conditions and animal movements. For example, the Kasanka bat and the Liuwa Plain wildebeest migrations in Zambia happen in November.
That’s why you need sound advice about when, where, and what on safari. There is nothing like experience to guide your safari choices.
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.
Living on the African continent, we have a vast array of protected areas to visit. Those of us with a travel-addiction and passion for wildlife endeavour to visit them all – the Okavango, Maasai Mara and Serengeti to mention just a few. However, we sometimes overlook what we have right on our doorstep, such as the legendary Kruger National Park in South Africa. Some of us have practically grown up with it, building layers upon layers of wonderful and precious memories.
After spending a couple of years visiting other parks, I decided it was time to go back to Kruger and recollect those memories. I booked in the northern area as this would give me access to travel to the central area of the park as well.
The first thing that hit me was how dry everything was. I remember many years ago all the rivers were full and flowing, and now the Shingwedzi and Letaba were dry riverbeds with pools of water here and there. The clouds had been gathering on my arrival, and hopefully, the rain was on the way. Nevertheless, the landscapes were still remarkable.
In the Kruger, there is a project called the Emerging Tuskers Project that aims to identify all of the tuskers (elephants with large tusks) in the park. More in-depth coverage of this project can be found here: Giants of the Future. Due to poaching concerns, specific locations of these tuskers, such as the ones I was fortunate to spot, are not revealed.
First, there was Nkombo – whom I managed to identify later correctly – and I was able to watch him from a safe distance while he went about his daily activities. His enormous tusks were perfect, and as the only vehicle in his presence, I felt truly honoured and in awe.
Later on, in a different area, the breathtaking Mandzemba stood in the pale grass, pulling tufts and shaking them briefly before eating. In the stillness of the bush, I could hear his chewing and shifting from one foot to another. His tusks looked as though they would surely plough through the earth if he put his head down. I saw him again some days later, heading for the water as the sun was going down. I could not have wished for a better sundowner.
Because of the dry conditions, the waterholes were a constant hive of activity. In the late afternoon, the breeding herds would arrive from every direction.
Appearing through the stunted mopane bush, their pace would pick up when the water was in sight, and the younger generation would start running with the matriarchs, aunts and sisters keeping up.
Their arrival, of course, would scatter the rest of the wildlife by the waterholes. The dust filtered through the air and light, giving me some delightful photos.
I enjoy camping; it somehow makes me feel more connected to wherever I am. And when it comes to camps: the smaller, the better. I enjoy the more rustic wilderness camps like Balule or Tsendze where like-minded people enjoy the peace and quiet.
When camping, I sleep in my very own little ‘tent-cot’, which is a bit unusual, but perfect for light packing. It folds out as a lounger would, and getting in and out is an art. At Shingwedzi early one morning, as I slid carefully out of my tiny abode in a half-asleep state, I was faced with about eight people all standing in a circle around my tent discussing what this ‘thing’ could be… it was a slightly awkward encounter, and I’m not sure who was more surprised!
Part of the pleasure of a park like Kruger is the self-drive aspect and spotting wildlife yourself. The unpredictability of what you may see is exciting, and I always recommend that visitors who are coming for the first time take the opportunity of a self-drive after staying at a safari lodge, to experience another perspective.
Cheetahs are just thrilling to see, no matter where you are. While I was in Kruger, I happened to come across a mother and her two cubs who were finishing up their lunch – their interaction was captivating. Besides helping to clean each other in spots they would not otherwise reach, the grooming is essential for bonding. Fortunately, that wasn’t my last cheetah sighting, and I was thrilled to come across a solitary cheetah peering through the gnarled trunks of the mopane.
I can spend hours watching the chacma baboon troops in Kruger. Their relationships can be likened to that of human relationships, and the new babies are simply enchanting.
Every time I see a troop, I am reminded of my father’s favourite story:
Many years ago, we were driving through the Kruger in our family Pontiac, a classic car now, but then quite standard. My father had, up to that point, endless problems with the one windscreen wiper – no one could seem to get it to sit correctly. In those days, the baboons had a habit of jumping on cars to peer through the windows. A big chap jumped onto the Pontiac, grabbed the offending wiper, thus bending it, before jumping off again. Would you believe it? The wiper sat perfectly! My father took great delight in making sure the auto guys knew who had fixed the wiper.
As a designer, I am always blown away by the shapes, colours and structures of how everything in nature is ‘put together’. Zebras with their graphics, the way the lines move or are caught by the light. The elegant giraffe floating between the treetops in their geometric design and the icon of the national parks. The handsome kudu with sculpted horns and their soft female counterparts.
They may act like ‘blobs’ in the water with a nice yawn now and then, but hippos can be full of humour. I have seen them playing like puppies, and one thing was confirmed for me while in Kruger: those photos you see with the plants on their heads are sometimes on purpose.
There were hardly any plants in the water except for this one floating ‘garland’, and this chap made a point of going underneath it, to have it positioned on his neck, to present to his lady-love. He eventually got it right after several attempts, and I felt like they were now ‘married’, joined by the floating garland, amidst the cheers of my clapping.
I have always managed to get good sightings of leopards in the Kalahari and other parks, but no such luck with Kruger, having always just missed seeing it, or at such a distance that it is hardly a proper sighting. This particular trip, however, presented me with three beautiful specimens, the last being this little lady (see photo below) who seemed to be waiting for her mother. She sat in the tree, no more than four metres away, mostly just gazing at me. I sat there for hours, enjoying her presence.
Someone once described the look from a buffalo as, “You owe me money”, a perfect description I thought. In earlier years, I remember watching massive herds stampeding in the dust. Years later, on other visits, it seems as though these herds have disappeared. Fortunately, luck was on my side, and I came across some decent-sized herds on this trip.
From my time spent in Kruger, one thing is for sure: I will be back shortly! I fell totally in love yet again with this gem we have just hours away.
My parents, John and Ann, who taught my sisters and me the love and respect for wildlife, have a memorial bench at Lower Sabie camp. If you ever there, please sit down and have a beer with them.
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 AUTHOR
Passionate about Africa; Shirli’s energy, life, spirit and career revolve around the continent and its wildlife. Shirli cut her teeth in the world of advertising after art school, realising her forte was in the raw design field – added to this her love for wildlife and travel – she established her own design company called JADEWORKS, which has made a name for itself in the safari and tourism industry.
Photography was a natural evolution, and the more she experimented, the more she was captivated by the medium – the collaboration of design, travel and vision was initiated through the name of AFRICAALIVE.
She has travelled extensively in Africa and recently co-authored a photographic coffee table book called Africa’s Ultimate Safaris, in addition to becoming a co-owner and founder of THE WILDSIDE SAFARI COMPANY, an exciting new travel venture.
Opinion post: Written by Simon Espley, CEO of Africa Geographic
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF ZIMBABWE – EMMERSON MNANGAGWA
Attention: Your Excellency Emmerson Mnangagwa, president of Zimbabwe
As another shipment of wild-caught baby elephants from Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe jets out of Victoria Falls airport on Ethiopian Airlines to zoos and private collections in China, it’s surely time to call this for what it is: Just plain evil.
This is not a conservation or ‘sustainable utilisation’ issue – the removal of this quantity of elephants will certainly not impact significantly on wild elephant populations, or alleviate the claimed pressure from ‘too many’ elephants on vegetation in Hwange. This is also not about what is permissible under CITES regulations.
No, this is quite simply about people in positions of authority abusing their power to do each other favours. This is about return favours between high-level people in Zimbabwe and China – “you approve this transaction and I will throw in a few baby elephants for your entertainment” sort of thing. These baby elephants are trinkets on the arms of people who do not care about brand Zimbabwe or the dignity or well-being of individual creatures.
If you are not well-advised on how elephants fare in zoos, this quote is from Peter Stroud, the former curator of the Melbourne Zoo from 1998-2003, who was involved in sourcing elephants from Thailand:
“There is now abundant evidence that elephants do not and cannot thrive in zoos,” Stroud says. “Young elephants will never develop naturally as socially and ecologically functioning beings in zoos. They will face a very long and very slow process of mental and physiological breakdown resulting inevitably in chronic physical and mental abnormality, disease and premature death.”
Moving aside from the moral issue, does it make business sense to endanger your tourism industry, just to keep this barbaric practice going? Zimbabwe is a beautiful and diverse country, with good wildlife populations, fantastic lodges and warm, welcoming people. If you have any doubt about how the world of safari-goers feels about this practice of selling baby elephants to zoos, why not ask them? Use social media to reach out – and ask them. Then get clever people to quantify the negative response into likely ongoing loss of tourism business. You decide if the cost is worth the supposed benefit.
If hugely important commercial and political agreements between Zimbabwe and China are dependent on baby elephants being tossed in as by-products, then perhaps you need to ask yourself just how serious China is about Zimbabwe in the first place.
Mr President, your recent rise to power provides a unique opportunity to rid Zimbabwe of this cancer – this morally bankrupt notion that everything is for sale – even baby elephants. Perhaps it’s time to give this issue your attention, and to take action? Zimbabwe’s tourism industry would certainly benefit if you took action and drew a line in the sand. Please, Mr President.
The vast and remote Niassa National Reserve in northern Mozambique is a sprawling mass of miombo woodland, savannah, granite inselbergs, wetlands, river floodplains and riverine forest. Despite its remote location, the hand of man impacts heavily on this wilderness.
A recent study by James R Allan et al, published in the PARKS Journal, found that some 108 km² of forest has been destroyed between 2001 and 2014, which is almost 1% of the 42,000 km² protected area. The reserve has also suffered at the hands of commercial poaching, with elephant populations plummeting by more than 70%. In 2012 there were 12,000 elephants; in 2016 only 3,500 remained.
Most encouragingly, the report suggests that Niassa still has the potential to support tens of thousands of elephants and 1,000 lions, as the vast majority of the ecosystem is intact.
The 1% loss of forest within the reserve over the 14-year study period is lower than losses in neighbouring regions (2%) and the two northern Mozambique provinces (5.7%) during the same period. Most of the losses occurred due to agriculture and settlement along roads.
Although forest loss is always a source of concern, the relatively low percentage loss in this instance is good news in the broader African context, where forest loss is five times the global average. The authors report that Niassa’s protected area status has helped save it from large-scale land clearing that has plagued outside areas, despite the fact that that forest governance in Mozambique is generally weak.
Niassa National Reserve is Mozambique’s largest protected area, spanning 42,000 square kilometres, and is home to approximately 40,000 people legally living in 40 villages within its boundaries. These isolated people have no access to jobs and have historically eked out a subsistence lifestyle from the bush. They fish, gather honey and hunt for bushmeat, skins and ivory. They also grow tobacco and food crops, which are raided daily by wild animals. Villagers are frequently attacked and sometimes killed, by crocodiles, hippos, elephants and lions.
The study found that the reserve’s diverse miombo woodland habitat is still intact, and with proper investment in best practice management could support large assemblages of megafauna. Though rampant poaching has impacted wildlife – particularly elephants – residual wildlife populations could recolonise.
Other threats to Niassa include artisanal mining, land-use change, bushmeat poaching, commercial poaching, wildfires, climate change, and selective logging.
The authors say that given the potentially substantial benefits to biodiversity conservation and broader societal goals, investing in the effective management of Niassa should be a global conservation priority. There are very few places remaining on the planet that can hold populations of large wildlife in the tens of thousands, and Niassa Reserve, with its connection to Selous Game Reserve in southern Tanzania, is one of these places.
On December 22, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit upheld the conservation mandate of the Endangered Species Act, supporting the need to rigorously analyse applications to import hunting trophies of species threatened with extinction.
This federal court order, coming only weeks after President Trump tweeted that he was reconsidering the agency’s decision to allow imports of elephant and lion trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia, means that those recent decisions by the agency are invalid.
Anna Frostic, managing attorney for wildlife litigation for The Humane Society of the United States, said, “The federal government must carefully consider the science demonstrating that trophy hunting negatively impacts the conservation of imperilled species. We strongly urge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take immediate action to rescind its unlawful decisions to liberalise elephant and lion trophy imports.”
The Court also held that the agency must take public comment on any blanket decisions to allow or prohibit trophy imports based on individual countries management plans.
China’s complete ban on ivory trade went into effect Sunday, officials said, a major step forward in Beijing’s efforts to rein in what was once the world’s largest market for illegal ivory.
“From today… the buying and selling of elephant ivory and goods by any market, shop or vendor is against the law!” the forestry ministry said on its official account on Chinese social media platform Weibo.
“From now on, if a merchant tells you ‘this is a state-approved ivory dealer’… he is duping you and knowingly violating the law.”
The ministry added that the ban also applied to online sales and souvenirs purchased abroad. According to the Xinhua state news agency, a partial ban had already resulted in an 80% decline in seizures of ivory entering China. Domestic prices for raw ivory are down 65%, it said.
The total domestic ban was announced at the end of last year. By this March, Xinhua reported, 67 factories and shops involved in China’s ivory trade had closed. The remaining 105 were expected to close Sunday.
China had previously banned imports of all ivory and ivory products acquired before 1975, after pressure to restrict a trade that sees thousands of elephants slaughtered every year.
African ivory is highly sought after in China, where it is seen as a status symbol, and used to fetch as much as $1,100 a kilogram. Poaching in Africa has seen the elephant population fall by 110,000 over the last 10 years to just 415,000, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Despite an overall fall in poaching, Africa’s elephant population has declined in part because of continued illegal killing, said a report this year by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Peter Flack’s (“South African lawyer, business man and hunter”) recent piece in the Daily Maverick, titled “It is canned killing, not hunting, that hampers conservation efforts” (17 December 2017) offers a hunter’s perceived threats to conservation in South Africa (and beyond):
1. Canned hunting;
2. hybrid breeding of target species; and
3. the animal rights movement.
Dealing with those claims seriatim:
Canned hunting
How can ‘canned’ possibly be a major threat to conservation on the basis advanced by Flack; namely, the absence of fair chase – where in theory, the hunter’s quarry has a (limited) chance to evade its own unnatural death? What on Earth does fair chase have to do with conservation? Whether a target is fairly chased or not, it still bleeds and dies and is removed from the environment. On the contrary, there is an argument that the canned hunting of captive-bred lions causes less damage to lion conservation in one respect than hunting wild lions, with all the damage the latter causes to pride dynamics. I am not hereby endorsing the hunting of wild lions – rather I am pointing out the shortfalls in Flack’s logic.
No, the real objection that Flack has to canned hunting is that it is a reputational threat to the existence, “good reputation” [sic] and profitability of the whole hunting industry. He fears that the increasing public disgust ‘canned’ is causing is pulling down the whole trophy hunting industry with it.
We should not forget the negative conservation implications of ‘canned’ (the hunting and lion bone trade) due to its lack of any credible proven positive conservation contribution or conservation need.
Indeed the cross-breeding of species to produce mutant freaks for the hunting industry merely underlines the threat that hunting poses to wildlife.
If the breeders will do anything to grasp at the almighty dollar then this supports our view that hunting is not about conservation at all, but is driven by commercial profiteering.
Animal rights
It is popular in hunting circles to blame ‘animal rightists’ for hunting’s shortcomings and to throw epithets like ‘radical, extremist, and a threat to conservation.’ But these labels assume that hunting is conservation. The animal welfare movement certainly damages the hunting industry, but whether it damages conservation depends on the proven truth of hunting’s animal welfare claims, and the falsity of hunting propaganda. The truth is always subversive of an entity built upon lies.
Accordingly, we would contend that the three major threats to conservation in Africa are:
1. The unrelenting growth of the human population is devouring the wilderness and causing massive habitat loss for wildlife.
2. The lamentable failure of African governments to devote available resources to protecting wilderness and existing wildlife populations.
3. The hunting industry. Not only does the hunting industry inflict massive damage upon wildlife populations in Africa, but by expanding its profitable business model of breeding wildlife species as alternative livestock, the industry is effectively changing the land-use from the serious business of producing food for the nation, to mere entertainment.
Is it really in the national interest that vast tracts of land which represent food security are being converted into providing hunting entertainment for a wealthy elite?
Compare the three items above that Flack contends are the major threats to conservation with our own. We doubt if there is a single conservation scientist in the world who would agree that the Flack list is defensible.
The assertion is made by Flack that the “1977” trophy hunting ban implementation in Kenya and Botswana’s move to ban trophy hunting in 2014 have been “manifest disasters” for wildlife because of the loss of trophy hunting’s claimed ‘benefits’ – an oft repeated pro-hunting mantra.
Scientists conducting a 2009 study (“Effects of human – livestock – wildlife interactions on habitat in an eastern Kenyan rangeland”) – they believe the surge in domestic livestock is predominantly accountable for the drop in Kenya’s wildlife population – the three main causes cited for the drop in wildlife numbers are illegal poaching, larger numbers and ranges of domestic livestock, plus changing land use patterns on the ranches. There is no mention of trophy hunting’s absence as a cause/effect for the decline in Kenya’s wildlife since the ban was implemented in 1979.
Is Kenya an example of what will happen if trophy hunting is banned in a country? No, it is not. Kenya would seem to be an example of poor land management, poaching and wanton over-grazing, based on a culture where a man’s wealth and social status is directly linked to owning large herds of cattle, which dominate the grazing available to the detriment of wildlife.
Botswana’s tourism figures surpassed 2 million in 2016, so clearly there is demand within Botswana for non-consumptive tourism (and long may it continue).
In support of his ‘hunting is a saviour’ arguments, Flack states “some simple, scientifically established facts” including the statement at point 5 of his article: “…those [endangered species] that had been hunted most assiduously had recovered best, for example … rhinoceroses …” So, the claim is hunting saved the rhinoceros (referring to ‘Operation Rhino’ in the 1960s no doubt) and by logical extension of this claim, “assiduously” hunting and killing endangered species is a guaranteed saviour.
However, it is also a ‘fact’ that unregulated and excessive hunting pre-‘Operation Rhino’ overwhelmingly contributed to the decimation and plight of rhinoceros in the first place:
“South African populations of black and white rhinos (subspecies C. s. simum), both of which had been nearly extinct in the year 1900 due to uncontrolled hunting…” (“Sustainable rhino horn production at the pointy end of the rhino horn trade debate,” Taylor et al., Biological Conservation: Vol. 216, page 60 – 68, December 2017).
So, any claims that hunting was the saviour of the rhinoceros as a ‘fact’ are somewhat disingenuous. Hence, any claims that “assiduously” hunting therefore must be endured as the saviour of all endangered species should be treated with incredulity.
The Wild Shots Outreach programme began just over two years ago in November 2015. The programme aims to give students from disadvantaged communities that border the Greater Kruger National Park area in South Africa the opportunity to experience the wonder of the wild and immortalise moments through the lens of a camera. The majority of these students have never been to a national park or reserve before.
The programme is based in Hoedspruit, which allows the students to visit the famous Kruger National Park. Since its inception, 32 projects have been run, encompassing a total of 291 students.
This initiative is genuinely sensational, and Africa Geographic is proud to be able to showcase these students’ photos and thoughts of their experience.
CHEYEZA KHUMALO Cheyeza is 16 years old. She attended a Wild Shots Outreach course in Selati Game Reserve as part of Selati’s “Bush Buddies” programme fostering links between Zivulo Senior School, a local government school, and Penryn College.
“The lion is my favourite animal. It was so exciting to see one and take some photos. Africa’s wild places are the best places you can go to experience nature at its best. Wildlife photography is a thrilling experience. It makes you feel alive.”
BRIDGET MOKOERA Bridget is 13 years old and attends Hoedspruit Hoerskool. This is a new government school serving Hoedspruit and the surrounding communities. Bridget and her Wild Shots Outreach group did their game drive in a wildlife estate near Hoedspruit.
“I feel that conservation and our wild places are critical. I like taking photos because of the story behind each photograph.”
DAN MAKUBELA Dan is 13 years old. He attended a residential Wild Shots Outreach course for the children of staff from Tanda Tula Safari Camp in the Timbavati Game Reserve. Even though his father Erick works at the lodge, this was Dan’s first visit to a game reserve.
“I feel very happy about my experience as it is the first time I have been. I enjoyed everything we did with the cameras – I can get good shots now. My favourite animal is the elephant. They have power and are tough.”
The students experience a very practical, hands-on course, where they start with learning camera basics and how to use the controls. After that, they build up their knowledge with more advanced techniques and settings, such as learning about shutter and aperture priority. Once the course is complete, they set off into the wilderness to put their photographic knowledge and skills to the test.
FAITH KHOSA Faith attends Southern Cross School in Hoedspruit, where the original pilot for the Wild Shots Outreach course was run. At 18 years old, her ambition is to be a lawyer specialising in conservation.
“I feel like we are losing Africa’s wild places. The wilderness and the animals need saving. I like taking photographs because it helps people see things the way I see them. I loved learning about the camera beyond the auto button.”
LUCKY RAPITSI Lucky took part in the Wild Shots Outreach course in May 2016. Lucky, who is 26 years old, now works as a photojournalist at the local newspaper in Hoedspruit. He also assists with residential Wild Shots Outreach courses.
“Wild Shots Outreach changed my life. I didn’t know how to operate a camera before, and I knew nothing about conservation. I have always had the ambition of educating the youth about what is happening around South Africa and through Wild Shots Outreach, I was able to realise my dream. From my experience, I now know that the animals we have are our heritage and that they will provide jobs for our youth in the future.”
Through the experience of the Wild Shots Outreach programme, the students can better appreciate and understand the value of wildlife and the wilderness of the national parks and reserves. Even though they live just a few kilometres from the Greater Kruger, many of them have never stepped inside the reserve nor seen a wild animal before going on the course. Just from looking at their photos and reading their comments, it is clear that the programme has had a positive impact on their lives.
PRINCES NYATHI Princes is 12 years old. She took part in a residential Wild Shots Outreach course for the children of staff from Umlani Bush Camp in the Timbavati. Her mother works in the kitchen at the lodge, but Princes had never been on a game drive before her Wild Shots Outreach course. “Conservation is the best because it can keep our wild animals safe. I want to share my photographs because my friends have not seen wild animals.”
PROUD NDLOVU
Proud is a 16-year-old student in grade 11 at Phendulani High School, Acornhoek. This is the second year that a group from this school has taken the Wild Shots Outreach course.
“Going on the game drive is a dream come true. It doesn’t happen to kids like us. I never liked conservation before as it was just a theory and we never had a chance to experience it. Now I am starting to understand conservation.”
RICKY TIBANE
Ricky is 15-years-old and in grade 10 at Pendulani High School, Acornhoek. His principal, Lorraine Kubayi is very keen for her learners to take the Wild Shots Outreach course. She feels that Wild Shots is developing confidence in her learners.
“I enjoyed all the Wild Shots lessons. Rhinos are my favourite animals because they are one of the Big 5 and they bring tourists to our country. I like photography because it makes the animal to be well known and makes nature even more beautiful.”
SARAH KHUMALO
At 17 years old, Sarah attended the Wild Shots Outreach course at NP Mathabela Secondary School in Greenvalley. This was the second year that Wild Shots have visited the school.
“I enjoyed the game drive because I could admire the animals and see them with my own eyes. Africa has the best wild places, and they attract tourists to our country. More young people need to be aware of conservation so that more can be involved.”
The programme helps to make students aware of their own unique abilities and that they have what it takes to acquire new skills and create stunning photos of wildlife and the natural world. By holding exhibitions and publishing their photographs, the students’ self-esteem and aspirations grow.
SIKHULILE NGWENYA
Sikhulile is 17 years old and in grade 11 at Frank Magkinyane High School, Ludlow.
“I enjoyed taking pictures and using the camera properly, such as changing the ISO. I am really happy about conservation so long as the future generations get to see the wild animals. I wish many more children could do the Wild Shots Outreach course and explore their talent.”
THAROLLO SHAI
Tharollo is 16 years old and took part in a Wild Shots Outreach course with her friends from Relebogile School in Namagale, near Phalaborwa. Sefapane Lodges and Safaris hosted the course.
“I enjoyed learning to freeze the action most. I want a career in conservation when I finish school. I feel unhappy because some of our animals are living in unsafe places.”
VAN ROOY SONDLANE
Van Rooy is 26 years old and works as an art assistant with the Seeds of Light NGO. He was part of a group of young leaders from the Acornhoek community chosen for a specially designed Wild Shots Outreach course.
“I want to use my photography to send out a message. All people must be aware of our wildlife and conservation. I am going to use photography in my art and my art teaching.”
VUSI MATHE
Vusi is 18 years old and took the Wild Shots Outreach course at Madizi High School. They did their game drive in Sabi Sands and were featured in a video made by Beautiful News. His group attended the Wild Shots Wildlife Photography conference in Cape Town in September 2017.
“The best thing was the game drive, but I loved learning to use the camera. We have to conserve our wildlife for future generations. I want to work for Wild Shots one day.”
Mike Kendrick is the founder and director of Wild Shots Outreach. Mike is an experienced senior leader in education, teacher of Life Sciences and Photography, and outreach specialist. He has run 32 courses with 291 graduates since starting the programme in late 2015. He is a published photographer at international and national level. Publications include Africa Geographic, Travel Africa, Wanderlust, Hello magazine, Beeld and Wild magazine. He is the photographer of choice for NGOs such as Elephants Alive, Conservation Action Trust, Cheetah Outreach and Birdlife International SA and a photographic tutor for guide training agencies such as Bushwise. Wild Shots Outreach recently won the SANParks Kudu Award for the best environmental education programme.
The main motivation put forward for killing elephants in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe is the argument that they destroy the plants, and this is accepted by many as a problem. Let’s discuss whether this argument has any validity, and whether this argument for culling is really more about sourcing more ivory for the ivory trade, or to justify higher quotas for nearby hunting areas.
Actual damaged areas – waterholes
Let us look at the argument that pumped waterholes or permanent water is stimulating elephant damage of Hwange’s vegetation in a ‘catastrophic’ manner, and that it is a man-made problem that now needs a man-made solution, and that culling is a necessity.
In Hwange there are a variety of habitats and vegetation types, with only a limited number of waterholes. In the dry season the elephants are normally found drinking at these, so there are huge areas of the park at this time with no elephants. So even if damage was done to areas with pumped water, the other areas have no problem.
Now let us look at the areas with pumped water. Some open areas near water are vlei lines, or calcrete soils, which would have few trees in any case – with pumped water or not, and with elephants or none. So one should not confuse these open areas with elephant damage. Now even if you do have elephant damage around a waterhole there can be benefits to grazing animals as grass grows better in open areas. Research in Hwange has found that soils near waterholes are heavily fertilised by elephants, and this benefits many smaller and unnoticed plants in the rainy season.
Normally a pan has a natural open area that has few trees, and only at a certain distance from there will you get the tree line. Damage to the tree line is dependent on the species, depth of soil and distance from the pan, but if you come back in say, 10 years, you will see almost the same picture you saw before.
So if we work on an average of 100 metres we can try and work out the zone of realistic damage, if there is any. In reality it would be a ring as there are few trees naturally occurring by the waterholes. In some cases if there is a vlei, the tree line may be so far that tree damage is not even an issue.
In some places, trees like camelthorns, mopanes and the combretum families can be heavily pruned, but seem to survive anyway – although to the uneducated person it might look bad.
So for just the rough calculations on the 14,600 sq km park, I will use 75 waterholes as an example, many of which have no tree damage.
Assuming a ring of 100m around each waterhole, this equates to an area of roughly 7,800 square meters for each waterhole. Times this by 75 we get 585,000 square meters (or 0.585 sq km). This equates to a very small figure of potential elephant damage. Even if we double that to one square kilometre, this equates to roughly 0.0068% of the park that might suffer tree damage from elephants.
So, to be sure you understand my calculation and logic, less than 1% of Hwange vegetation has been potentially damaged by elephants. And there are questions as to whether this is in fact damage, as there are benefits to the ecology of having highly trampled and impacted areas.
Endemic plants
Looking at the number of plant species stretching from Hwange up to the Victoria Falls, the last number I got was 1,334 species. Even the best botanist and guides know only a small portion of these, and you will notice much of the research on elephant damage is concentrated only on a couple of species of trees that are not even endangered inside or outside of Hwange. No one pays attention to the ecology of many of these other plants.
Someone might argue that there is a possibility that some plants might be endangered and that elephants are a threat to them. Well, let us look at endemic plants in the area (some may just be subspecies). These include Aristida brainii, Danthiopsis petiolata, Euphorbia fortissima, and Jamesbrittenia zambesica, all in the rocky gorges below Victoria Falls, far away from Hwange and in an area unlikely to be impacted by elephants.
There is a grass called Eragrostis glischra that is found in mopane woodland, rocky places and Kalahari sand in the north and west of Zimbabwe, and possibly in Hwange. Elephants are not a problem for this grass, and its range extends well out of the park and into areas closer towards Kariba. So we can see there are no endemic plants threatened by elephant numbers in Hwange and up to the Zambezi.
Bearing in mind that elephants are large animals and many people who visit the park are not used to the sort of damage present in all bushveld ecosystems – they being more used to manicured gardens in their neighbourhoods. So broken / fallen trees and heavily pruned bushes can be a shock and appear to be a bigger problem than they really are. Most studies on elephant damage have concentrated on big tree species such as teak, mopane, combretums, marula and a few other trees near waterholes.
The damage measured is normally only measured close to waterholes and little work done miles away.
I still remember helping Zimparks years ago on a project which was basically titled “Elephant damage on teak trees”. Before the research was started the assumption had been made that the elephants were causing damage to the teak forests, and the research was intended to prove this. One soon saw that they did very little damage, and did not seem to favour these trees for food. So the elephants had a bad rap and the research was launched on a false assumption!
Some researchers have noted little change in the vegetation since the 1960s in Hwange and some areas seem to be more wooded than before. The elephant impact on trees helps stop bush fire damage, fertilises the soil, and spreads seeds etc. – so tree impact has its ecological benefits. A good example is the spread of camelthorn trees and ilala palms. A very interesting example of seed dispersal is a large albida tree at Ngamo, no doubt brought there from 20 plus or so kilometres away by elephants and the seeds germinating in elephant dung.
Conclusion
So in conclusion, in my opinion, elephants are not a problem for Hwange’s vegetation and this should not be used as an excuse for any culling in the park. I would also encourage those who visit Hwange to go not only in the dry season to see how well the areas around the waterholes recover during the rains, as dry season visits can give an unrealistic desert experience, in which the casual visitor can get a distorted view of the real situation on the ground.
I believe all those who push for the culling of elephants in Hwange should be punished with a 24-hour game count in February or in the rainy season and in their report list all the small plant species that are around the waterhole. Hopefully, they won’t die of boredom or sleep due to there being no elephants around at that time of year!
Research has revealed that the decision by a group of African wild dogs to get up from rest and hit the road to hunt as a collective pack is a democratic one, albeit with a twist. Votes are cast by way of sneezes.
Yes, those dogs that wish to participate in the vote do so by sneezing, and, just like in company meetings, once a certain number (quorum) of votes has been reached (sneezes made) the pack will obey the results of the vote and move on.
But that’s not all….
It appears that higher ranking members of the pack have to sneeze less often in order to achieve quorum.
So, for example, a high-ranking pack member may have to sneeze just three times to achieve the same result as a lower ranked member that may have to sneeze 10 times.
This is a form of democracy, modified to reflect rank. Persistent lower ranking dogs can achieve the desired results if they are persistent, and sneeze often enough. As such, the ‘will of the group’ may override dominant preferences when the consensus of subordinates is sufficiently great.
Wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) are among the most ruthless and efficient of hunters, achieving excellent success rates because of high levels of cooperation amongst pack members. They also have one of the most peaceful of pack dynamics, with a dominant (alpha) female and male governing reproduction and other pack members assisting to keep babies safe and fed.
The use of voting mechanisms is seen in several other species, including meerkats, capuchin monkeys, and honeybees. The exhalation of air to communicate is also seen in dingoes and coyotes, but it appears that wild dogs are the only dogs to use ‘sneeze voting’ in decision making.
The research was conducted in Botswana’s Okavango Delta by Reena H. Walker and her colleagues from the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust, and the Universities of Swansea, UK, New South Wales, Australia and Brown University, US.
How often can you say that to take photographs of your subjects you have to lie down on the ground? Well, how else would you be able to get a ground-level perspective of the life of an ant, or peer in close to fully appreciate the form of a spider? Most people don’t. We walk past and step over these creatures without a second thought of the incredible and alien-like world all around us.
Macro photography is an essential part of wildlife photography, shining a spotlight on the smaller lifeforms that are not only essential to our ecosystem but, quite simply, are downright incredible to photograph! Whether a beginner or a seasoned professional, here are some tips and pointers to ensure that you get the best results from your macro photography.
SPEED
A good, sound rule: the smaller your subject is, the faster it will move. You can get away with low shutter speed for elephants, but with birds, you have to crank it up quite a bit more, and the same goes for the phenomenal insect kingdom.
Ants crawling across a tree branch might not seem fast at first, but when you get in close, your perspective changes and trying to capture one in sharp focus can be very tricky. Throw your lens in front of dragonflies, bees or grasshoppers, and again, you need to be quick with your reactions and have a very high shutter speed to freeze the moment. Of course, this requires a good amount of light, which takes us nicely to the next point…
LIGHT
Light is your best friend, though a simple spot of shade or wisp of cloud can dramatically alter your shot. Sunny days are ideal because insects tend to be more active in the heat, and you can maintain optimal camera settings.
However, always keep an eye out for incoming clouds and shadows – in particular, your own or of others that will cast a shadow over your subject. Flash rings are great for still life, but natural lighting for wildlife is infinitely preferred so as not to flatten your subject with an overabundance of a front-facing light source.
FLEXIBILITY
Tripods or monopods are fantastic for stabilising your camera, but when it comes to wildlife, forget about it. You need to be flexible and quick! A butterfly isn’t going to sit waiting for you to adjust your tripod legs, so you need to practise holding your camera steady, getting into comfortable positions quickly and controlling your breathing. Composure, patience and plenty of practice is the trick.
APERTURE
Most people, when starting macro photography, jump straight to their shallowest depth of field, an f2.8 or f1.4, but this is unnecessary and can become a hindrance. First and foremost, that shallow depth of field, when used so close, will often slice your subject into three sections with the plane of focus being minuscule.
You want to show off the subject in its entirety and not just a segment, so instead try an f8 or even an f16 to give a broader depth of field to your photography.
Your background is often so far away comparatively that it will remain nicely blurred, but it means you’ll get more of your subject in focus and allows more breathing room if it is moving. Of course, this once again links into the lighting of the scene: the lighter, the better.
PERSPECTIVE
This is the one crucial point that I’m adamant about getting across to any photographer I’m teaching macro to.
When photographing a lion, would you photograph it from above at a 45-degree angle? Of course not, you’d want to get in front of it and be as low as possible to give it a powerful and grandiose appearance – and the same applies here.
Shooting something from above can make it seem inferior, and this is the opposite of what we want to do. So getting down to ground- or eye-level is always preferential.
NOT JUST FOR WILDLIFE…
Macro photography, beyond wildlife, is a great way to explore and represent other subjects. Dewdrops clinging to spider webs, the texture of tree bark, or the vein structures of a backlit leaf can result in absolutely stunning photographs.
Commercially speaking, the details of a wedding dress or engravings on engagement rings are always better represented through the medium of macro, blurring out the unnecessary background and bringing out the artistry.
Whether you live out in the African bush or a bustling city, there are opportunities everywhere for interesting and versatile photographs. The great thing about today’s digital technology is that you don’t even need a special camera or lens to get involved – most cameras on phones have an impressive ability to focus on subjects up close and personal.
It’s all down to how you use it, but remember, by getting down and dirty, you’ll raise the love for all things often ignored.
Sam 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.
Japan’s poorly regulated domestic ivory market and efficient transnational criminal networks are among the factors driving the illegal export of ivory products to other countries. Due to this continued absence of effective regulation and law enforcement, two major conservation groups are calling for the closure of Japan’s domestic ivory market – in accordance with CITES.
In a report released on Wednesday by TRAFFIC and WWF, researches found that ivory products have become increasingly popular among antique and tourist markets where unregistered ivory is bought for illegal exports.
With China announcing that it would shut down all ivory trade by the end of this year, concerns have been raised that Japan’s failure to prevent illegal ivory exports will undermine China’s prospective ban and the efforts to end the global trafficking of elephant tusks.
Surveys were conducted in physical ivory markets, and physical and online auction platforms between May and September 2017, while antique dealers as buyers of privately owned ivory were also interviewed during the same period.
Between 2011 and 2016, a total of 2.42 tonnes of ivory was illegally exported from Japan, most of which was intercepted going to China.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) bans the international trade in ivory to protect endangered African elephants and has called for the closure of domestic ivory markets in all member states.
Japan, however, says ivory products traded domestically were not acquired illegally. The government has approved a proposal this year to tighten registration requirements and inspections for more than 8,000 ivory retailers and manufacturers in the country. However, many campaigners feel that this is inadequate and that stricter measures should be put in place.
“Our findings show that without doubt, Japan’s largely unregulated domestic ivory market is contributing to illegal trade – a condition considered by Parties to CITES to warrant much stricter regulation and even the closure of the market,” said Tomomi Kitade, one of the authors of the report.
“It is imperative that Japan’s role within international illegal ivory trade be recognised, and urgent steps are taken to address the on-going illegal export and the regulatory gaps that are facilitating such criminal activity,” he added.
Online sites, such as Yahoo! Japan, are one of the major contributors in the purchasing of worked ivory products, with a recent seizure made by China’s Customs authority in 2016 involving 1,639 pieces of worked ivory and carved tusks.
With this substantial evidence, the report has urged the Japanese government to raise public awareness about the controls on illegal ivory and to tighten up on the controls at customs to prevent items such as ivory hanko stamps and figurines from leaving the country. It goes on to say that with China shutting down its legal ivory trade on 31st December, Japan and other key countries should follow suit.
Comment from the editors: For the Maasai people, cattle are considered extremely valuable and form an intrinsic part of their daily lives. Their cattle are at the centre of everything, providing them with food and materials, as well as playing an important role in their rituals and representing their wealth and status. For those of us living in urban areas, it is important to understand the Maasai culture, where the need to protect and care for their cattle is paramount. Stephanie, who is married to a Maasai warrior, recently shared with us her own unique insight and thoughts about how the Maasai protect their cattle. In this post she tells us about the problems these rural farmers face with predators that kill their cattle:
I have lived with the Maasai now for six years and have in that time witnessed several incidents of human-animal conflict.
Most of the time it is lone hyenas that break into the goat pen at night and kill and injure at random. They did so at our boma in January 2016 – two sheep were half-eaten and two others injured so badly that we had to put them out of their misery. A third sheep got away with just a bitten tail.
On another occasion, we had a leopard kill livestock, and just recently what is believed to be wild dogs attacked several goats while they were out browsing in the afternoon. And on the morning of November 19th, 2017, my husband woke me with news of two calves having been eaten by hyenas the night before at our local waterhole.
I am recounting here what I have gathered happened on that evening, after questioning my husband and other Maasai and after visiting the site.
I was told that two hyenas killed two calves that were separated from their herd while out grazing in the afternoon. A farmer who lives close to the waterhole heard the cattle scream and alerted a Maasai warrior by phone about the attack by what he thought to be hyenas. Two warriors came running, but by the time they got to the scene, the calves were dead. They heard two hyenas calling from a distance and what they believed to be a third hyena that took flight as they approached. When they gave chase, the animal fled into a nearby burrow.
The Maasai warriors, being fiercely protective of their cattle and not willing to let what they thought had killed their livelihood go unharmed, started digging up the burrow. They dug until the early hours of the morning and eventually, the animal (thought to be a hyena) fled from the safety of the burrow – and was unfortunately killed.
On being shown the scene and dead animal, I confirmed that the warriors had not killed a hyena, but an aardwolf.
To the untrained eye aardwolfs and hyenas may look similar, and yet aardwolfs are insectivorous and not capable of killing cattle – they don’t have the right jaw structure for the job. The regrettable truth is that this aardwolf was killed for a crime it did not commit.
This unfortunate incident shines a light on the fact that rural communities living amongst wildlife require wildlife education. The Maasai frequently encounter wildlife while herding their livestock and have in this way attained a traditional knowledge about it. An animal like the aardwolf, however, shy and nocturnal as it is, will not have often crossed paths with them, and if it did, it would have been mistaken – as in this incident – for a striped hyena. They have no means of knowing that an animal so similar in looks to one that frequently kills their livestock, only eats termites.
The world of the Maasai is changing at an alarming rate and with this they have come to understand that there is a need to adapt. Some of their traditions are these days left behind, yet others are harder to let go of. From my observations, I gather that there is confusion over what to hold on to and what to let go.
Retaliation for the loss of a goat or cow is ingrained in their culture – and yet I believe that their attitude towards wildlife is changing. They see that wildlife has become rare, as have attacks on their animals, and they are now shifting towards wanting to protect what is left.
I try whenever I can to influence them towards taking better care of their land and all living things within it. This is why I have created a campaign where I aim to educate a Maasai community in Tanzania about conservation and land management to inspire them to look after their land. By doing so, I hope to help them preserve their culture and the wilderness they live in.
To achieve these goals, I would like for four Maasai from our village (two chosen by me and two by the village) and myself to be trained in land management and sustainable grazing at the Mara Training Centre in Kenya. Any donation to our campaign will help us to get one step closer to achieve this goal.
A recent study has revealed that pangolin smugglers are constantly opening up new global trade routes every year to avoid law enforcement agencies.
In light of the recent, world’s largest, pangolin seizure where 11.9 tonnes of scales were confiscated from a ship in Shenzhen, China, the new research highlights the challenge of tackling the trade of the world’s most trafficked mammal.
Released by the wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC and IUCN on Friday, the comprehensive analysis reveals that an average of 20 tonnes of pangolins and their parts have been trafficked internationally every year, with the smugglers using 27 new routes for their illegal trade every year. Smuggling networks have become highly mobile and adaptable to shifting and creating new routes.
All eight pangolin species (four Asian and four African) are prohibited from international trade under CITES. However, this has not stopped the poaching of this mammal where, between 2010 and 2015, a combined minimum of 120 tonnes of whole pangolins, parts and scales were confiscated by law enforcement agencies involved with cross-border seizures.
“This paints a grave picture of a phenomenal quantity of pangolins being trafficked and very nimble traffickers who adapt fast, likely in response to enforcement actions,” said Kanitha Krishnasamy, Acting Regional Director for TRAFFIC in Southeast Asia. “It shows traders are indiscriminate about the new routes they choose and any legitimate means of transport is fair game for them to exploit.”
The findings show that 67 countries/territories were implicated with the recorded 1,270 cross-border pangolin seizures.
China was the most common destination in terms of large-quantity shipments of pangolin scales while whole pangolins were mostly traded within Asia, with Indonesia seizing the largest volume during the six-year period of the analysis. Minor shipments of pangolin body parts mainly went to the U.S., however, the quantities entering the U.S. were not comparable to the massive shipments trafficked through Africa and Asia.
“This report highlights again the alarming global nature of trafficking in pangolins and their parts, and is particularly concerning because it shows that trafficking takes place through highly mobile networks that use shifting trade routes,” says Daniel Challender, Chair of the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group and an author of the report. “Concerted action is needed along the entire trafficking routes identified to ensure illegal trade no longer poses a threat to pangolin populations.”
The report urged all countries implicated to review laws and increase vigilance of pangolin trafficking, in particular those countries with low numbers of seizures, but implicated in many trafficking incidents.
Equestrian types tend to come with a few traits that, while charming to fellow horsey folk, are unbearably irritating to those not of a horsey nature. One such quirk is the devout belief that having ridden one way, you probably know – better than most – how to ride another. We also have an unwavering belief that we know exactly what to expect from most types of rides, regardless of whether or not we’ve participated.
Indeed, that was the case for me. I’ve ridden since the age of two when I was plonked onto the back of an obliging Shetland pony. Since then I’ve ridden eventers, dressage divas, highly-strung showjumpers, focused polo ponies, and wild ex-racehorses. So, when the opportunity arose to go on a horse safari in Botswana, I knew exactly what to expect (not because I’d ever done one before of course, but because I’m a horse person).
I thought we’d be riding around safe game only – meerkats would probably be the only carnivores we’d encounter; the horses would be dead to the leg, gone to the world, and know exactly where to walk, where to stop, and where to trot (if indeed such speed was allowed). I also knew jolly well that this was to be a glorified trail ride – a bit boring perhaps, but an excellent opportunity for those all-important insta-snaps and an experience to supplement future conversations.
Or, so I thought.
Being a horse person, I insisted on taking my own gear: a lightweight ventilated helmet, jods, chaps, riding boots, gloves, and even a GoPro. My husband (himself a very experienced safari-goer and former guide) raised his eyebrows further north with each pristine piece of clothing I produced and folded carefully into my canvas bag. I should point out at this stage that our luggage allowance was minimal, but he knows better than to argue with a horse person. I could not have felt more ready for my impending horseback safari… I was not ready.
The evening before my ride we went on a game drive through Botswana’s Makgadikgadi salt pans, and amongst the abundance of wildlife we saw lions. As we sat and watched the sun set behind a huge male, his lady friend began to call.
“She’s calling to her mother,” our guide explained.
“Where is her mother?” I asked.
“Somewhere on the other side of the pans,” came the relaxed response as we watched the golden cat slink off towards the pans.
As we pulled up for our evening drinks a short while later, our guide checked carefully that neither lion was tucked behind the foliage nearby before releasing us from the vehicle. Still, in the haze of wine and excited lion chatter, we thought little more of it.
Horse safari day dawned with the pastel-infused skies that only Botswana can produce. We were travelling with our young daughter, so lengthy rides were off the table for me; I’d signed up instead for a sunset ride that evening.
We spent the morning on another drive, during which we enquired about the whereabouts of the lions we’d seen the previous night. Our guide wasn’t sure exactly where they were since they’re nocturnal and had moved overnight, but there was plenty more wildlife for us to see – happy hours were spent watching elephants feed on and destroy the trees at the edges of the pans.
Aren’t there lions out here?
When the time came for my ride, we were driven through an electric gate and up a drive to where the horses lived. I saw a smile play on the lips of the horse guide as he watched me hop from the 4×4 vehicle, GoPro strapped to the top of my helmet like evolution’s most dastardly attempt at an antenna.
Consummately professional though, he greeted me without so much as a snigger, and introduced me to my mount – a chestnut named Socks.
I felt rather smug to see that Socks looked every inch the trail horse, standing calmly as his girth was tightened, and not batting an eye at the strange contraption protruding from my head. I was busy congratulating myself on my correct intuitions about the ride when I realised that my guide, Levius, was heading for the gate through which we’d driven.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he rode into the park where we’d watched lions the night before, and where that very morning, our guide had been unable to confirm their location. I’d imagined a sedate amble behind the safety of the game fence, and now here we were, riding straight into lion country.
Suddenly, aware that I genuinely had no idea what to expect from the ride, I noticed a chunk missing from Socks’ ear; as we rode deeper into the reserve, it began to look increasingly jaw-shaped.
“Aren’t there lions out here?” I eventually squeaked, hoping I didn’t sound too terrified.
“Yes, there are,” came the cool response. “That’s why I have my banger.”
I glanced down to Levius’ hip, attached to which was a small, almost gun-like contraption.
“It makes a loud firing noise that frightens lions away,” he reassured me. “But the horses know when there are lions. They smell them, and they won’t want to go that way.”
I furtively scanned the horizon to ensure that we would spot the big cats with plenty of time for Levius’ banger to be deployed, should the need arise. If there were lions around, Socks had yet to smell them.
I’ve ridden many horses, and in my experience, most find plastic bags more terrifying than genuine danger. I desperately hoped that Socks’ intuition was more finely tuned. I felt confident that Levius had the faster mount, so if a lion did give chase dear old Socks and I were surely supper.
Levius, it turned out, hailed from a small village in Botswana and now guides for a company called Ride Botswana who operate between the Uncharted Africa camps here in the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, and routes through the Okavango Delta. He’d never been interested in horses until David Foot (the owner of Ride Botswana and safari guide) took him under his wing and taught him how to ride and how to guide. Still, he’s now every inch the horse person, with leather gaiters perfectly tailored to fit, and gloves that made me decide to upgrade my own.
To read more about the safari guide on horseback, continue reading below the advert
He’s also nothing that I’d expected a trail guide to be because he isn’t. He’s a safari guide who happens to do the job on horseback. There was none of the boredom I’d encountered on treks through the Welsh hills on family holidays. Levius loved his job, his horses, the area; he rode beautifully despite likening his style to that of a cowboy. His mount was a former racehorse intriguingly named Bon Jovi, and with plenty of spirit (horse person speak for ‘you’ll probably fall off’), but instead of pulling and hauling the thoroughbred, his hands remained soft and gentle – showing balance, kindness and confidence that many a more experienced rider lacks.
“Do you ever worry about lions coming for the horses during the night?” I queried, unable to shake the big cats from my mind.
“I sleep with my tent open so that I can hear,” he answered. “They are my babies, and I have to take care of them.”
Despite the dedicated care and commitment that Levius showers upon his steeds, he’ll admit to a close call where lions are concerned, telling me that he’d come out of his tent to check on the horses one night only to find a lion playing with a piece of tarpaulin. He assures me that his trusty banger did its job, seeing off the enormous cat, but it’s not an experience he’s keen to repeat.
“You know, we did see lions here last night,” I offered, concerned that he might not have realised they were in the area.
“Where were they?” he asked.
“Well, I’m not exactly sure, but one was under a palm tree,” I offered.
Levius’ face cracked almost open with a wicked grin as he gestured towards the landscape, which is punctuated every few metres by palm trees. It wasn’t, I suppose, a particularly helpful landmark to offer.
After some time riding through the grasslands, we came to the pans. The Makgadikgadi salt pans are the world’s most extensive salt pan system, and quite a sight to behold. Despite having ridden through the sea, river, woodland, countryside and much more, to ride across the pans was incomparable.
The vast, silent landscape could very well be likened to standing alone at the top of a ski slope and is almost exactly how I imagine it might be to stand on the surface of the moon. This was unlike any trail I’d ever ridden, and Levius dispelled my expectations once more by suggesting we pick up the pace. As we progressed through the horses’ gears, I saw Bon Jovi starting to get excited, but his gentle rider was unfazed, expertly guiding his mount instead of fighting him.
Socks, meanwhile, was also surprising me with his turn of speed and love of life, waiting for commands rather than merely following the horse in front, and offering a keenness rarely seen on trails and treks.
We reached the edge of the pans and slowed back to a walk as we proceeded through the grasslands; the guide and horses were fit enough to hit their strides straight away, while I did my best to conceal my lack of fitness. Taking pity on me, Levius paused alongside an aardvark hole, and kindly took his time to explain how they get utilised by a variety of different species.
Feeling fine, we continued through the grasslands, chatting as the sun began to sink through the sky, painting the horizon with strobes of orange and pink.
Through the splashes of colour and dust, we began to make out the shapes of wildebeest and zebra, making their way to congregate in the safety of the open for the night.
We rode towards the animals, and I was waiting for them to scatter, but they didn’t, and before long, we were almost upon them.
“They don’t worry about the horses,” explained Levius. “We can get much closer to them like this than in a vehicle.” So we were able to spend time with both species, watching their interactions and dynamics. While they were aware of our presence, they didn’t seem to mind it one bit, and it felt a wonderfully unobtrusive way to be around them.
Eventually, with the light fading, we left this intriguing mixed herd who’d welcomed us to join them and turned back towards the camp, taking advantage of a dirt track along which we could enjoy a final canter, the horses even faster in the direction of home. In a flurry of hot African dust, we reached the game drive vehicle in which my husband and daughter sat, waiting to meet us with drinks and an array of snacks. The car seemed so cumbersome after my adventure with Socks.
“What would have happened if we’d met a lion?” I felt suddenly brave enough to ask, now that the vehicle was within hopping distance.
“I’d have stood in front of it until it went away,” explained Levius.
“What if it didn’t go away?” I pressed.
“Then I’d have stood there for a very long time,” he smiled.
There remained one final question that I was reluctant to ask though, all too aware that when horses are business, the answer is rarely kind. “What happens to the horses when they can’t be used for safaris anymore?” I grudgingly enquired.
“They go to rest,” replies Levius, but he looked confused when my face fell. Understanding my dire assumption, my guide reassured me, “there’s a mare in Maun who’s in her thirties. She’s worked hard, so now she relaxes.”
My heart sang. I bade Socks farewell, seeing this brave, sweet horse in a new light as the horizon flashed its kaleidoscope of colours behind him. Gone was the trail horse I’d first imagined him to be. This Socks was brave, independent and capable of negotiating lion country with only a nicked ear.
To read more about the final leg of this horse riding safari, continue reading below the advert
As we watched Levius ride and lead the duo back to the safety of camp, I caught sight of a cat-shaped piece of gold in the distance.
“Lion!” I shrieked, at which my husband and our safari guide chortled in unison: “That’s a termite mound.”
I never did find out whether Socks’ ear was bitten by a lion, and I know that Levius would never have allowed such a thing to happen. Still, when I tell the story around dinner tables to fellow horse people, the ear was bitten fully off before brave Socks fought his way to freedom, or at the very least, a happy retirement in Maun.
As for the lions, I didn’t see them again, but I’m pretty darn sure that they were watching us for every step of the ride.
SIZE
Makgadikgadi Pans is a 16,000 km² network of natural salt pans and surrounding Kalahari Basin bushveld in Botswana. Together, these pans comprise one of the largest salt pan ecosystems in the world – with the Sowa, Nxai and Nwetwe pans being the largest individual pans.
The Makgadikgadi Pans National Park (3,900 km²) and Nxai Pan National Park (1,700 km²) together cover one-third of the Makgadikgadi Pans area. The two primary sources of seasonal water to the pans are the Boteti and Nata rivers.
HISTORY
The pans are the dried-up lake bed of the ancient Lake Makgadikgadi that once submerged the entire area. Human habitation is evident here since the early Stone age, and the area is rich in archaeological history, displaying tools and other remnants of early man.
Chapman’s Baobab, an iconic landmark of the Makgadikgadi landscape that has stood the test of time for nearly 4000 years, was made famous after a Makgadikgadi crossing by celebrated explored Dr David Livingstone in the 19th century. Unfortunately, the giant tree crashed to the ground on 7th January 2016 but is still regarded as an impressive sight. Other noteworthy icons are the rocky Kubu Island in Sua Pan and Baines baobabs in Nxai Pan.
FLORA
The salt pans themselves cannot support major plant life, and the only flora here is comprised of a very thin layer of blue-green algae. However, the dry salt pans are surrounded by salt marshes, grassland and shrubby savannah.
WILDLIFE
During the dry winter months, most wildlife will be found to the west of the Makgadikgadi Pans, near the Boteti River. After the first rains in November, the second largest zebra migration in Africa occurs as zebras and wildebeest move in an easterly direction, to the grassy areas north of the pans. Other large species found in the area include oryx, springbok, eland, red hartebeest, giraffes, elephants, lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas, white rhinos and wild dogs.
The pans attract large numbers of waterfowl when full of water, and are an essential habitat for one of only two breeding populations of greater flamingos in southern Africa.
SEASONS
Makgadikgadi sees a tremendous environmental and landscape change between the seasons. In the drier months, between April and November, the landscape is dry and arid with little life. During the rainy season, between November and March, the landscape is transformed into a thriving paradise for both flora and fauna.
TRAVEL
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.
The pans themselves are only accessible in the drier months. This attraction alone makes the months between April and November a more popular time to travel. However, January through March is popular as well – to witness the second largest migration of animals in Africa on the grassy plains north of the pans.
Pru’s Makgadikgadi Pans Accommodation
Camp Kalahari is a traditional safari camp on the fringes of the Makgadikgadi Pans. It is designed in the old, Meru-style of safari camps reminiscent of the pioneer explorers of the African continent. The camp has ten of these spacious, luxurious tents and is the perfect place to relax, unwind and cool off after a day exploring the hot and sweltering pans.
Activities here include bushwalking with local Bushmen, a visit to the famously fallen Chapman’s Baobab, and safaris to witness the last-surviving migration of animals in southern Africa.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Originally from England, Pru Allison first completed a degree in theatre before furthering her studies in animal behaviour. This proved a winning combination for the spectacle of the natural world when love brought her to Africa and a new home in Cape Town.
She’s written for a range of magazines in a variety of countries, and wildlife highlights so far include sitting with baby brown hyenas in their den in Namibia, meeting giant tortoises in Seychelles, finding snow leopards in the Himalayas, and following wolves in India.
Pru has ridden horses since the age of two, and can currently be found scouring tack shops for a helmet small enough to fit her baby daughter so she too can saddle up. You can follow her on her Instagram account.
Sourced from third-party site: News24, written by Simon Bloch
A new association, representing the interests of professional hunters opposed to hunting captive-bred lions, has been formed in South Africa.
Former Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa (Phasa) president Stewart Dorrington was elected as the body’s first chairperson.
Dorrington told News24 the mandate of the Custodians of Professional Hunting and Conservation South Africa (CPHCSA) was to “promote only ethical and responsible conservation-based hunting principles, such as hunting only under fair chase conditions”.
The formation of the new body followed an urgent meeting in Johannesburg on Wednesday, attended by some of the top guns in South African hunting circles.
It comes less than two weeks after constitutional and policy changes of PHASA (Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa) sent shock waves throughout the industry.
At its annual general meeting, PHASA members voted to reverse the body’s 2015 resolution and policy, which opposed promoting the hunting of captive-raised lions.
Following the decision, PHASA members, including seven past presidents, resigned en masse, with sponsors and internationally-recognised hunting organisations voicing their strong disapproval.
Several affiliate hunting bodies, including the Operators and Professional Hunting Associations of South Africa, the Namibia Professional Hunting Association, Boone and Crockett Club, and the Nordic Safari Club, immediately stripped PHASA of its membership status on the continent and abroad.
There had also been a growing number of outfitters and professional hunters who have brought the South African hunting industry into disrepute.
“The decision to form the CPHCSA was necessitated by PHASA’s unpopular decision last month. Fellow neighbouring countries’ associations, sponsors and many PHASA members voiced their disgust and condemnation of this inexplicable action,” Dorrington said.
“The launch of CPHCSA breathes new life into professional hunting and conservation, and we aim to restore the integrity of the vast majority of South African professional hunters,” he added.
Going on a safari in Africa means that you will encounter wild animals at some stage. Some of these animals will be dangerous, and all deserve your respect.
Here are 10 essential safari tips about wild animals to keep in mind:
1) They are wild! These are not tame theme park animals, or Disney channel characters. Even a small doe-eyed antelope or cute warthog can and will attack you if it feels threatened;
2) Most safari camps are unfenced and dangerous animals can (and do!) wander through the grounds, particularly at night;
3) Please listen to advice from camp staff and guides, and strictly adhere to safety precautions;
4) Don’t go wandering off on your own without a guide. Even walking to your room at night can be dangerous. Elephants and buffaloes are impossible to see after dark, even a few metres away. Don’t leave your room at night and avoid walking along river banks (crocodiles and hippos kill many people every year);
5) Observe animals silently and with a minimum of disturbance to their natural activities. Talking loudly and standing up on game drive vehicles can frighten the animals away, or even trigger an attack;
6) Never attempt to attract an animal’s attention. Don’t imitate animal sounds, clap your hands, pound the vehicle or throw objects. Please respect your guide’s judgement about proximity to predators and large animals like elephants. A vehicle driven too close can hinder a hunt or cause animals to abandon a hard-earned meal. It can also trigger a charge;
7) Litter tossed on the ground, in addition to being unsightly, can choke or poison animals and birds;
8) Never attempt to feed or approach any wild animal on foot. Lodges and campsites will suffer the consequences of your actions, as these animals then become accustomed to humans – leading to danger for all involved;
9) Refrain from smoking on game drives. The dry African bush ignites very easily, and a flash fire can kill animals and destroy vast areas of grazing;
10) Be especially wary of leaving young children unattended while on safari. Noisy children not only irritate other guests, but they also attract predators like leopards because their vocalisations sound like distress calls from prey animals. Young children are often unsteady on their feet or erratic in their movements, and this can trigger an attack from even small animals that would typically avoid humans. For these reasons, many lodges do not take young children on game drives or even allow them at the lodge. Read more info about kids on safari.
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.
Dr Vikram Ghanekar’s journey into the world of wildlife photography began almost a decade ago. His first venture into Africa took place in 2008, and he immediately learned a fundamental reality: you may have the best equipment, but you need to know how to use it properly.
Needless to say, after a few workshops and learning from Big Cat Diary presenters, Jonathan Scott and Jackson Looseiya, he has proved to be a highly-talented photographer. Read about his mobile safari experiences below, and enjoy his own exquisite photographs that are a testament to his phenomenal ability behind the lens.
“Safari is one adventure where you meet like-minded people from across the world and forge friendships that last a lifetime. This photo was taken in Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe with my friend and ace photographer Morkel Erasmus.
“While on safari in the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, I was sitting on the ground just outside my tent on the banks of the Talek River. It was mid-afternoon, and everything was tranquil. I was taking in the view when I heard a rustling noise behind me. As I turned, a tiny head popped up from behind my camp chair. A dwarf mongoose! The mongoose was probably equally surprised to find me sitting there. But it was also curious and kept staring at me with wide eyes. Fortunately, my camera was lying close by, and I could fire off a few frames before it decided to join its mates scurrying around in the surrounding bushes.
“On one occasion, while out on a drive, we came across Malaika, a famous cheetah mother, along with her three cubs. The cubs were playing with each other and enjoying a game of rough and tumble. Suddenly, they froze, locking their gaze on some movement in the distance. Before we could realise what was happening, the cubs were off in a flash. In a few brief moments, they had caught a very young Thomson’s gazelle fawn. The fawn had been hiding in tall grass, but something had disturbed it, and its movement had drawn attention of the wrong kind.
“The cheetah cubs didn’t kill it immediately, and while the fawn kept trying to run away, the cheetahs took turns to bring it down. This went on for a while under the watchful eyes of their mother. It was hard to look at, but it was nature at work. Finally one of the cheetah cubs delivered the death blow to the now battered fawn. End of innocence, in the literal sense for the innocent young fawn, and end of innocence for the young cheetahs as they turned into adults, capable of killing on their own.
“The Maasai Mara-Serengeti ecosystem is famous for its wildebeest migration. One of the most anticipated events in this drama of life is the crossing of the Mara River. On one hot day in September, my family and I were waiting patiently along the banks of the river as a large herd of wildebeest had gathered close by. The atmosphere was tense in anticipation as to when the wildebeest would start crossing. As it so happened, something suddenly spooked the wildebeest, and instead of heading down into the river, the whole herd turned around and thundered away, raising a massive cloud of dust. As the wildebeest stampeded out of the haze, I tripped the shutter of my camera, creating a very different look to the photo.
“Young ones of any species are excellent subjects for photography. What’s even better is when they are lion cubs – especially as adult lions, more often than not, will be found doing precisely nothing. I was observing these young lion cubs playing with each other and their mother. The mother’s tail, of course, was a hot favourite among the cubs, as they all tried to catch hold of the “toy”.
“In another scene, the lion cubs were busy playing with each other, jumping over their mother. I wanted to capture interaction between the mother and her young ones, and the opportunity arose when she looked back as one of the cubs started to climb over her.
“On one of the drives, we came across a pride of lions lounging along the banks of the Mara River. The lionesses were quite relaxed and seemed intent on sleeping the afternoon off. Suddenly, a small herd of wildebeest wandered close to the bank. Anticipating a crossing, everybody in the vehicle perked up. The wildebeests’ movement did not go unnoticed. The lionesses that were lounging, half asleep, suddenly were alert and looking keenly towards the wildebeest. As the wildebeest started crossing, one of the lionesses took off. All the hell broke loose with wildebeest scattering in all directions.
“The lioness selected her victim and gave chase. The poor animal abandoned its plan of crossing and instead turned away from the river with the lioness in hot pursuit. Fortunately, I was able to fire off my camera, capturing the moment as she was almost on top of her prey. The drama did not end well for the wildebeest.
“It was early one morning as the sun was rising. I positioned our vehicle so that the impalas that were feeding on a ridge were silhouetted against the pre-dawn light. The next thing, a safari vehicle crossed the same ridge, allowing me to take a few quick shots. The people standing in the vehicle with their heads popping out from the roof added to that “ultimate safari in Africa” feel to the scene.
“Mobile safari operations require substantial logistical support. As a guest, one doesn’t fully realise the immense hard work that goes on behind the scenes. While on a mobile safari in Botswana, we were shifting camps from Moremi Game Reserve to the Khwai Concession. The staff had taken down the camp after we had left, packed all the equipment in their truck and had made the journey through difficult terrain to reach our next campsite at Khwai. When we arrived at Khwai, they were in the process of setting up camp. As I walked through the campsite, I asked this staff member if I could take her photo as she worked. She obliged by posing for me amid all the camping equipment.
“Sitting around the campfire, or “BushTV” as safari-goers call it, is an essential part of the safari camping experience. This is the place where the day’s adventures are recounted, anecdotes of previous safaris are exchanged, and interesting conversations are initiated – which tend to continue over to the dinner table. This is also the place just to sit and stare into the fire and contemplate. There is no better way to spend an evening where acquaintances are transformed into long-lasting friendships.
“Elephants are my favourite subjects. There is something majestic and mysterious about these intelligent animals. I find it hard to digest the thought of killing these gentle giants for their tusks, for something as insignificant as a trinket. Ivory belongs to elephants and no one else.
“In this photograph, I tried to capture the beautiful patterns of this elephant bull’s tusks, set on the background of his wonderfully textured trunk.
“Photographing iconic animals of Africa is addictive. Their photos are bound to impress the viewer and evoke emotions. However, the skill of a nature photographer lies in taking an ordinary subject and turning it into an extraordinary photo.
“We had stopped near the Khwai River for sundowners after an eventful afternoon spending time with a pack of wild dogs and a female leopard. As the sun was setting, I noticed a fork-tailed drongo sitting on a dead tree stump. I positioned myself to get that stump between my camera and the sun, trying for a beautiful silhouette of this widespread bird. As luck would have it, the drongo took off just as I tripped the shutter, making the photo even better than I had anticipated!
“Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe is an extraordinary place. It’s one of the very few parks in Africa where you are allowed to walk on your own among the big game. In the park there is an area called Mana Mouth where the Mana River meets the mighty Zambezi, creating a vast floodplain. This photo was captured at Mana Mouth one evening when a breeding herd of elephants was feeding on one of the exposed islands within the Zambezi. As the sun dipped just below the escarpment on the Zambian side, the sky took on a beautiful glow, adding drama to an already exquisite scene.
“The park is dominated by giant Faidherbia albida or ana trees. In the dry season, the undergrowth completely dies out, leaving very little food for herbivores on the ground. Elephants, on the other hand, still have access to feed in the form of branches and the delicious seed pods from the ana trees. However, the trees are so tall that reaching those branches is a big stretch, even for a bull elephant. Fortunately, the Mana elephants have learnt to adapt to this situation, and by extending every part of their body in such a way, the tip of their trunks can reach the ana tree’s leaves. A couple of bulls can even heave themselves up onto their hind legs to reach the upper branches while others have to stick with the “Mana stretch” as demonstrated in this photograph.
“In a different elephant sighting in Mana Pools, my friends and I were following a bull elephant on foot. The idea was to capture the subject in the beautiful evening light as the sun’s rays filtered through the ana trees. There was a flock of cattle egrets nearby, feeding on insects disturbed by the elephant. Suddenly the egrets took off! Their flight took them right across the feeding elephant, and I was able to capture that exact moment in this photograph.
“Driving through the Okavango Delta in Botswana is a challenging experience. With water levels fluctuating according to the ebb and flow of the river, one may find your path entirely blocked by floodwaters. Certain areas that remain submerged year-round are accessed by crossing some interesting bridges. Constructed entirely out of wooden logs, crossing them is an adventure in itself requiring a lot of careful driving. Yet I was surprised to see signs “Do not speed over the bridge”, indicating some not-so-smart humans and their vehicles have ended up in the floodwaters not too infrequently!
“The delta is a magical place. To experience it from the air is even more magical. When an opportunity to fly over the delta in a helicopter presented itself, I grabbed it with both hands. We had the doors of the helicopter removed, allowing me to take photos from my seat without hindrance. We took off from Maun and were soon flying over Chief’s Island, a part of the delta teeming with wildlife. We came across a large herd of buffalo. As we flew lower, the buffaloes took off through the waters. I took a few photos, composing them in such way that the herd was crossing the frame diagonally, which I thought was much better composition-wise, rather than having them horizontally cross the frame.
“South Luangwa National Park in Zambia is famous for its leopard sightings. Being one of the very few parks in Africa that allows night drives, it is one of the best places to spot leopards. While on safari in South Luangwa, I came across this young male leopard. He saw our vehicle, but instead of running away as leopards are known to do, he merely flattened himself against the ground, allowing me to capture his portrait.
“South Luangwa is the home of walking safaris, allowing tourists to get close to dangerous game on foot. Guides are comfortable taking guests near to big herds of buffalo – considered one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. But lonely old males, or “dagga boys”, are a different matter altogether. These old bulls do not take too kindly to being approached. Separated from herds, old and past their prime, their only response to a perceived threat is to attack. The way they look at you with their beady, bloodshot eyes, sends a shiver down your spine. They certainly give you a look as if you owe them a big debt!
“The baobab tree is probably the most iconic tree in Africa. While on our way to Savute on a mobile camping trip in Botswana, our guide, Brian made a special stop under this ancient baobab. I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the tree with my mobile phone to emphasise the incredible size of this tree, completely dwarfing us and our cars.
“Savute is a harsh, dry place situated in the heart of the Kalahari with very little surface water – and a playground for colossal bull elephants. On a particularly hot day, I found a group of elephants having a nap under an acacia tree. The elephants had formed a semicircle under the tree, allowing me to take a very different photo. A B&W conversion emphasised the composition, taking away the effects of the harsh sunlight.
“Another fantastic sighting was of this coalition of four male lions who had brought down a buffalo, feeding on it throughout the night. In the morning, we found two of them still feeding, while the other two were lying in the shade – the one was in the shadow of a large fallen tree. Then we noticed a pair of jackals arrive, looking for scraps. This drew the attention of the dozing lion by the tree. He woke up and stared at the jackals partially through a gap in the tree, and that’s when I captured this photo, revealing just the lion’s eye while the rest of his head and body remained hidden.
“It was the last day of our mobile camping safari in Savute, and we had left our campsite early in the morning to make our way back to Maun slowly. There is a hill in Savute called “Leopard Rock” in an otherwise very flat landscape. Despite its name, our previous efforts to locate the animal it is named after had failed miserably. Our guide decided to take one last chance as the hill was near to where we were heading.
“When we reached “Leopard Rock”, another vehicle was already there. A lovely couple in the vehicle informed us that they had seen a female leopard climbing into a ravine just a few minutes ago. Maybe luck had decided to smile on us after all… But what we were about to experience was unimaginable.
“After a painfully long time, a beautiful female leopard came out from behind a rock and settled down. But that wasn’t all. She called out softly when suddenly a tiny head popped out from behind the rock. A cub! The cub came out and sat down by its mother. We are ecstatic. The mother licked her cub for a few minutes and then climbed down. Halfway down, she called out for her cub, encouraging it to follow. But the cub was hesitant. It wasn’t going to leave its cosy home behind.
“The mother realised her instructions were not being followed, so she went back and gently picked the cub up in her mouth and climbed down the rock. We could not believe our luck! She came close to our vehicle, crossing the road behind us, still carrying the cub in her mouth. Soon she disappeared into the thick bushes on the other side. Unbelievable! We could not have asked for a better end to our safari in Botswana.”
About the author
Vikram Ghanekar is a consultant surgical oncologist at SGM Hospital in Chuplin, India. Wildlife and nature photography has always fascinated him and has led him to experience and photograph Africa’s spectacular wildlife. He has an astounding ability to capture the emotion that should be reflected in a photograph.
“If somebody asks me what my favourite animal to photograph is, it has to be the elephant. Elephants fascinate me more than any cat. Their intelligence, their family bonds, their social interaction is just fantastic to watch and photograph,” he says.
A study has found that hanging beehives containing African honeybees from the branches of marula trees protects these trees against elephant impact because the elephants avoid those trees. Only 2% of trees with beehives incurred elephant impact, compared to 54% of trees in the research block that had no deterrents.
“This innovative study demonstrates that there are peaceful means with which we can foster the important ecological linkages between elephants, trees and bees. The bees not only protect the large trees from severe impact but as pollinators they also ensure valuable seed banks for the surrounding landscapes,” said Elephants Alive’s Director and Principle Researcher Dr Michelle Henley. “Elephants are important seed disperses to marula trees, so protecting selected iconic tree specimens while leaving others, as this study clearly illustrates, will ensure harmonious coexistence amongst three vital ecosystem components.”
The research was conducted by South African based Elephants Alive and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partnership with the Elephants and Bees Project of Save the Elephants in Kenya.
Conservation managers in fenced-off protected areas are concerned about the impact that expanding African elephant numbers have on the survival rate of large tree species, necessitating the need for mitigation methods. One such mitigation method, wire-netting, has proven to be successful at increasing trees’ survival rates by preventing elephants from ring-barking these trees. However, wire-netted trees are still vulnerable to other types of elephant impact, such as breaking off branches and uprooting the tree. This requires researchers to investigate new methods which may be effective at completely deterring elephants from particular large trees.
Building off Save the Elephants’ research on using African honeybees to mitigate elephant impact on crop fields, the study showed that hanging a combination of both active and dummy (inactive) beehives from the branches of marula trees creates a formidable mitigation method for protecting this keystone species from elephant impact.
The investigation, led by Elephants Alive researcher Robin Cook, who is studying for his Master of Science degree at the University of the Witwatersrand (Centre for African Ecology), monitored elephant impact on 150 marula trees in a 30 hectare (75 acre) experimental plot in Jejane Private Nature Reserve, which is part of a larger association of reserves sharing unfenced borders with Kruger National Park. The 150 marula trees were subdivided into 50 beehive trees, 50 wire-netted trees, and 50 control (no treatment) trees. For this study, 50 active beehives were brought into Jejane and hung overnight in their 50 respective trees.
Elephant impact on the 150 trees was monitored between December 2015 and September 2016, with the researchers focusing on various elephant impact-types such as bark-stripping, primary and secondary branch breakage, main stem snapping, and uprooting. Dung transects were also carried out in the experimental plot and a neighbouring control plot in an attempt to gain an understanding of the spatial effect that the beehives had on elephant movements.
The study took place during a severe drought in South Africa and so a feeding regime was pioneered to supplement the honeybees with pollen, nectar, as well as sugar water inside the experimental plot. This feeding regime, along with maintenance costs, led the researchers to further compare the feasibility of the beehive method by focusing on the costs and benefits of the beehive versus wire-netting mitigation-methods.
“Whilst initial installation costs of the beehive method may be relatively high in comparison to wire-netting, there is a possibility of honey production and an additional financial revenue for protected areas which implement this method,” says Cook. “Feeding costs will also be reduced or even eliminated in areas with an abundance of water and flowers for the honeybees to sustain themselves.”
“This exciting research indicates that beehives could be a valuable ‘tool’ in the toolbox of methods for protecting large trees from elephant impact in fenced-off protected areas” said Dr Lucy King, founder of Save the Elephants’ Elephants and Bees Project, “Particularly as it is a non-lethal method for elephant management”.
• Only 2% of trees with beehives received elephant impact, in comparison to 28% wire-netted and 54% control trees.
• Beehives were more effective than wire-netting at protecting trees from impact.
• Beehives in trees are effective at protecting the individual tree from elephant impact but do not prevent elephants from impacting neighbouring trees.
• Beehives were more expensive than wire-netting, and require greater maintenance.
• For protected areas with logistic and financial resources, beehives can provide a valuable alternative method for protecting large trees from elephant impact.
Thanks to the generous funding of EMS Foundation, the wooden beehives in the experimental plot have been upgraded to a longer-lasting model to ensure that the research will carry on over a longer period of time, with the additional focus on honey production.
ContactRobin Cook for more information regarding this research project.
This blog criticises a letter sent to the Chinese government by well-known hunting apologist Eugene Lapointe.
After wrapping himself in a cloak of assumed credibility arising from previous association with international organisations such as CITES, he writes to the Chinese government asking it to resist calls for it to ban the trade in ivory. His self-important homily then proceeds to expound upon the alleged efficacy of the doctrine of ‘wise use’.
All his tired old arguments are half-truths that can be reduced to the following syllogism:
1. All cats have four legs.
2. My dog has four legs.
3. Therefore my dog is a cat.
In his philosophy, hunters are wonderful conservationists and the plight of wildlife can be laid solely at the door of shrill animal rightists in the developed world.
Quoting himself: “As I stated in 2007, the beneficiaries of a complete ban on all legal ivory trade are the poachers, criminal gangs and corrupt officials who drive the illegal trade — and who the campaigners suppose they are opposing,” said Mr Lapointe. “Of course, the animal rights groups themselves raise billions of dollars through their campaigns in the United States and Europe, so a ban also satisfies their financial needs”.
Lapointe’s argument is: there was a ban; there was also a surge in poaching; ergo, the ban must have caused it. This is a perfect example of the ‘my dog is a cat’ syllogism. How simplistic. How childish. If only it were that simple. No doubt he would argue that the only way to save whales is by whaling and that any ban would merely ‘satisfy the financial needs’ of Sea Shepherd.
Actually, there were many causes for the upsurge in poaching, including the rise of affluence in China and the rest of Asia, as well as the CITES-approved ivory stockpile releases in 1997, 2000 and 2008.
The truth is that saving Africa’s wildlife is a hideously complex and deep issue involving environmental, political, socio-economic, cultural and geopolitical considerations. One political hot potato is the human population explosion in Africa (mirrored elsewhere). Rapidly expanding human populations overwhelms all social services such as health and education, the economy and ultimately the ecology. Poverty and unemployment are the inevitable consequence, and animal rights campaigners are not responsible for poverty and unemployment in Africa.
Another contributor to the demise of wildlife is that some African governments and administrations are notoriously corrupt. Some years ago, I was travelling through a ‘protected’ wilderness area near the Zambezi River. Such marvellous wilderness – and yet there was no wildlife to be seen. We could not understand why. Then we came across the game ranger’s camp and right there, strung up on wires all around the camp, were hundreds of pieces of meat drying in the sun to be turned into biltong and sold. Give a man like that a government vehicle, a government rifle and salary and all you are doing is equipping him to run his own private game butchery business.
The dwindling wildlife areas in Africa are precious resources that ought to be ferociously protected by governments. Alas, trees and animals do not vote and therefore get no money from patronage-dependent political structures. And into this vacuum where governance and protection should exist comes the hunting industry, trumpeting (excuse the pun!) its conservation credentials.
Game farmers point at the infrastructure they have built and the control that they exercise over their fenced-off ranches and claim righteously that they are the only defence standing between the wildlife and the rapacious poachers who would kill all the animals, whereas the hunters will only kill some of the animals. What on earth does this have to do with conservation? Domesticating wild animals and then rearing them like sheep to be slaughtered by hunters is not conservation, it is farming with alternative livestock. Farming for commercial purposes should never be confused with conservation, which is the preservation of natural functioning ecosystems for their own sakes.
Yet this totally irrelevant argument for hunting is seized upon by many role players in the conservation spectrum. Like large organisations such as WWF. And politicians and bureaucrats in the United States, who are terrified of offending the hunting/NRA block vote of 4 million votes that can easily swing an election.
Hunting is an ugly, dirty, bloody business, but the proponents make it sound almost acceptable with the use of euphemisms such as: ‘well-regulated hunting can serve as a tool of conservation’. Since when has hunting been well-regulated in Africa?
And now, following the flawed hunting narrative, comes the lamestream media, desperate to infuse cultural Marxism into the conservation space. Well-known publications like Newsweek publish articles by journalists like Nina Burleigh, who attacks and seeks to discredit hard-working anti-poaching organisations like Damien Mander’s IAPF. In her philosophy, Damien is white and therefore evil, whereas the poachers that he is tackling are black and therefore innocent victims. No doubt they would be much happier if Damien Mander’s game rangers were carrying flowers instead of weapons and handing them out to poachers, along with an audio-visual presentation of how important it is to preserve wildlife. Africa does not work that way and their naive liberal views merely show how little they understand Africa. Again, how simplistic. How childish. If only it were that simple.
Why are so many African governments ruled or controlled by dictators? The answer is that much of African falls under some form of chieftainship, where the Chief is king and he enjoys significant influence and control over many resources in the kingdom. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe repressed political dissent in Matabeleland by destroying entire villages and the inhabitants – that makes him a genocidal monster – but it also helps to explain how he stayed in power for 37 years. There is a lesson there, reinforced by the fact that the African Union elected him Chairman – knowing full well his murderous history. Liberal attitudes do not fare well in Africa, and the people of Africa know this.
Few of the existing role players in conservation understand or have the political influence or stomach to save Africa’s vanishing wilderness. The issues are just too broad and deep – and politically charged.
Perhaps the following stopgap measures would help with the conservation of African ecosystems and wildlife:
• All aid from the developed world to African countries should be rigidly tied to environmental compliance.
• The hunting fraternity should transition to turning their enormous resources to stopping poachers, and to protecting the animals. The hunting fraternity is a well-armed, wealthy militia, and can serve a useful purpose if properly directed.
• No expense should be spared to protect remaining wilderness areas. The money is there. If an old da Vinci painting can fetch half a billion dollars on auction, and trillions can be created out of thin air to be thrown at zombie banks to rescue them from their own greed, do not tell me that there is no money to save the environment and the wilderness.
Let us at least have an honest debate about conservation issues, without sustainable use propagandists like Eugene Lapointe hurling blame and pejorative epithets at the animal welfare community.
While the snakebite season is not yet in full swing, a number of serious snakebites have occurred in the past few weeks.
Many bites from deadly snakes are difficult to prevent as people accidentally stand on snakes, especially at night. But the snake that has been biting lots of people recently is the poorly-known stiletto snake, also known as the side-stabbing snake.
It is a small nondescript snake that averages around 30 – 40 cm in length, dark brown to blackish in colour and spends most of its life underground. They usually emerge in the early evening, especially after summer rains and often end up in swimming pools. For some reason, people mistake them for mole snakes, even though they are far too thin to look like one.
The big danger is their fangs and potent cytotoxic venom. If grabbed behind the neck the snake will twist it head sideways with one fang protruding and will stab it into a thumb or finger. Otherwise, if caught at mid-body, the snake will thrash around with its fangs sticking out and the person catching it will get bitten once or twice.
Stiletto venom is potently cytotoxic, causing immediate pain, swelling, blistering and in many cases severe tissue damage that may result in a digit or two being amputated. It is an extremely painful and destructive bite but is not considered potentially lethal. There is no antivenom for this snake’s venom and doctors can only treat for pain and wait a few days to see how extensive the tissue damage is.
The stiletto snake is absent from the Western Cape, most of the Eastern Cape and most of Namaqualand, but common in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo as well as much of Northwest, entering Zimbabwe, Botswana and northern Namibia.
Please be warned and refrain from touching any snake.
Africa is a vast continent, with climates ranging from Mediterranean to equatorial. Expect low-lying areas to be hotter and more humid and the high-lying regions to be cooler. Local geographical features such as mountains, lakes and the sea can affect weather patterns by lowering temperatures and bringing more rain and wind.
Weather impacts on what you are likely to see, and on what to pack. So, here is a broad outline of sub-Saharan African climates:
East Africa
Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo, Ethiopia and far northern Zambia
• This area is close to the equator and so seasonal fluctuations in temperature are largely insignificant.
• Expect generally warm weather, although temperatures can drop significantly during and after rainy weather, and at night.
• Temperatures will vary between 20º to 40º Celsius.
• The main rainy season is from April to May, with a lighter, second rainy season from mid-October to December.
• Neither rainy season should influence your travel plans, although you should pack rain gear during those times.
• Coastal areas are hot and humid throughout the year, with December to March being uncomfortably so.
Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa, excluding the Western Cape
• Expect hot and wet summers (November to March), cool and dry winters (April to August) and hot and dry spring (September and October).
• Rainfall tends to be in short thunderstorms in the late afternoon.
• Temperatures will vary between 20º to 40º Celsius in summer and 10 to 25º in winter (with close to freezing at times, especially in higher-lying areas).
• October and November can be especially hot and humid, with relief when the rains arrive.
Greater Kruger walking safari @Simon Espley
South Africa
Western Cape
• Mediterranean climate.
• Expect hot and dry summers (November to March) and cold and wet winters (April to October).
• Temperatures will vary between 15º to 35º Celsius in summer and 0º to 20º Celcius in winter (snow in high-lying areas).
• This is the southern tip of Africa and therefore expect the odd freak weather system in summer, bringing rain and lower temperatures.
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December 1st marks the start of our Photographer of the Year 2018 competition! To celebrate the occasion, we have taken a stroll down memory lane to look back at our previous year’s winners and finalists.
In this edition, we share with you the selection of world-class photos that made the finals of the 2017 competition. We hope that this serves as inspiration for this year’s competition, and we look forward to receiving your awesome images.
Ten years ago in South Luangwa National Park, Zambia, a one-and-a-half-year-old elephant is left alone and helpless when her mother is shot dead by poachers. The orphan calf is flown to Lusaka and ultimately moves into the Elephant Orphanage Project’s Lilayi Elephant Facility, situated on a 650 hectare game farm on the outskirts of town.
Healthy, but understandably traumatised, Chamilandu struggles to come to terms with the loss of both her mother and extended family. Suffering nightmares that have her screaming aloud in her sleep, it will take a great deal of love and attention from dedicated keepers to give her the reassurance she needs to adjust to her new life.
In the intervening years, Chamilandu grows into the matriarch of the orphan herd. Mothering and comforting the younger orphan calves as one tragedy or another brings them to the orphanage. Moving from the Lilayi Facility to Phoenix Camp in Kafue National Park (the release centre for older orphans) she eventually starts to demonstrate her desire to live independently in the bush; going on longer and longer forays alone and away from the release centre. Indeed, recently she has been seen interacting and mating with a wild bull in the park, a positive sign that she is ready to create new family/friendship bonds and is preparing herself for a life in the wild.
Elephants in Africa are under serious threat, primarily due to large scale poaching for ivory and also as a result of conflicts arising from elephant-human interactions. It is estimated that 25,000 elephants are being killed in Africa every year… this works out at approximately one elephant killed every 15 minutes!
The Elephant Orphanage Project provides a sanctuary for defenceless elephant calves who are the victims of poaching, human conflict or occasionally natural abandonment. Under the age of two, young elephants are extremely vulnerable and very dependent. Most will not survive without both their mother’s care and her nutrient-rich milk.
The first port of call for any orphan rescued within Zambia is the Lilayi Elephant Nursery, and it is here that these fragile babies are looked after twenty-four hours a day – a milk-dependent orphan requires its special formula every three hours!
Trained keepers care for and watch over their charges constantly; taking them on daily ‘bush walks’, feeding them and staying close at hand to provide reassurance when the babies are in the stables at night. These keepers play a vital role in the emotional and social recovery of the young elephants, and become the ‘mother figure’ the babies desperately need.
These youngsters have a difficult road ahead as they overcome the loss of their families, learn how to integrate and socialise with other elephants and ultimately grow into healthy adults who will one day walk free.
As soon as the calves can be weaned from milk (approx three years of age) they are moved, with at least one social playmate, from Lusaka to the Release Facility in Kafue National Park, where they join other, older, orphaned elephants. Here they will learn to live more independently of human support and will spend much of their time wandering freely through the bush (‘walks’ scheduled from 6am – 12pm and 2pm – 6pm daily, with mud baths and playtime taking up the middle of the day).
The Kafue Release Facility is adjacent to the ancient Ngoma Teak Forest where there is a 1,000-strong local elephant population, maximising the chances of the orphans integrating with fellow elephants and gradually moving back into the wild once they are emotionally, physically and socially ready.
The Elephant Orphanage Project was established in 2007, with critical and on-going funding from the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, with the mission of rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing orphaned elephants back into the wild. The Elephant Orphanage Project works together with the Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) and is part of a conservation initiative developed and operated by Game Rangers International, a Zambian, not for profit NGO.
You can visit the Lilayi Elephant Nursery, which is just a 35-minute drive from the centre of Lusaka any day of the year between 11h30 and 13h00. At 11h30 a staff member gives a short talk about the orphanage and you can visit the viewing deck which is an ideal vantage point for watching the elephants feed and play.
Note that given the ultimate goal of releasing the elephants back to the wild, visitors are not permitted to touch the elephants.
Cost: Adults K50, children ages 12-18 K20, children under 12 free. Every Monday entry is free.
A keeper gives a short talk about the orphanage from the viewing deck
If you want to venture a little further off the beaten track, then you can visit the Elephant Orphanage’s Kafue Release Facility in the southern part of Kafue National Park, 12km along the South Nkala Loop from Ngoma (location of the National Parks and Wildlife Headquarters).
The closest places to stay when visiting the release centre is Konkamoya Lodge or HippoBay Campsite and Bushcamp.
It costs a lot to raise an orphan from rescue to release – a lot more that you might think! Rescues alone can vary widely in cost depending on the area the calf is found in just for starters.
In some instances special vehicles, boats or even planes need to be hired, add to that scout and tracker fees, then add vet fees which can include quarantine, sedatives, blood tests and various other medications – and don’t forget the cost of ‘manpower’.
An ‘average’ rescue will be in the region of US$1,500. And once an orphan is rescued the costs continue to mount, with a staff of 27 at the Kafue Release Centre and another 17 at the Lilayi nursery wages are not an insignificant cost to be factored in. Feeding, veterinary, maintenance, communications… the list goes on.
With 17 orphans currently being cared for between the two facilities, each costing approximately $35,000 a year, the Elephant Orphanage Project has an operating budget in the region of $600,000 a year.
“The birthplace of rhino” – this is the name often given to Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park (HiP) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, where the southern white rhino was saved from the brink of extinction half a century ago. Over the past few months, though, this sacred rhino protection area, managed by conservation agency Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife, has had a significant escalation in rhino poaching.
As custodian of key white and black rhino populations, Ezemvelo has been protecting these iconic species and many of our country’s other natural assets for decades. Yet, the recent shift in focus by organised crime and wildlife trafficking syndicates have resulted in tremendous pressure being exerted on this conservation agency. Whilst they could forecast a potential displacement of poaching from other areas and prepare accordingly, the intensity at which Ezemvelo, and specifically HiP, has been targeted over the past year, was not something that could be predicted.
Fighting for life
Contrary to the picture of disinterested Ezemvelo conservation officials often painted in the media of late, the men and women of HiP are literally fighting for the lives of their animals and their people without rest. Rangers are out on patrol day and night, responding to alerts and pro-actively creating a safety barrier between the rhino and potential intruders. Nights are spent in the bush, double shifts worked, with many of them not seeing their families for weeks on end as they dedicate themselves to their work’s purpose.
In control rooms nearby, rotating shifts of support teams to these rangers have eyes on screens and ears in radio communications 24/7 – collaborating with provincial law-enforcement units and closely supported by South African Police (SAPS). Emotions have run high these past months, and speaking to the staff on the ground you could easily see anger, immense sadness, and utter desperation expressed all in one conversation about the attack on their wildlife, their park, their livelihood.
Whilst the field staff kept up the front line, the dramatic increase in rhino poaching coupled with the impact thereof on their staff, have kept the Ezemvelo top brass sequestered behind closed doors for the sole purpose of developing more effective anti-poaching and resource management strategies.
Advanced strategies
Through lessons learnt on home ground, as well as taking from approaches successfully implemented by other conservation agencies, various tactics have been identified that will form the focus of resources and time over the next few years.
• Firstly, this involves implementing intensive protect zone strategies to more efficiently patrol critical hotspots and protect core rhino populations within the expansive public conservation space that Ezemvelo is responsible for.
• Secondly, significant effort will be put towards putting in place structures and systems to solidify joint operation initiatives with national and provincial law enforcement, private rhino owners, and other conservation agencies (such as South African National Parks). Illicit rhino trafficking syndicates have no regard for national, provincial or any other boundaries, and it is, therefore, critical that anti-poaching and counter-trafficking operations be aligned across agencies and geographical regions.
• Furthermore, the primary focus has been placed on increasing the use of technology as a force-multiplier to detection and response strategies – placing Ezemvelo one step ahead of poachers, improving effective and rapid mobilisation of available resources, and keeping field staff safer. In this regard, Ezemvelo has embarked on a journey with Peace Parks Foundation in the evolvement of HiP as a so-called ‘Smart Park’. In October 2017, this partnership was formalised with the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement through which Peace Parks Foundation committed more than R10,6 million towards the HiP Smart Park development as part of the Rhino Protection Programme.
Mr Bheki Khoza, Acting CEO of Ezemvelo, shared his hope for the road ahead: “It will be near impossible for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife to succeed in its fight against rhino poaching without the involvement of local communities as well as the support of public and private organisations that go out of their way to fund new technologies aimed at fighting rhino poaching. The poaching syndicates are always devising new plans to counter the strategies we use against them. I am hopeful that the new integrated, joint operational plan that we are now embarking on will be a game-changer. I am not saying that it will totally eradicate rhino poaching, but I know that it will form a critical component of efforts to reduce illegal wildlife crime activities going forward.”
The purpose of the integrated system is to provide park managers and rangers with improved insight into everything that is happening across HiP’s vast conservation space, and to respond in a timely manner with the right resources. It will also allow for mapping rhino movement and hotspots, and the subsequent planning and execution of more successful protection tactics.
No longer will ranger forces have to follow the faint sound of a gunshot for hours before finally realising that the perpetrators had already jumped the fence. Now a gunshot can be followed by a rapid deployment of reaction forces to within metres of the alert location. And, if all plans come to fruition, the hand that would have pulled the trigger will in future be in handcuffs before the shot is even fired.
The HiP Smart Park
The development of the Smart Park entails the deployment of a collection of integrated technology solutions that together create a connected environment to enable seamless collection and consolidation of real-time data from various devices and sensors throughout the Park. Intelligent surveillance systems, image recognition cameras, digital radios, handheld data collection devices, animal tracking sensors, gate and access control systems, vehicle and aerial response tracking systems – these are but a few of the data sources that will be integrated into the unified technology ecosystem.
The establishment of the Smart Park will also include the provision of a Low Power Wide Area Network (LoRaWaN) with world-class internet connectivity for the integration of smart sensors and the speedy transmission of data.
The approach that has been developed through the agreement between Ezemvelo and Peace Parks, not only relates to developing a Smart Park with greater real-time wide-area situational awareness but also focuses on putting in place a central command and control system for the anti-poaching unit. All data collected will be packaged and presented to this central command through a single, simple web-based application, where artificial intelligence will also be applied to interpret and analyse the data, allowing for quick decision-making and effective tactical planning.
Central command will be headed by an operations manager who will make sure that the new technologies are integrated into daily anti-poaching operations and who will guide reaction force tactics – thus bridging the “people” and “technology” divide from within.
Werner Myburgh, Peace Parks Foundation CEO, added: “The battle against wildlife crime is far from over, and high market prices continue to drive the relentless demand for wildlife products. To stabilise this situation, a sustained multi-pronged approach is required. Whilst consumer countries need to be educated about the devastating consequences of their behaviour, we cannot sit idly by, hoping for change. Technology is one of the many strategies that can play a significant role in preventing the extinction of iconic species such as rhino in the wild. To this end, we would like to congratulate Ezemvelo for boldly moving forward, and wish to express our sincere thanks to the Dutch Postcode Lottery for their continued and courageous support.”
November through to March is Botswana’s green season, a time where the country is blessed with much needed rainfall following a long dry season. To locals it is also known as the “secret season”, a unique time of year to visit which many visitors are simply unaware of.
Here are a few reasons why Botswana should be top of your list for a last minute holiday:
Birthing season
Many young are born during green season, due to the plentiful grazing around them. This allows for unique sightings of little ones finding their feet for the first time, fiercely protected by their mothers and the herd. Of course with babies around, there are predators not far behind, which can lead to spectacular (if stressful) encounters.
Affordability
Many lodges offer special offers or SADC rates during green season, making the destination up to 50% cheaper than the busy peak season. Take advantage of ‘stay/pay’ promotions as well as value added deals.
Peace and quiet
Say goodbye to pushing and shoving amongst other game drive vehicles to get a glimpse of a leopard. Green season is also quiet season, a time when there are fewer people, allowing the tourist a much more exclusive and personal safari.
Migrations, birds and the small things
Many migratory birds arrive in Botswana during green season, making the country a birder’s haven. Green season is also the time for wildlife migrations, as animals move to take advantage of mineral-rich grazing. It is this time of year you may witness hundreds of zebra on the usually dry Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. The Kalahari also blooms with life, attracting antelope and zebras in their masses. This is also the time when you will notice chameleons, tortoises, frogs and other small creatures as they take advantage of the rains.
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Sourced from third-party site: Independent, written by Josh Gabbatiss
Male animals with the biggest antlers, horns and tusks have ‘high-quality genes’, so removing them from populations can be disastrous. When hunters kill animals for trophies, they often target the biggest and the best individuals.
Unfortunately, according to a new study these individuals are not only valuable to those who want their heads on walls. The importance of such animals to the wider population calls into question some of the hunting carried out under the banner of “conservation”.
“Large antlers or other ornaments are correlated with the genetic quality of the individual carrying them,” said Dr Robert Knell, an evolutionary ecologist at Queen Mary, University of London.
A big pair of tusks on an elephant or a large, dark mane on a lion don’t only imply status, they also indicate that those animals are “able to acquire resources, to grow well and to be healthy, and for that, they need to have a high-quality genome,” said Dr Knell.
It is often assumed that “selective harvesting” in the form of trophy hunting doesn’t seriously harm populations, as it only involves removing a few individuals and only targets males. Males tend to have desirable features for hunters, and it is generally thought that females will always be able to find willing mates.
In a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Dr Knell set out to investigate whether these assumptions held true, or whether a decline in genetic quality could be a serious problem.
“What we said was, why don’t we put that into our big fat mathematical simulation model and see what happens,” he said.
Dr Knell and his collaborator Carlos Martinez Ruiz found selective harvesting can be a particular problem when animals are experiencing environmental stress. When a population is forced to adapt in response to a changing environment, then the removal of the highest quality individuals had catastrophic results. Populations were unable to adapt and were far more likely to go extinct.
Habitats like the African savannah, where a lot of trophy hunting takes place, are also highly susceptible to climate change. This makes the findings of this study all the more worrying.
“If we get the 2°C change that now looks like the minimum we are going to get, that’s going to put a lot of stress on a lot of these populations,” said Dr Knell.
“Africa is already hot, and it’s going to get quite a bit hotter.”
Trophy hunting is increasingly being presented as a viable conservation strategy, with a greater area of land being conserved for hunting in Sub-Saharan Africa than is set aside for national parks.
Many conservation groups support the practice, with WWF stating that “in certain limited and rigorously controlled cases, including for threatened species, scientific evidence has shown that trophy hunting can be an effective conservation tool as part of a broad mix of strategies”.
“I think there is a very good case that when you have very well managed trophy hunting, it is largely beneficial in terms of conservation,” said Dr Knell.
However, he warns that an unfortunate focus by organisations such as Safari Club International on the size of horns and other appendages may prevent such practices being classified as “well managed”.
“The more you find out about this, the more you understand that these guys are very focused on the animals with the biggest horns or antlers, or the lions with the big black dark manes,” he said.
Travel in Africa is about knowing when and where to go, and with whom. A few weeks too early/late or a few kilometres off course, and you could miss the greatest show on Earth. And wouldn’t that be a pity?
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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.’
Capturing the moment in time to be appreciated in the future is the vision for my photography. I am Willem Kruger from Bloemfontein, South Africa. I am a public health specialist.
Born in Johannesburg, raised in Robertson, now living in Cape Town, Gerhard Pretorius writes, films, and photographs many different types of topics. He especially loves to travel and capture moments that will last a lifetime.
Björn Persson is a photographer and travel writer who’s been to over 20 African countries. His favourite destination is Kenya, but the Nyiragongo hike was one of his most memorable adventures. Besides being an avid traveller, Björn also has a degree in wildlife conservation and uses his photos as a weapon against poaching. Later this year, he will release his new wildlife photography book, 
As a former field guide and teacher, Thea Felmore has combined her passion for the English language and love of wildlife to work behind the scenes as a content editor sharing African wildlife, travel and culture with a global online audience. When not in front of the screen she makes time to get out and explore the beautiful Cape Town wilderness in search for her favourite reptile species (and other fascinating creatures, of course).
Passionate about Africa; Shirli’s energy, life, spirit and career revolve around the continent and its wildlife. Shirli cut her teeth in the world of advertising after art school, realising her forte was in the raw design field – added to this her love for wildlife and travel – she established her own design company called JADEWORKS, which has made a name for itself in the safari and tourism industry.
Cheyeza is 16 years old. She attended a Wild Shots Outreach course in Selati Game Reserve as part of Selati’s “Bush Buddies” programme fostering links between Zivulo Senior School, a local government school, and Penryn College.
Bridget is 13 years old and attends Hoedspruit Hoerskool. This is a new government school serving Hoedspruit and the surrounding communities. Bridget and her Wild Shots Outreach group did their game drive in a wildlife estate near Hoedspruit.
Dan is 13 years old. He attended a residential Wild Shots Outreach course for the children of staff from Tanda Tula Safari Camp in the Timbavati Game Reserve. Even though his father Erick works at the lodge, this was Dan’s first visit to a game reserve.
Faith attends Southern Cross School in Hoedspruit, where the original pilot for the Wild Shots Outreach course was run. At 18 years old, her ambition is to be a lawyer specialising in conservation.
Lucky took part in the Wild Shots Outreach course in May 2016. Lucky, who is 26 years old, now works as a photojournalist at the local newspaper in Hoedspruit. He also assists with residential Wild Shots Outreach courses.
Princes is 12 years old. She took part in a residential Wild Shots Outreach course for the children of staff from Umlani Bush Camp in the Timbavati. Her mother works in the kitchen at the lodge, but Princes had never been on a game drive before her Wild Shots Outreach course. “Conservation is the best because it can keep our wild animals safe. I want to share my photographs because my friends have not seen wild animals.”
Mike Kendrick is the founder and director of 
Sam 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.
Originally from England, Pru Allison first completed a degree in theatre before furthering her studies in animal behaviour. This proved a winning combination for the spectacle of the natural world when love brought her to Africa and a new home in Cape Town.
Vikram Ghanekar is a consultant surgical oncologist at SGM Hospital in Chuplin, India. Wildlife and nature photography has always fascinated him and has led him to experience and photograph Africa’s spectacular wildlife. He has an astounding ability to capture the emotion that should be reflected in a photograph.
Migrations, birds and the small things
