WEATHER

The onset of winter has brought cold morning chills and the baobabs with their autumn leaves are adding new colour to the concession with different shades of yellow, orange and red. Temperatures have dropped as low as 10 degrees but have still soared to a scorching of 42 degrees.  May still brought some rain and we recorded rainfall of 17.2mm this month. The area is thus still green and the pans are full.

CONSERVATION

Wilderness Safaris believes in a sustainable conservation model. One of the ways to ensure sustainability is to contribute to new knowledge through research. There are currently several research, monitoring and re-introduction projects being carried out on the Makuleke Contractual National Park. One of the newest projects we are sponsoring is an investigation of the effects of off-road driving. This activity has long been contentious especially where private operations and national parks have met. This project will add real data to a debate that has been rather too based on sentiment instead of research.

Another big project is the investigation of transboundary elephant movement in Pafuri. The project involves the collaring of both bulls and cows and tracking their movements across national boundaries into Mozambique and Zimbabwe. In addition, we hope the project will give us some insight into the movements of elephant bulls between different breeding herds. In May, Jabulani, one of the collared bulls, followed a combination of four herds. Research indicates that these herds may be inter-related splinter groups from a much larger family herd.

ANIMALS

Some interesting smaller mammals have made an appearance this month. A very special Cape clawless otter was seen swimming and playing in the Luvuvhu River at the Luvuvhu Bridge. Three honey badgers were viewed harassing some impala. While these pugnacious animals have been recorded killing prey this size and bigger, this was an extremely rare sighting. We also had a late evening view of a caracal.

The Pafuri pride male was seen mating with a sub-adult female this month. So we will hopefully have some little lion cubs on the concession in a few months time. This particular female's brother has had to distance himself in order to avoid the pride male and he will, in all probability, soon adopt the nomadic lifestyle of a sub-dominant adult male.

On the bird front, unusual sightings for the month have included: Bat Hawk, Broad-billed Roller, Grey-headed Parrot, Three-banded Courser, Verreaux's Eagle, Arnot's Chat, Pel's Fishing Owl, Bohm's Spinetail, Scaly-throated Honeyguide, Crowned Eagle, Dickinson's Kestrel, Crested Guineafowl.