When our guests book, very often they keep talking about wanting to see the “Big5”. Well, most struggle to name all the members of the Big5, but besides that, what I have noticed is that when they leave from here, and I ask them what their favourite sightings were, many mention zebras or giraffes. Indeed zebras are definitely one of those strikingly African animals, and also, in my eyes, one of the most beautiful and elegant. But that’s just my own opinion. What is surprising is that many reserves struggle quite a bit with zebras. As they have too many predators (remember, Big5?), zebras come under pressure and so they become rare. Many reserves in the south of the Kruger suffer of this issue, and that is a shame. When one is on safari in Africa, one should really have seen zebras!
The same is true for giraffes! This animal is most definitely the most gracious, and the most distinct of all African animals. No single safari brochure will not have giraffes on the cover, and there is a good reason for that. They are simply stunning, and very, very tall. It is hard to fathom their size and height on a photo, but when you are next to one, it will blow you away. They are truly enormous! And we are blessed with MANY on this reserve. We have several hundreds of them on our reserve, and accordig to a relatively recent estimate, it was close to 1000. That’s an amazing number, given that the total estimate of giraffes living in the wild in Africa is only 300,000. To put it in context: Africa as a continent is larger than Europe, Latin America and North America COMBINED! So you can imagine what an achievement that is … something we should be proud of.
Here a herd of zebras we saw yesterday, as well as a beautiful set of giraffes. Enjoy!
