Past News Letters

December 2000
September 2000
August 2000
June 2000
Kibo Builds School House

Subject to spectacular contrasts, the Climate of East Africa is often surprising even for the people that enjoy and at times suffer its conditions. In our last Newsletter we were happily heralding the so much desired arrival of the rains after a long period of drought.

But we could not predict, anyhow, that the rainy conditions would prevail for most of the season almost linking with the long rains and bringing some unexpected consequences to both the Environment and the wild animals.

On the positive side, Tanzania has benefited of a natural recovery and a lovely green landscape is common everywhere, showing the outstanding beauty of the Country.

In Serengeti the rainy conditions have kept the Southern plains at its best, teeming with wildlife and hosting the biggest number of wildebeest, zebras, gazelles and other antelopes of the last few years.

The calving season started in time during the second week of February, giving excellent opportunities to observe and photograph the arrival of the new life, filling up the plains with tiny Thomson’s gazelles, playful Zebra foals and thousands of light chestnut coloured wildebeests struggling to keep apace with their mothers.

But not everything is positive after the rains. In Nature, life always goes along with death. At Ngorongoro the numbers of a biting fly known as “Stomoxys” have increased after the rains, inflicting bad wounds and painful sores to the wild animals. So far the main species affected by this epidemic are the famous lions of Ngorongoro, having caused since the start of the rains, the death of 6, out of a total population of 68.

This situation is not new in the Ngorongoro Crater. A similar epidemic occurred in 1962 after the extensive drought of 1961, followed by heavy rains, that brought an explosion of “Stomoxys” flies who decimated the population of lions. Similar outbreaks were also known at the Simanjiro Plains in 1997 /98 after “El Niño” rains.

Although, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, is currently doing efforts to help the lions affected by the disease, Nature is alive and will follow its course adjusting itself with periods of health and illness.

We will keep our readers updated about the evolution of the disease of the Ngorongoro lions. On the positive side, the abundant rains are keeping the view of the Crater Highlands in all its magnificent splendour.

The Hunting Season

Let alone the problems caused by the course of Nature, the season it is excellent on sightings of predatory scenes. This is the time of abundance in Serengeti and with the Migration in the Southern open plains, the chances of observing hunters in action increase dramatically during these months. So do the number of exciting stories that our clients bring back from Safari.

One day at Gol Kopjes, 3 male Cheetahs, “brothers in arms”, tried to attack a young zebra foal who could make their day. Unexpectedly, when the 3 cats were moving at full speed towards the tiny horse, a synchronised movement of the whole herd advancing to them and forming a barrier forced the cheetahs to put on brakes, allowing the foal to escape with its mother. A very small Thomson´s Gazelle, not enough for a bite, was found concealed on the ground immediately afterwards and became the innocent victim of the failure of the 3 cheetahs.

But the most extraordinary story of the swiftest of the hunters occurred at Shifting Sands, the drifting dunes close to Olduvai Gorge, when a solitary cheetah after a short run managed to capture a baby Thomson’s gazelle, while its mother was able to run away to a safe distance. Amazingly, after playing for some minutes with it, the gazelle was released with no harm. Apparently the cheetah was actually interested in the mother and kept waiting for it to come and try to rescue her baby. While the mother observing the situation from a wise distance decided not to risk and eventually the cheetah gave up, leaving alone such an small bite !!! Finally mother and child met again to celebrate the lucky day when Nature gave them another chance.

And what about the most incredible of the stories? Certainly difficult to understand. One of our clients is narrating us the following story. “One thing which I found incredible, we were watching a Hyena in a scrape when along comes a baby wildebeest and attempts to suckle it as it thought the hyena was its mum. The Hyena simply nudged it aside with its nose and eventually the baby walked off looking forlorn and hoping to find mum somewhere…”

During the months of April and May what we call Low Season the “Hunting Season” is still going on… Certainly now is still time to come and share with us this kind of incredible stories on Safari. Cheers © JFT – Kibo Safaris