Another Superb Month

The game has not only been increasing in numbers and sheer volume over the years and months but is now better distributed and and more relaxed around the vehicles. Hours of tireless anti-poaching foot patrols and some strategic burning programs have ensured that the wildlife trend is continuing upwards on a very steep curve. These long rains usually meant some quieter game viewing, March is a great time of year to be here!

The highlight for me was the 3 days of hectic action around a dead elephant cow. It appeared that the cow had died of natural causes and the presence of a well developed foetus has led us to believe that possibly complications in birth could have been at the root of the problem. The cow, no smaller than 3/4 tons, was consumed incredibly quickly, and in 3 days went from a fully intact fat elephant to a stark skeleton.

The very first morning the carcass was investigated by the Butamtam pride of lions. Ironically they did not even take a single bite out of it and instead bypassed it and continued their daytime hunt nearby, but more of that later. Only a young nomadic male lion fed off it for 2 days. This entire carcass was devoured almost entirely by hyenas and vultures. During the height of the feeding we saw no fewer than 40 hyenas and over 150 vultures at the carcass!

The second last picture shows what the carcass looked like after 3 days (72 hours). The last picture is all that remained just 5 days after the elephant died – quite incredible! This is remarkably fast, I can remember many years ago a sub-adult elephant bull died at Singita Ebony & Boulders and we were still watching the Castleton pride feeding on the carcass 2 weeks later!