Akashinga Rangers set off on a patrol to establish an overnight observation post at Phundundu, near Nyamakate, Zimbabwe (photo by Davina Jogi embedded from akashinga.org)
27 March 2024
Before Women’s History Month draws to a close here’s some recent women’s history in Zimbabwe.
Poaching is a persistent problem in southern Africa because the body parts of exotic wild animals find a lucrative market in the outside world. Without effective patrols it can even happen in a national park as for example 11 years ago, in 2013, when poachers poisoned 41 elephants at Hwange National Park by putting cyanide in their watering hole.
To stem the tide of animal deaths Australian born Damien Mander founded Akashinga in 2009 to train squads of men to protect wildlife in their home areas. The men were too easily corrupted and poaching continued.
In 2017 he recruited women, many of them single mothers or formerly abused. They named themselves Akashinga — The Brave Ones in the Shona language — and the program has been a great success, not only in terms of wildlife but within their communities.
Today Akashinga has a team of 500+ staff and 9.1 million acres under management in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique. They have reduced poaching by 80% and have seen an increase in wildlife of 399%.
You would think that mother birds would be the protectors but in the social structure of African jacanas (Actophilornis africanus) the females can have multiple mates and never settle down, so it’s up to the fathers to build the nest, hatch the eggs and protect their kids.
While visiting southern Africa in January I was impressed at how large the continent is. Africa is huge – so big that the contiguous U.S. can fit inside it three times, as shown above.
For instance, the air distance from top to bottom of Africa – Tunis, Tunisia to Cape Town, South Africa – is farther than Seattle to Toyko.
We were about to eat dessert on our first night at Khulu Bush Camp when our guide, Sam Mushandu, alerted us to a sound in the night. We all fell silent to listen.
The sun had set two hours ago. It was quite dark. And there were lions outside. Roaring.
“Who wants to find the lions?” said Sam.
Caution flags went off in my brain but others raised their hands so I tamped down my doubts with the thought, “When will you ever get this opportunity again? Never. So go!”
We piled into the safari vehicle and zoomed down the dirt track. Sam was on the radio with James, a Khulu guide who had gone out ahead of us to find the lions. Suddenly an elephant loomed in the dark, blocking the road. We slowed and it stepped into the bush.
Night safari with an elephant blocking the road, Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Frank Koch)
Then another elephant, then three, then four.
Night safari, three elephants, Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Frank Koch)
Surprised by crazy humans pelting through the dark the elephants appeared to be telling each other, “Hey! that truck is coming down the track. You’re in my way! Move into the bush!” It struck me as funny and I couldn’t stop laughing.
Night safari, four or more elephants, Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Frank Koch)
The elephants melted into the bush, then James radioed that he had found the lions, one male and two females. We turned around and headed toward them.
By the time we arrived the male had moved off but we found both females squinting in the bright search light. My photo shows how far away the first one was.
Night safari, female lion near Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Fellow traveler Frank Koch got better pictures than I did. Here are both females.
Night safari, female lion near Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Frank Koch)Night safari, 2nd female lion near Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Frank Koch)
What an unforgettable experience!
Grateful thanks to our guide Sam Mushandu, to James (guide at Khulu Bush Camp) who knows the habits of lions, Khulu Bush Camp itself for a wonderful stay, and Road Scholar for arranging the tour. And thank you to Frank Koch for his photos of our night safari.
p.s. In case you’re wondering what a lion looks like when it roars, here’s a video from Brookfield Zoo. Keep in mind that both males and females roar so all three may have been speaking that night in the bush on 24 January 2024.
Because the pronghorn’s appearance is similar, I can see why he’s called an antelope, but his nearest relatives are other African animals, the giraffe and okapi.
Giraffe in South Africa (photo from Wikimedia Commons)An okapi (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Pronghorns probably resemble antelopes because they run like them, a trait they acquired to escape cheetahs(!). Cheetahs used to be in North America but disappeared a long time ago.
We saw elephants every day in the areas marked on the KAZA map above. Here is what I learned.
African bush elephants, also called African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) are an endangered species having gone from a high of more than 2 million in 1800 to a low of 1,000 in the early 1900s. Now they number about 45,000 but are threatened by human encroachment, poaching, big game hunting (which prizes large tusks thus removing the best genes) and climate change.
Elephants live near fresh water because they must drink and bath so much. Climate change brings drought. Drought kills elephants. This summer there is a drought in southern Africa because of El Niño.
African elephants eat trees, leaves and even the cambium layer of bark. To chew this material they have four molars which they replace throughout their lives until they lose their last molar at age 40-60. Without molars they starve, a common cause of death. (This also happens to white-tailed deer who starve when their teeth wear out.) Tusks are modified teeth and both males and females have them.
We learned about elephant behavior by observing them.
Elephants lived close to us at Khulu Bush Camp. At night they roamed between our tent buildings; I could hear them munching. At midday they came out of the forest to the watering holes near camp to drink and coat themselves with mud against the 97°F afternoon heat.
The camp provides a pool of water and minerals attractive to elephants near the dining area which is elevated and protected by a small boma. We could safely view the elephants as they came quite close.
The elephants were close at hand at Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
The females and young elephants move to the watering hole in a matriarchal herd.
Elephants at Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (video by Kate St. John)
At first only one elephant drank from the pool.
Elephants at Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (video by Kate St. John)
Then the crowd came close.
Elephants at Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Two days later a bachelor group showed up while an older male was drinking at the pool. The older male challenged them with a stern look. The younger males backed off.
Male elephant standoff at Khulu Bush Camp, 26 Jan 2024(video by Kate St. John)
On safari at Hwange National Park we saw a male elephant hanging out with a lone female. She disappeared into the forest while he appeared to be annoyed that we showed up. Perhaps he was guarding her as his own.
From a pontoon boat on the Chobe River we saw wildlife walking the shore at Chobe National Park. In late afternoon a small herd of elephants came to the river to drink and douse themselves with water. As this mother left the river we saw her baby nursing.
All these photos were taken with my cellphone! What a privilege to see African elephants so close.
p.s. Despite the threats to elephants there is one activity that helps them. Wildlife tourism is the #3 industry in the region & it prompts governments and people to protect wildlife.
This statue of Scottish explorer Dr. David Livingstone stands in Zimbabwe at the western end of Victoria Falls. After African independence, European monuments were removed and European towns renamed but Livingstone’s statue still stands, the falls still bear the name he gave them(2), and the nearest town across the river is Livingstone, Zambia.
Twenty years ago, two attempts were made to remove Livingstone’s statue but “resistance to the removals from the local community has ensured that Livingstone’s statue remains where it was first erected, gazing sternly out towards Devil’s Cataract.(1)”
Our Zimbabwean guide pointed to a word carved on the monument that is key to Livingstone’s legacy in Africa.
In America we think of Livingstone as a great explorer but in Africa it is his never-ending fight to end the slave trade that holds him in African hearts. Livingstone went to Africa as a Christian missionary doctor and fell in love with exploring, ultimately mapping three long journeys in southern and eastern Africa covering 40,000 miles(2).
During his second expedition to the Zambezi River (1858-1864) he witnessed the horrors of the East African Arab-Swahili slave trade and vowed to end it. Men, women and children were captured in the interior and marched to trading posts on the Indian Ocean coast, one of which was Zanzibar a British colony ruled by Arabs.
Livingstone reasoned that if he became famous for finding the source of the Nile he could influence the British government to end the slave trade so he returned to Africa in 1866 to accomplish both goals.
Five years later, in the absence of news, Livingstone was presumed dead or lost. Instead he was still exploring, very weak and sick with malaria and without quinine to treat it because someone stole his medical kit. Meanwhile he wrote letters to Britain describing the slave trade but the slavers were the only ones available to carry his letters to the coast. Knowing that Livingstone was against slavery, they delivered only one of his 44 letters.
Livingstone’s disappearance was such a great mystery that the New York Herald sent journalist Henry Morton Stanley to Africa where he caught up with Livingstone at Ujiji in October 1871 and said, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”
British reaction was swift but Livingstone did not live to see it. “One month after his death, Great Britain signed a treaty with Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar, halting the slave trade in that realm. The infamous slave market of Zanzibar was closed forever.(2)“
More than any of his contemporaries, Livingstone succeeded in seeing Africa through African eyes.
p.s. In the U.S. most of us don’t realize that the West African slave trade that our country participated in was not the only source of slaves. Britain outlawed the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807 but it continued elsewhere. For instance, Mauritania in West Africa did not impose penalties on its local slave trade until 2007. Today slavery persists in some parts of Africa. Read about Slavery in Contemporary Africa here.
(credits are in the captions) Footnotes on sources.
Before the trip began, I expected to see many Life Birds. The southern region from the Zambezi River to the Cape has more breeding species than the US and Canada combined. Add to that the winter migrants from Europe and Asia and there were so many birds to see every day. In 13 days of birding I saw or heard 233 species, 207 of which were Life Birds. See the details in my eBird Trip Report here.
My favorite birds were hard to whittle down, chosen for a variety of reasons. Some because I had a pent up desire to see them. Some for their beauty. Some for their behavior. 14 are in the slideshow (thanks to Wikimedia photos) and described below.
No. 1! The secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius) is declining and endangered so it was a real treat to see one. These elegant raptors walk slowly scanning the ground for food while their long scaly legs protect them from the venomous snakes they eat for a living. [If the video below spins without playing, click on the YouTube logo at bottom right to watch it on YouTube.]
No. 7: I’ve always liked the French name of the bateleur (Terathopius ecaudatus), an endangered serpent eagle that “tumbles” in aerial acrobatics. In flight bateleurs are easy to identify because their toes stick out beyond their short tails.
No 8: We found a dark chanting goshawk (Melierax metabates) holding a lizard above us that he had caught for lunch. Here’s how he chants.
No. 10: Crimson-breasted shrike (Laniarius atrococcineus): Gorgeous in red. (eBird calls it a gonolek. Such confusion!)
No. 11: African paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone viridis): Colorful and extravagant.
No. 12: The wire-tailed swallows (Hirundo smithii) were an unexpected joy. As we boated up and down the Chobe River the swallows flew around the boat. Sometimes they flew with us, just under the tarp roof, or landed on the edge.
No. 13: Red-billed oxpeckers (Buphagus erythrorhynchus) were easily found on mammals, especially impalas. We saw quite a few perched upside down on a giraffe, plus a pair nesting at Hwange National Park.
No. 14: Male pin-tailed whydahs (Vidua macroura) are boring brown in the non-breeding season but during southern Africa’s summer they are snazzy with long thin tail feathers. At Marievale a male called just outside the bird hide window, then displayed in front of us when a female showed up. Such a show off!
We went there to find Schalow’s turaco (Tauraco schalowi), a fruit-eating African bird that frequents riparian habitats … and we were in luck! One flew by and landed near us. These eBird photos show its beautiful colors.
On 30 January we returned to Victoria Falls on the Zambia side where the water was even closer and more dramatic. Those who want to walk to Livingstone Island or the Devil’s Pool during low water start their journey on this side, walking 1 km (more than 2/3 mile).
No way! Look how fast the water rushes toward the cliff …
This is the edge where the water falls off the cliff in Zambia (video by Kate St. John)
… and falls down the other side.
Water falling off the edge on the Zambian side (video by Kate St. John)
In southern Africa, caterpillars of the emperor moth Gonimbrasia belina (or Imbrasia belina) are commonly called mopane worms because they feast on the leaves of mopane trees (Colophospermum mopane). Their final instar is shown above, adult below.
Mopane worms are prized as human food. When they reach full size women and children avidly pick them from the mopane leaves, squish out their guts and take them home to boil and sun dry. When fully prepared the mopane worms look like this:
I had the opportunity to sample mopane worms at Dusty Road Township Experience, an award-winning restaurant in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe where we ate traditional food.
What did mopane worms taste like to my naive palate? Earthy. Crispy. Very earthy.
Perhaps the flavor was so earthy because I ate the head first. In Zimbabwe this makes no difference but in Botswana they take the heads off before they eat them because the heads change the taste. I wish I’d known so I could have tried it both ways.
Learn more about mopane worms and how to cook them in this video by Emmy @emmymade. She tastes them both ways and describes their flavor at 3.5 minutes into the video.
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