Kruger National Park is the largest game reserve in South Africa. It covers 18,989 square km (7,332 sq mi) and extends 350 km (217 mi) from north to south and 60 km (37 mi) from east to west.To the west and south of the Kruger National Park are the two South African provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga. In the north is Zimbabwe, and to the east is Mozambique. It is now part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, a peace park that links Kruger National Park with the Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, and with the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique.
The park is part of the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere, an area designated by the United Nations Education and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) as an International Man and Biosphere Reserve (the "Biosphere").
The park has 8 main gates that allow entrance to the different camps. The names of these gates are Paul Kruger, Numbi, and Male lane, Crocodile Bridge, Panda Maria, Open, Phoenix, Phalaborwa and Pauli.
History
The area that the park currently encompasses was occupied by nomadic hunter-gatherers for thousands of years. People from Europe arrived in the early eighteenth century. In 1898 Paul Kruger, the president of the Transvaal Republic, created Sabine Game Reserve in order to control hunting and protect the diminished number of animals in the park. James Stevenson Hamilton became the first warden of the reserve in 1902. The reserve was located in the southern one-third of the modern park. Shingled Reserve, now in northern Kruger National Park, was proclaimed in 1903. In 1926, Sabine Game Reserve, the adjacent Shingled Game Reserve, and farms were combined to create Kruger National Park, which was opened for public visitors in 1927. During the apartheid era, the 1950 Group Areas Act and the 1953 Separate Amenities Act prevented black Africans from visiting South Africa's parks. In 2002, Kruger National Park, Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, and Limpopo National Park in Mozambique were incorporated into the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park.Geography
The park lies in the east of South Africa, in the eastern parts of Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces. It is one of the largest national parks in the world, with an area of almost 20,000 km2. The park is approximately 360 km long, and has an average width of 65 km. At its widest point, the park is 90 km wide from east to west. Several rivers run through the park from west to east, including the Sabine River.
Mammals
Panorama view of Luvuvhu and Limpopo rivers at Crookes Corner in Pauli triangle
All the Big Five game animals are found at Kruger National Park, which has more species of mammals than any other African Game Reserve (at 147 species). There are webcams set up to observe the wild life.
As of 2004, the park has counted approximately:
25,150 African Buffalo
200 African Hunting Dogs
350 Black Rhinoceros
32,000 Burchell's Zebras
200 Cheetahs
African Buffalo
The African Buffalo or Cape buffalo (Sincerest coffer) is a large African bovid. It is up to 1.7 meters high, 3.4 meters long. Savannah type buffaloes weigh 500-900 kg, with only males, normally larger than females, reaching the upper weight range. Forest type buffaloes are only half that size. The African Buffalo is not closely related to the slightly larger Wild Asian Water Buffalo, but its ancestry remains unclear. Owing to its unpredictable nature which makes it highly dangerous to humans, it has not been domesticated, unlike its Asian counterpart, the Domestic Asian Water Buffalo.
African Wild Dog
The African Wild Dog (Lyceum pictus) is a carnivorous mammal of the Canidae family, found only in Africa, especially in scrub savanna and other lightly wooded areas. It is also called the African hunting dog, the Cape hunting dog, the spotted dog, or the painted wolf in English in Afrikaans, and Mbwa mwilu in Swahili. It is the only species in the genus Lycaon.
Social Structure
African Wild Dogs have an unusual way of deciding dominance. In packs, there are separate male and female hierarchies that will split up if either of the alphas dies. In the female group, the oldest will have alpha status over the others, or if the mother of the others will retain her alpha status over her daughters. For the males, in contrast the youngest male or the father of the other males will be dominant. When two such loner separate-gender groups meet, if unrelated they can form a pack together. Dominance is established without blood-shed, as most dogs within a group tend to be related to one another in some way, and even when not this can occur.
They have a submission based hierarchy, instead of a dominance based one. Submission and nonaggression is emphasized heavily, even over food they will beg energetically instead of fight. This is likely because of their manner of raising huge litters of dependant pups, so if one individual is injured the entire pack would not be able to provide as much.
Unrelated African Wild Dogs sometimes join up in packs, but this is usually temporary. Occasionally, instead unrelated cape dogs will attempt hostile takeovers of packs.
Black Rhinoceros
The Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis), also colloquially Black Rhino, is a species of rhinoceros, native to the eastern and central areas of Africa including Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Although the Rhino is referred to as black, it is actually more of a grey/brown/white color in appearance.
The name of the species was chosen to distinguish it from the White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum). This is misleading, as those two species are not really distinguishable by color. The word white in the name "White Rhinoceros" is a mistranslation of the Dutch word wait for wide, referring to its square upper lip, as opposed to the pointed lip of the Black Rhinoceros.
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) announced on 7 July 2006 that one of the four subspecies, the West African Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis loonies), has been tentatively declared as extinct.
Description
An adult Black Rhinoceros stands 140–170 cm (57.9–63 inches) high at the shoulder and is 3.3-3.6 m (10.8–11.8 feet) in length. An adult weighs from 800 to 1364 kg (1,760 to 3,000 lb), but sometimes grows up to 1818 kg (4,000 lb), The females are smaller than the males. Two horns on the skull are made of keratin with the larger front horn typically 50 cm long, exceptionally up to 140 cm.
Black rhino in Ngorongoro crater
The longest known horn measured nearly 1.5 m (5 feet) in length. Sometimes, a third smaller horn may develop. These horns are used for defense, intimidation, and digging up roots and breaking branches during feeding. Skin color depends more on local soil conditions and the rhinoceros' wallowing behavior than anything else, so many black rhinos are typically not truly black in color. The Black Rhino is much smaller than the White Rhino, and has a long, pointed, and prehensile upper lip, which it uses to grasp leaves and twigs when feeding. White Rhinoceros have square lips used for eating grass. The Black Rhinoceros can also be recognized from the White Rhinoceros by its smaller skull and ears. Black Rhinoceros also do not have a distinguishing shoulder hump like the White Rhinoceros.
Their thick layered skin protects the rhino from thorns and sharp grasses. Their skin harbors many external parasites, such as crabs, which are eaten by woodpeckers and egrets that live with the rhino. They have terrible eyesight, relying more on hearing and smell. They have large ears that rotate much like satellite dishes to detect any sound and a large nose that has an excellent sense of smell to detect predators.
Plains Zebra
The Plains zebra (Equus quagga, formerly Equus burchelli), also known as the Common zebra or the Burchell's zebra, is the most common and geographically widespread form of zebra. It once ranged from the south of Ethiopia right through east Africa as far south as Angola and eastern South Africa. The Plains Zebra is much less numerous than it once was, because of human activities such as hunting it for its meat and hide, as well as encroachment on much of its former habitat, but it remains common in game reserves.
Physical description
The Plains Zebra is mid-sized and thick bodied with relatively short legs. Adults of both sexes stand about 1.4 meters (4.6 ft) high at the shoulder, are approximately 2.3 meters (8 ft) long, and weigh about 294 kg (646 lbs) however males may weigh 10% more than females. Like all zebras, it is boldly striped in black and white and no two individuals look exactly alike. All have vertical stripes on the forepart of the body, which tend towards the horizontal on the hindquarters. The northern populations have narrower and more defined striping; southern populations have varied but lesser amounts of striping on the underpants, the legs and the hindquarters. Southern populations also have brown "shadow" stripes between the black and white colorings. The first subspecies to be described, the now-extinct Quagga, had plain brown hindquarters. (Technically, because the Quagga was described first as E. quagga, the proper zoological name for the most common form of the Plains Zebra is E. quagga burchelli... Rare albino zebras have been recorded in the forests of Mount Kenya.
Cheetah
The cheetah (Acrimony juba us) is an atypical member of the cat family (Fieldale) that is unique in its speed, while lacking climbing abilities. As such, it is placed in its own genus, Acinonyx. It is the fastest land animal, reaching speeds between 112 and 120 km/h(70 and 75 mph) in short bursts covering distances up to 460 m (1,500 ft), and has the ability to accelerate from 0 to 110 km/h (68 mph) in three seconds, faster than most supercars.
The word "cheetah" is derived from the Sanskrit word chitrakāyaḥ, meaning "variegated body"
Range & Habitat
A cheetah in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.
Of the five subspecies of cheetah in the genus Acinonyx, four live in Africa and one in Southwestern Asia. Small populations (estimated at about fifty) survive in the Khorana Province of Iran, where conservationists are taking steps to protect it. It is possible, though doubtful, that some cheetahs remain in India. There have also been several unconfirmed reports of Asiatic Cheetahs in the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, with at least one dead animal being recovered recently.
The cheetah thrives in areas with vast expanses of land where prey is abundant. The cheetah likes to live in an open biotope, such as semi-desert, prairie, and thick brush, though it can be found in a variety of habitats. In Namibia, for example, it lives in grasslands, savannahs, areas of dense vegetation, and mountainous terrain.
In much of its former range, the cheetah was tamed by aristocrats and used to hunt antelopes in much the same way as is still done with members of the greyhound group of dogs.
