Safari Blog

Sun Safaris continues to grow, and as such are pleased to welcome Charene Botha to the team. Charene is a born and bred Durbanite and we wish her evey success in her new safari career!

In the last newsletter, I went to great pains to point out that there is more to the Bushveld than the Big Five. So, I will not be telling you about the 8 lions seen attacking a baby elephant at Legends (it did survive!)…. ..or the pair of leopards seen playing in front of the main deck at Narina.

We are fast approaching midwinter at Tinga, and this heralds a particularly interesting facet of the natural history of the Kruger. The Tinga concession is located along the Sabie river, and the habitat around the river is particularly favourable for the ubiquitous impala due to the combination of permanent water, scrub, and sodic sites. Concentrations of 95 impala per square kilometre have been recorded. From late April, the area reverberates with the sound of the rut, as the males compete fiercely for access to the females. During this time, the impala rams are so preoccupied with the females, and fending off rival males that they have little time to feed, and generally lose condition over this period. Nutrition levels in the plants have dropped off, but it appears Nature has concluded that in order for the newborn lambs to have the best possible start in life, and be born at the onset of the rains, the males must endure this hardship.

As if that was not bad enough, Nature has landed the impala with a double whammy. It is no co-incidence that over this period that the African Wild Dog has its denning season.  At this time of year, the alpha female of the normally highly mobile packs selects a suitable burrow in a termite mound ……..and in Kruger, dens are almost always established close to areas where there is…wait for it… a combination of permanent water, scrub and sodic sites. The average litter is 10 – 11 pups, and with an average pack size of 8 adults, that is a lot of mouths to feed. In Kruger, the dogs normally range in an area of 855 km2, but when denning, it is restricted to 80 km2. So, not only do they select areas of high prey concentration, but they choose a time when their preferred prey is in a poor condition. Not only are the rams easier to bring down, but the yearlings from the past year are now feeling the pinch during the dry season. Such wonderful synchrony has to be admired…unless of course you are an impala!

What is particularly strange, after this long discourse on impala/wild dog dynamics, is that recently one of our guides (Megan) witnessed a wild dog kill on Narina access. What was strange was that it was a lone female – traditionally the breeding female remains at the den, whilst the rest of pack hunt, and bring back the kill.

Another special sighting recently was an osprey on the Sabie River. These raptors are rarely seen, especially in the Kruger, as they are outcompeted by the resident fish eagles but most twitchers will agree this is something worth seeing.

The buffalo and lion interaction
At the moment the buffalo herd is still spending most of their time in our prime game drive area. It has been very surprising that they have hardly crossed into the Paradise Island area this month. Instead they have been hanging around the floodplains that we can access easily during the flood (which is very convenient for us!). As always there have been several exciting sightings involving the buffalo herd and the lion prides. During one of the sightings the guests watched as a cow had just given birth, and soon after dropping the calf, abandoned it to catch up with the rest of the herd. We think this is a tactic of avoiding the risk of falling prey to the Tsaro Pride that was nearby. The pride duly spotted the lonely calf and walked towards it, not aware of the male buffalo that was lying down within the thick bushes close by. It was very interesting to watch another evolutionary tactic in this relentless battle. As the lions caught the calf, the buffalo bull responded to the distress call and ran towards the lions, chasing them off the calf before it lost the last breath! The male then defended the calf against the lions for as long as three hours! Some commitment to a calf that was most likely not directly related to it.

The Tsaro Pride and the Duba Boys have continued to dominate both our lion viewing and lion and buffalo interaction. There has been approximately six kills witnessed in the month of May. As is usual at Duba over the last three years, we are still continuing to witness more lion and buffalo interaction than actual kills which is good to remember when visiting here. We are excited and delighted to report that 'Junior', the juvenile male is still alive making him the only cub in the Tsaro Pride to survive the very high mortality rates over the last three years. It has been very exciting to watch the females teaching Junior how to kill prey. There was a time when one of the adult females caught a buffalo calf, and then released it prompting the young male to get involved; it took him approximately 20 minutes to kill a calf that must have been around a week old while the females were just sitting there, not helping but just watching him. We think he still need some time to learn as very often he has been seen trying to tackle full grown buffalo, and he has been stuck between the horns a few times.

At the moment there is one other cub (from a subsequent litter) that is surviving and we'll hold thumbs for her future. Another of the lionesses is lactating, indicating the presence of very small cubs, but we have not seen these as yet. We suspect that the cubs are hidden somewhere on the northern side of the camp/airstrip. This lioness moves between the northern side of the camp and the south where the buffalo spend most of the time, passing through the camp very often. One of the other lionesses, the well known 'Silver Eye', was been seen mating with one of the Duba Boys towards the end of April. Has she conceived? We are look forward to seeing her cubs about end of July.

The Skimmer Pride has been very elusive this month. When they were seen, it was while hunting buffalo in the Tsaro Pride territory - mainly in the area along Molapo Road which is the main boundary between the two prides' territories. Interestingly, over the last two months when the Skimmer Pride has been seen, it has consisted only of three lionesses (1 adult, and 2 four-year old sub-adults). We do not know what has happened to the other part of the pride (a total of 8 missing). It is very difficult to investigate due to the water level being high and we therefore cannot cross over into Paradise Island which is their main territory. The debate has been that if they were still on Paradise Island, they would not spent 2 months not coming into the Tsaro pride territory at all, while part of their pride was continuing to do just that (especially when the buffalo herd have not crossed onto Paradise Island for a long time). So far we suspect that the pride must have separated, perhaps temporarily while the water levels are high. Also of interest was a sighting of one of the Duba Boys feeding on a buffalo kill with the females from the Skimmer Pride. Eventually the Tsaro females came towards the sighting and met the Skimmer females with outright aggression! This nearly caused another inter-pride fight but the Skimmer females retreated in time across the water into their territory.

Tourism ministers and environmental experts from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Botswana and Namibia have been meeting to discuss plans for the largest wildlife sanctuary in Africa.

The proposal is to create the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Park (also sometimes referred to a Kaza Park). The planned conservation area will straddle the borders of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The main objective of environmentalist is to restore the ancient migratory paths of wildlife which is currently restricted to the National Parks and Game Reserves. The main objective of the tourism ministers is to ensure that Southern Africa maximizes its tourist potential.

Approximate boundary map of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Park:

Kaza Park would incorporate:

Okavango Delta (Botswana), Chobe National Park (Botswana), Hwange National Park (Zimbabwe), Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe/Zambia), Kafue National Park (Zambia), Caprivi Strip (Namibia), large parts of south east Angola, and parts of the Zambezi river between Victoria Falls and Lake Kariba.