Kruger Park has too many elephants
The Kruger National Park is one of the most beautiful game parks in the world, in my opinion.
Consider its size.
Kruger National Park is a South African National Park and one of the largest game reserves in Africa.
It covers an area of 19,623 km2 (7,576 sq mi) in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, and extends 360 km (220 mi) from north to south and 65 km (40 mi) from east to west.
Areas of the park were first protected by the government of the South African Republic in 1898, and it became South Africa’s first national park in 1926.
Basically, it’s roughly the size of Israel.
Which is pretty damn big for a game park. It even has an airport for those who are too lazy to drive and prefer flying directly to the Skukuza camp.
My wife and I love going to Kruger, and we try to make it an annual roadtrip.
The park is magical, and it’s impossible to see all of it in a single stay. The roads only cover around 4% of the land mass, and the speed limit is very low, obviously.
The following is a tiny snapshot from earlier this year.
However, there’s a problem
Kruger is dying.
And it’s largely because of an overpopulation of elephants. Establishment media is disconnected from reality (as usual) and perpetuates a complete inversion of what is true. My rule of thumb is to take mainstream claims with a pinch of salt because, often, they’re well-funded or influenced by ideological and corporate lobbying.
Animal rights groups, for example, are typically politicised and, in fact, are harmful because they care more about their narratives than the animals.
Ignoring establishment media is something the fake pandemic and fake climate emergency has taught me.
Kruger’s own website has articles about the problems surrounding elephant overpopulation and the attempts to manage it.
I strongly recommend watching the following documentary, which gives a good breakdown of the elephants breaking down Kruger.
Our conversation
Ron Thomson joined me for a discussion about Kruger’s elephants. His experience and knowledge are next level.
Ron Thomson has a total of 57 years of hands-on experience in wildlife management, national park administration and African big game hunting.
This, together with his thorough understanding of the science of wildlife management, places him in a class of his own.
Throughout his professional life Ron Thomson was a game warden in one or another of Africa’s national park organizations – primarily in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
There his big game hunting experience grew out of government’s need to employ him, and others like him, to conduct problem animal control work – on leopard, lion, hippo, buffalo and elephant – wherever these animals were in conflict with man.
Ron and his supporting team also captured 140 black rhinos on foot, using conventional hunting techniques but armed only with a dart gun.
Ron intricately understands conservation and how to best manage wildlife, especially big game. In his conversation with me, he outlines the challenges facing the Kruger National Park, and how to solve them.
The cold truth is that a .378 Magnum is one of the very few remaining solutions.
A response from Kruger
SANParks (South African National Parks) has issued a response in which they say that they are going to begin darting “mature” elephants with contraception. This was tried before and it failed.
- Contraception boosters are required every six months. They simply don’t know which of the elephants have been darted.
- Female elephants get frustrated when they don’t have babies, and they end up becoming more destructive.
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T. C. Clark
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Allan Savory killed 40,000 elephants. He said it was a big mistake. He says herds of animals can restore the the land and prevent desertification. He says herds of cattle or sheep eat the grasses at the right time and leave their poop and urine behind on the ground disturbed by their hooves and move on ….grasses will regrow. Just look up Allan Savory.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi T.C.,
I looked up Allan Savory. Not sure why.as I pondered what I read compared with my experiences of growing up on a farm in eastern South Dakota, USA. It was a quarter section in area and on the southwest corner of it was small pasture on which our about 20 head of cattle grazed. A small creek ran through this pasture so the southwest corner has never been “farmed”; it was native prairie. The surface of this pasture had been clearly reformed by the most recent glacier at 45 degrees latitude N. Hence, the elevation of the southwest corner was the highest point of the pasture and as one should imagine the any snow and spring-summer-fall precipitation of the common thunderstorms drained downslope to the more level surface along the creek. I just happen to visit this pasture in the fall and when the pasture had not been grazed that year.
The difference in the abundance of grass was amazing. The natural habitat of elephants generally has abundant precipitation so water is not a factor of plant growth. So I conclude that Savory is overlooking the critical importance of water as he draws his conclusions. Which do have validity. However. The human population of the world would have to be much less if humans only grazed animals for their food. There would be no rice, wheat, corn etc.
Have a good day, Jerry
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T. C. Clark
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I am not a defender or advocate of Allan Savory but he is concerned with the large areas of the planet that are subject to desertification…the Dakotas are not in that category. His proposals are not as simple as it might appear….he has done demonstration projects and shows success…he points out the failures of many others in trying to turn desert into productive land. Allan has certainly spent more time and resources on this subject than you or me….and I have never killed one elephant.
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Howdy
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“The cold truth is that a .378 Magnum is one of the very few remaining solutions.”
Nature knows best, but bungling humans interfered again.
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