life in the Kruger national park for animals is survival of the fittest

BY BRIAN KAJENGO

The game drivers in the Kruger National Park knows timing

because it’s not all the time when you could see the African Big Five.

The big five is the yard stick to measure the biodiversity of the Kruger National Park. Every tourist who goes to Kruger National Park expects to see the big five and understands much better about their life kingdoms.

It is the survival of the fittest in the park. The carnivals always find way of their prey, but they have to use tricks to do that because if they cant they can starve of hunger.

I was like to have a sunset and morning Game drivers with 30 Kruger National Park Tourism information Officers on Wednesday 12 February 2014 and Thursday 13 February 2014.

I know I have phobia of certain animals especially lions and leopards. We advised to wear portable clothes with tekkies.  

The rangers know very well they spot areas where to find the big fives at a particular time.

The Ranger Clifford Gumede asked if we had specific animals we wanted to see. Everybody answered Big Five.

Just after 20 minutes drive driving along S22 the driver ordered everybody to remain sitting because the king of the bush was walking towards our way along the S22 Road.

“Don’t take your hands out there is a lion along our way its coming towards us. Don’t make noise because you don’t have to disturb it,” said Clifford Gumede.

The fierce animal doesn’t fear the vehicles using road the Rangers know that they need respect. We spend took almost 15 minutes watching it taking pictures. Just more than 15 minutes drive we came across the leopard on the road feeding on the elephant dung and smear itself with elephant dung.

“As you see the leopard rolling on the elephant dung, it is about to go hunting for its prey. As you know elephant eats different trees which make s the dung to be a herb to other animal like leopards. It is doing this to disturb the smell it has so that its prey could not smell that there is a leopard next to it.” Clifford Gumede said. 

The leopard made some marks around that area and the Ranger told us that the reason of making the markings id that it is showing that it is its territory. No any other male leopard would invade its territory. If that happens by any chance it will fight defending its territory.

Along the way we saw baboons on the tree scared of the lion. Indeed the life of bushes is survival of the fittest.

The Ranger Gumede told us that if the lion doesn’t move away from the scene that means the baboons would not go down of the tree.

“As you see the baboons on the tree, this shows that life of the animals is survival of the fittest.” Gumede said.

The Game drive was interesting because we managed to know the way how animals live in the bushes. The phobia is always there is you see the strange animals especially the lion