Game Count 2000

The weather was near perfect for this year’s census at Hwange National Park and its surrounding area, and once again, it was well supported by members of the Society, despite the fuel shortage at the time. A total number of 73 teams participated, with some participants coming from as far afield as South Africa, England and Australia. The total count of animals for this census, 18145 animals representing 44 species, was well below that of the 1999 figure of 43919 and this was solely due to the good, -rains received in the area during the 1999/2000 season. During the aerial survey. which was undertaken five days before the ac [actual count, and we thank Ericom Communications in this regard, it was conservatively estimated that there were approximately 200 pans still containing water within the National Park boundary and this excluded the Deka and Bumboosie river systems, which still had water flowing in them. As is evident from the aerial survey, our counting teams were only able to cover approximately 25%ofthe total waterpoints available.

It is interesting to know that, at Mandavu Dam, in the Sinamatella area, where with Norwegian donor funding we were able to reconstruct the darn wall last year~ a total number of 17 species and 763 animals were recorded. They were: baboon, crocodile, elephant, giraffe, hippopotamus, spotted hyena, yellow spotted hyrax, impala, black backed jackal, kudu, banded mongoose, slender mongoose, bush squirrel, warthog, waterbuck. blue wildebeest and Burchell’s zebra.

The most species seen at anyone water point was 19, at Masuma Dam in the Sinamatella area; and the most animals seen at one pall were 1139 (including 924 buffalo) at Ngamo Pan, in the Main Camp area and these were recorded by the Foster team from Harare. Species seen this year and not last year: caracal, small spotted genet, and dwarf mongoose. Species seen last year and not seen this year: aa1’dwoll: serval cat, wild cat, cheetah, grysbok, klipspringer and yellow mongoose.

As professional as we try to be in all respects, the “counter’s comment column” on the game census forms provided us with a few giggles: I lioness -unidentified; I civet cat -very fat; warthog ~ as fat as pigs; 1jackal -long black body; 2 warthog -too quick to see; 1 lioness -lying in wait; 1 spotted hyena -sneaky; and the best of all … 2 (elephant -“oh boy, they’re attacking each other -15 meters from us right, then again 10 metres on our left” and in brackets “violent” -this team must have breathed a sigh of relief when these “two” eventually departed north-west!

For the reader’s interest, we quote the “Combined total number of animals for all areas (24 hour period) – See Below