Seeing animals

Ted. We did not come to Africa to see animals. We just assumed that we would see some during our travels. Common animals can be seen ad nauseam from the side of the road. “Great… more baboons!”  

African countries have a system of national parks where the animals are protected and the rarer varieties are present in relatively large numbers. 

In these parks, you can take anything from a three hour “game drive” up to a two week safari, sleeping in tents as you wander around.  Your guide takes you to likely spots to see animals but there are no guarantees. For instance, in Chobe National Park we saw fresh lion tracks in sand and were probably close to lions but never actually saw them.  

There are other options. South Africa has dozens of private game reserves and sanctuaries. Here is where wild animals are contained in a smaller area. These reserves may be just a few thousands acres or can be many square miles. As private businesses, dependent on healthy game populations, they devote significantly more resources to maintaining and protecting the animals than the national parks can.

The best example is the rhinoceros. The national parks have not been able to fight off the poachers so their rhino populations have really dwindled. The best chance for spotting these big guys (with horns surgically removed) is now on the private reserves where poaching is rare. 

We ended up doing a blend of all three venues. Chobe was so vast that it was very definitely a case of looking for needles in haystacks. We later visited Plettenberg Bay Game Reserve and Tenikwa Wildlife Center to increase our chances of seeing other animals, especially the elusive leopard. We succeeded and we learned a lot.

So yes, we ultimately saw the Big 5 - lion (even a white one), leopard, rhino, elephant and Cape buffalo. We also saw crocs, hippos, cheetahs, Cape hunting dogs, giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, many different types of antelope (South Africa has 29 species) as well as an astonishing variety of birds from penguins to  ostriches.

As we all know, some species do well in the presence of man but most others do not. I was able to walk up to within 10 feet of two cheetahs. I hope my grandsons will have the same opportunity one day!