Elephants close up

[Bugs]

We took a day trip to Addo elephant park to see what they got....

 

I will just post some pictures and tell you a little about it later.

 

[madaboutcheetah]

Nice!!!

[Game Warden]

We took a day trip to Addo elephant park to see what they got....

Rub it in for those of us who live a million miles away...

 

The proximity of those self drivers looks pretty close to the elephant. What are the park regulations like?

[Bugs]

I just had to drop this one in. My wife -- a little unprepared took this one from the back seat. I had the 70 - 200 with converter on at the time. The elephant was too close to focus.

[Bugs]

And this was the photo I took.

[Bugs]

Some more photos.

 

 

What else did we see??

Very old Jackal. We saw three jackal in the middle of the day!!

Oh and plenty of these. Like a plague.

[Bugs]

!!!!!!!!! Where did I get this???

[Bugs]

It has been miserable in Cape Town the last few weeks and we had to break out a bit. Initially we wanted to take the new safari trailer for a test drive to Port Elizabeth and stay with our friend at Kragga Kamma game farm then pop over to Addo.

 

Plans changed when we were reluctant to take the long drive, and our friend agreed to accommodate us and help us with a vehicle.

 

Flights are cheap.

We arrived on Friday at Kragga Kamma. They have a three month old cheetah cub running round the house. There are few places that provide photo opportunities like Kragga Kamma. There are a few cheetah in camps, giraffe, buffalo and white Rhino. Easy photos present themselves of waterbuck and Nyala and we even got a close look at the shy bushbuck. Other animals like zebra, wildebeest, impala, springbuck and bontebok etc.

 

After watching the rugby on Saturday! I think the boys down under would have enjoyed the game more… we went took off to a private game farm not far from Addo. Here we spent the night.

 

Addo, was somewhat surprising. I need to pass on some of the amazing information.

 

The vegetation can support the largest variety of animals and birds in the country. The best habitat in the world for black rhino. They say they have 13, but how they count them I don’t know.

The vegetation is thick bush rather than any trees.

 

Addo proper is only 5000 hectares and supports 500 elephants. Astonishing!

 

There is a new 3000 hectare section that has just been fenced and is ready to be opened to the elephant park, but it is seriously contaminated with Alien plant species. Some introduced grasses, but lots of prickly pear. The bush in this section is so thick, you can forget about looking for kudu.

 

They have introduced 9 lion, which fed heavily on the valuable disease free buffalo until the buffalo learned how to defend themselves.

 

Even though the bush in the park is severely demolished by elephant, it is still thick and you can forget looking for the lions.

 

The list of animals that are not there is far greater than the list of animals that are there. Black rhino, buffalo, zebra (17)!, kudu, warthog (thousands), red hartebeest, bushbuck, duiker, eland, lion, hyena, cape grysbok, and of course Elephant. Not on their list was Jackal, of which we had three sightings. That is only a few species, but they sat that Impala, wildebeest, springbuck etc etc never came from there.

 

Another interesting fact is that the female elephants in Addo have little or no tusks.

 

We only went there for a day, but I think one needs more time there. I have heard the night drives are of the best.

 

All told it was a great outing and well worth it. We look forward to going back, and spending the night in the park.

Kragga kamma is also a special place, which comes highly recommended and I believe if you are going to do Addo, you should not miss on Kragga Kamma, as you will certainly see what they don’t have in Addo.

 

http://www.kraggakamma.com/content.asp

[Kavey]

I love the photo of the young ele framed by the legs and lower belly of one nearer to you! That's a classic!

[madaboutcheetah]

So, where did you see that cheetah cub on the leather sofa? ...... I'm curious, now.

[Bugs]

Eat your heart out Hari!!

 

 

I had a weekend with cats too. You know what curiosity did to the cats!!!

[Bugs]

Below is what you will see at Kragga Kamma

Young bushbuck

Nyala bull

Nyala ewe

waterbuck

Buff

tall thingys

And then the Cheetah cub above. Took hundreds of photos of him.

[Bugs]

I have to add this one I saw last year.

[Atravelynn]

Not only were the eles out in force as one might expect at a place named Addo Elephant Park, but so were the kudu. I don't know if I've ever seen a baby bushbuck. How adorable. And the baby rhino! Great shots.

 

I just heard that Addo was second in size only to Kruger in South Africa.

 

I also heard about that miserable weather that would not let up and fortunately I just missed it.

[Bugs]

Deep within the shadows of the dense valley bushveld of the Sundays River region of the Eastern Cape lies the Addo Elephant National Park. Here, the evenings are punctuated by the strident howl of the black-backed jackal, and the francolin's call heralds each new dawn. Safe from relentless persecution in the past, the grey leviathans of the bush now roam in peace. The original Elephant section of the park was proclaimed in 1931, when only eleven elephants remained in the area - today this finely tuned ecosystem is sanctuary to over 450 elephants, Cape buffalo, black rhino, a variety of antelope species, as well as the unique flightless dung beetle, found almost exclusively in Addo. And their Addo has only just begun. with plans to expand the 164 000 ha Addo National Elephant Park into a 360 000 ha mega-park. In addition, plans include the proposed proclamation of a 120 000 ha (296 500 acre) marine reserve that includes islands that are home to the world's largest breeding populations of Cape gannets and second largest breeding population of African penguins.

 

Seems the park is bigger than I thought>>

[Bugs]

The size of Addo has been worrying me, so I gave them a call.

To get an idea of size, Kruger park is 1.9 million hectares, and the Kalaghadi transfrontier park is over 3 million hectares.

 

The entire size of Addo is currently 170 000 hectares. The problem is that it is not yet all connected. The area that the public know as Addo ... (where the elephants are and the tar roads are) is 12 000 hectare, however elephants are currently roaming on around 36 000 hectares in other sections of the park.

 

One thing that must be remembered is that Addo has a very high carrying capacity. I met a farmer in Namibia with 3 000 hectares, and he said it wasn't big enough to farm, as he would probably be limited to holding 200 springbuck.

 

When you see the limited carrying capacity of some places, it will become apparent why such land is not suitable for agriculture, and hence wild animals roam free. You can also understand why such huge areas with limited carrying capacity are not fenced, because the cost of the fence is not justified. This also goes down well for wild animals as they can follow migratory paths and routes in and out with the seasons.

 

Its a credit to Addo and SAN parks that they have managed to acquire so much prime agricultural land for wildlife.