Natural Attractions in Kenya and Tanzania

[Geza Ulole]

 

[Geza Ulole]

 

[Geza Ulole]

 

[Geza Ulole]

Top 6 Dive Sites In Tanzania

• 
  Jennifer Palmer in Diving Travel4 hours ago

Waving colorful flag of Tanzania.

With its surrounding water temperature remaining almost constantly at 25C throughout the year, excellent visibility under the water and endless sunshine, you know where your next dive trip should be, Tanzania.

Tanzania has a treasure trove of marine life, culture and incredible wildlife on land. There is something for everyone visiting Tanzania, from epic safaris across the savannah to untouched coral reefs found just a short swim off the beach. If you’re a fan of Whale Sharks, make sure you travel to Tanzania throughout the months of November to February, as this is the season for Whale Sharks and Manta Ray sightings in the Indian Ocean.

For best visibility, the time to travel to Tanzania is from October to March, whilst December through to March and July to October are the best times to travel weather wise. April to June and October to November can be quite rainy.

Location

Top 6 Dive Sites In Tanzania
Mafia Island
Whale Shark sightings around Mafia Island are epic
Mafia Island is not as well known as other islands that surround Tanzania’s coast. The marine park was created in 1996 and happens to be the largest marine park found in East Africa. The waters around Mafia are home to over 42 types of coral and over 400 species of fish. It is also an area known for spectacular sightings of Whale Sharks.

The majority of dive sites at this location are found within Chole Bay, which includes Kinasi Wall and Milimani Reef. When venturing outside of the bay you’ll find dive sites such as Jina Pass and Dindini Wall, which are both astounding dive sites that must not be missed when traveling to Tanzania. Mafia Island dive sites are home to Snappers, Southern Stingrays, Green Turtles, Tuna, and Grouper.

Pemba Island
Keep an eye out for Hammerheads around Pemba Island
Pemba Island is Tanzania’s northernmost Island. Pemba Island offers a host of incredible coral covered wall dives, beautifully colored reefs, and enormous sea fans. Reef life is sensational around this remote Atoll. There are a number of dive sites around Pemba Island, however; North Horn is the most popular dive site, known for its sheer number of Sharks. Shark visitors to this area include White-Tips, Silvertips, and Hammerheads. Other marine life you’ll see here includes Humphead Parrot Fish, Big Eye Trevally and Potato Cod. Visibility usually ranges from 20m to 40m.

1. 
   Related Post
2. Second Annual Freediving/Sailing Trip Off The Greek Coast Scheduled

If you’re a slightly more advanced diver looking for more exciting dive sites, the east and south sides of Pemba have the dive sites for you due to the fast currents and incredible Pelagic visitors. Mtangani is a dive site that offers great Hammerhead sightings.

Mnemba Atoll, Zanzibar
Make sure you travel to Mnemba Atoll during Manta Ray and Whale Shark season.
Zanzibar is only a short boat ride off the coast of Tanzania and has dive sites peppered all around the island. However, the best diving opportunities can be found at the northernmost tip. During the months of September/October, Nungwi is visited by a large number of migrating Sperm Whales as well as Humpback Whales. December through to April is a great time to see Manta Rays and Whale Sharks as well. Mnemba Atoll is only an hour away from Nungwi and has been known by visitors as the tropical fish capital of East Africa. Mnemba is teeming with reef fish and epic drift diving opportunities as well as wall diving. There is something for everyone at this location.

Leven Bank
Leven Bank is home to large Moray Eels
Leven Bank is found off the northern tip of Zanzibar and is solely for advanced divers. Divers looking for a dive site that’s full of thrill and adventure, should not miss out on this incredible open-ocean location. Super strong currents hit the side of the bank that is home to large fish including Barracuda, Kingfish, Trevally and large Moray Eels.

Lake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika is teeming with hundreds of Cichlids
If you are interested in a diving experience like none-other, why not try an altitude diving course and take a dive trip to Lake Tanganyika? Diving in this crystal clear, freshwater lake is similar to diving in an aquarium, surrounded by hundreds of Cichlid. Home to incredibly colored marine life, this is not a dive site to missed when traveling to Tanzania.

Mesali Island Coral Garden
Incredible reef life at Mesali Island Coral Garden
Mesali Island Coral Garden is the coral Jewel in the crown that is Tanzania’s Coral Gardens. This dive site offers some of the most rewarding and memorable diving that Tanzania has to offer. With hundreds of species of coral, colorful reef fish and a number of species of Turtles, Rays, and Eels, it’s no surprise this diving spot made it to our list. Mesali Island Coral Garden is home to shallow reefs that are untouched and pristine, making an incredible spot for photographers. Other dive sites include a fast drift dive through the nearby channel.

There are so many incredible dive sites found around Tanzania and it’s surrounding islands. If you have one that has not been mentioned on this list, make sure you tell us about it in the comments below.

Top 6 Dive Sites In Tanzania – DeeperBlue.com

 

[Geza Ulole]

 

[Geza Ulole]

When i look at what is happening in Tanzania as far as improvements of airports all across the country plus massive investments in hotels and lodges and resorts across the country esp. Zanzibar Island, i start laughing at that "catching up hope" by Kenya. Aside Spanish with Melia lodge, Chinese, Israelis, Russians n other nations r about to establish direct flights to Tanzania aside hotels to cater for their people.

Probably i should advice whoever that lies Kenyans that they will get to paar on tourism with Tanzania should instead advice them to try to do something else as the moment ATCL start flying continental there won't be turning back moment. I see a sorry story to tell as without direct airline revenues are already $2.5 bln for Tanzania vs $1 bln for Kenya which has common touristic visa with Uganda and Rwanda. And Rwanda has Rwandair just like Kenya has KQ.

 

[Geza Ulole]

Curious cheetah jumps into vehicle during safari tour in Tanzania, scaring tourists

In a video captured by photographer Peter Heistein, the curious cheetah is seen on a back seat in the vehicle, sniffing around and checking it out.PHOTO: FACEBOOK/ELISA JAFFE KOMO

PUBLISHED
2 HOURS AGO
FACEBOOKTWITTERWHATSAPP

Charmaine Ng
A group of tourists who were on a safari in Tanzania got more than they bargained for when a cheetah hopped into their vehicle for a closer look.

In a video captured by photographer Peter Heistein, the curious cheetah is seen on a back seat in the vehicle, sniffing around and checking it out.

The man in the video, Mr Britton Hayes, was told by his guide to keep still and not make eye contact with the animal, reported US news outlet Komo News on Thursday (March 29).

He was also taught to slow his breathing to keep the cheetah at ease.

Mr Hayes said his group was watching three cheetah brothers on the hunt in the Gol Kopjes of the Serengeti when the incident occurred earlier this month.

While the cheetah was exploring the inside of the vehicle, one of its brothers was also on the hood.


"But it was too late to drive quickly away or anything like that because you don't want to startle the animals, because that's when things usually go wrong," he was quoted as saying by Komo News.

He added that when it happened, he thought he was "going to die", and he could not believe he survived the situation.

"I was scared to death, but I've never felt more alive," said Mr Hayes.

The video of the encounter was posted on Facebook by his mother, Ms Elisa Jaffe, with the caption "I see people posting pics of their family vacations on the beach and at the theme park but not my family...".

"Give your mom a heart attack kid! No wonder he waited to tell me," added Ms Jaffe, who is a radio news anchor at Komo News.



This is not the first time that a cheetah has come up close and personal with safari tourists.

In 2016, another cheetah in Kenya was caught on camera leaping onto the roof of an open-top vehicle, even lying down on the roof at one point.

However, there have been other occasions where tourists were mauled to death at safari parks by the wild animals.

That same year, a tourist was mauled and killed by a tiger and another was seriously injured after they got out of their car while in a safari park in China.

Curious cheetah jumps into vehicle during safari tour in Tanzania, scaring tourists

 

[Geza Ulole]

TANZANIA
How to Book the Best Safari in Tanzania

Jamie Friedland/Getty Images
Intimate lodges and prime game-viewing are the hallmarks of this nine-day trip, bookable through the Travel + Leisure Great Adventure series with Butterfield and Robinson.

JACQUELINE GIFFORD
MARCH 29, 2018
Nothing can top the romance and magic of a safari in Tanzania, a destination marked by its rolling hills and expansive plains, and home toelephants, wildebeest, zebra, lions, and more. Indeed, this East African country has a remarkable diversity of wildlife, seen up close in the stunning Ngorongoro Crater, home to some 25,000 species; in the Serengeti National Park, renowned for its annual migration of nearly two million wildebeest; and Tarangire National Park.

On our nine-day Northern Tanzania trip, part of Travel + Leisure’s bookable vacation program with luxury outfitter Butterfield and Robinson, you’ll get a chance to experience all of three of these places. We’ve combined traditional safari game drives with exciting nature walks (rather than standard driving-only safaris), allowing you far more time and access to up-close wildlife encounters. There are plenty of opportunities to spot the endangered black rhino, bull elephants, and the majesty of migrating wildebeest along the way.

Our editors have vetted this entire itinerary, and even selected a special activity for you: an evening game drive in Tarangire National Park. Seeing wildlife during the day is one thing, viewing them at night, well, is a whole other animal, as you get to see nocturnal species on the prowl.

Read on for a full day-by-day itinerary of our trip, and for availability or to book, contact Butterfield and Robinson. From $7,895 per person, including most meals.


Day 1
Welcome to Tanzania! Upon arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport, your local guide will greet you and drive you to the Rivertrees Country Inn for a relaxing evening. Rivertrees provides the perfect setting to unwind after a long day of travel and is central to many of the local sites, like Arusha National Park at the base of Mt. Meru. Enjoy dinner at the inn this evening.

Stay: Rivertrees Country Inn, a collection of rustic cottages lining the riverbank, has the nostalgic air of a well-loved homestead.

iStockphoto/Getty Images
Days 2 and 3
This morning, you will be driven to the airport for your scheduled flight to Tarangire National Park. Upon arrival, slowly game drive your way to your accommodation, Kuro Tarangire Lodge.


Named after the river that crosses through it, this 1,100-square-mile park is sometimes sadly missed by those heading for the more well-known national parks in Tanzania. The landscape here is diverse, with a mix of habitats that are unique to the area: hilly landscapes are dotted with baobab trees, dense bush, and high grasses. During the dry season, the river is the only source of water for many animals, with thousands migrating to it from the nearby Lake Manyara National Park every year. Herds of up to 300 elephants congregate here, whilst migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala and eland can also be seen (with the accompanying predators following along behind). The swamps are where you will find over 550 bird species — the most breeding species found in one habitat anywhere in the world.


Over the next two days, you will explore this landscape in custom-built 4WD cars both during the day and under the night sky. On your first evening, enjoy a leisurely dinner before bed.

The following morning, rise and shine for a longer walking safari. You will have the opportunity to get up close and personal with large mammals such as elephant, giraffe, buffalo or even lions. (Not to worry, walking safaris are very safe!) You will return to camp for lunch and a rest before heading out in the vehicle for an afternoon game drive. Enjoy another evening around the campfire swapping stories with other guests. Then, once the sun goes down, head out on an exciting night drive — our editor’s pick activity — to experience the nocturnal world of the park.


Stay: For two nights, you’ll be at Nomad Kuro Tarangire, part of the Nomad group’s excellent collection of camps. The earth-toned suites have four-poster beds, gracious sitting areas, and en-suite bathrooms. Ever sensitive to the environment, Nomad moves and rebuilds the rooms each year.

iStockphoto/Getty Images
Days 4 and 5
This morning, you’ll head back to the airstrip and fly to Manyara, where you’ll meet your guide and head to your next camp, Nomad Entamanu, perched on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater. A UNESCO World Heritage Site sizing in at 102 square-miles, Ngorongoro is the world's largest unbroken, unflooded volcanic caldera. The floor is covered by grasslands with two small wooded areas and a seasonal salt lake in the center known by two names, Lake Magadi or Lake Makat. It formed when a giant volcano exploded and collapsed on itself between two to three million years ago, resulting in a natural enclosure for a very wide variety of wildlife — in fact, it’s one of the most well-known wildlife areas in the world. The Ngorongoro Conservation Authority area is part of the larger Serengeti ecosystem; it adjoins the Serengeti National Park, merging into the Southern Plains. The south and west of the area are volcanic highlands including Lake Natron, the active volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai (meaning ‘Mountain of God’ in the Maasai language) and the lesser-known Empakai Crater. The other major water source is the Ngoitokitok, near the eastern crater wall.


Very early the following day, you’ll head out at dawn and drive to this legendary crater. Once you’ve descended to the bottom of the crater floor, you’ll embark on a search for black rhinos and massive bull elephants before stopping for a quick breakfast. Lions are also plentiful here, as are hyena and with the backdrop of the crater walls, the photography at sunrise is fantastic. After a few hours in the Range Rover following a picnic lunch in the crater, you can choose to either head back to camp or continue with an afternoon game drive.

Stay: For two nights, you’ll be at Nomad Entamanu Ngorongoro, an eco-sensitive refuge on the edge of the crater. The lovely, tented rooms have furniture made from sustainably sourced wood, by local Tanzanian artisans.

Veronica Bogaerts/Getty Images
Days 6, 7, and 8
This morning, you will be driven back to the nearby Manyara airstrip to fly either up to the northern part of the Serengeti near the Mara River if you are traveling in the high season (June-October) or to the southern Serengeti if you are travelling in green season (December-March). In low season (April, May & November-mid-December) you will likely stick to the central Serengeti.


Tanzania's oldest and most popular national park, also a World Heritage Site and recently proclaimed one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, the Serengeti is famed for its annual migration. Over a million wildebeest and about 200,000 zebras flow from the northern hills to the southern plains, then swirl west and north again. The wildebeest are one of the most important species in the Serengeti ecosystem. They spend the rainy season from December to June in the volcanic open plains below the previously visited Ngorongoro Crater, where the grass growth is abundant and high in nutrients. Only through migration can the wildebeest and zebra use the widespread resources of the ecosystem and grow to such large numbers. From roughly June to July, they pass through the area known as the Grumeti River before arriving in the Northern Serengeti. This landscape, dominated by open woodlands and the Mara River, is home to the migration from August to November. Afterward, these amazing animals once again find themselves in the endless grasslands of the south for the calving season.


During your time here, you will immerse yourself in the wildlife with two daily game drives — one in the early morning and one in the late afternoon. You’ll have time in the mid-afternoon to relax at camp or, depending on the time of year, take guided nature walks.

Stay: Rustic luxury at its finest, the Serengeti Safari Camp, another of Nomad’s properties, boasts Meru-style tents with en-suite bathrooms and safari-style bucket showers.

Michal Venera/Getty Images
Day 9
Depart camp after breakfast for the return trip to the Manyara airstrip. Board your onward flight from the Serengeti back to Arusha for connecting your flights home.

How to Book the Best Safari in Tanzania

 

[Geza Ulole]

 

[Geza Ulole]

Hotel Verde Zanzibar–Azam Luxury Resort and Spa opens its doors to the public
Vicky Karantzavelou / 28 Mar 2018 07:58 1296
0
SHARES
00
The hotel is situated 2km from the popular and ever-developing Stone Town where African tradition combines with Persian, Indian, Arab and European influences in the historic buildings, architecture and spectacularly carved wooden doors.

Unguja, also known as Zanzibar Island, is the main island in the Tanzanian archipelago of Zanzibar: a beautiful slice of heaven located in the Indian Ocean 15 miles off the coast of Tanzania, boasting soft sand, white beaches and shimmering azure waters - a breath-taking place to escape from the world. With tourism on the increase and the improved popularity of Zanzibar as a holiday destination, and, more recently, an investment opportunity, you would be remiss not to add this island to your travel agenda (or investment portfolio).

The many beautiful hotels dotted along the coastline cater for leisure and holiday-makers, corporate and conference groups, incentive and domestic travellers catering to any pocket and with many more hotels, resorts and spas under construction and planned for, the area promises to become the destination of choice for any and all travellers.

Zanzibar is so much more than romantic coastlines and sunsets, she is an island rich in culture with great diversity in wildlife – plenty to see and do and a kaleidoscope of sights, smells, tastes, touch and sounds to fuel the soul. Known as the spice island, Zanzibar’s Spice Tour is a feast for the senses, taking you to a variety of small farms in the rural area to sample vanilla, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, black pepper, aniseed, bay leaves, chili, coriander, ginger, turmeric, lemon grass and other spices as well as farms that grow tropical fruits (such as Jackfruit and soda soda berries), medicinal and ornamental plants.

Owner of the 106-roomed Hotel Verde Zanzibar – Azam Luxury Resort & Spa which opened its doors to the public on 21 March 2018, Mr Said Salim Awadh Bakhresa said that he chose this particular piece of paradise due to the increasing popularity of the area as a holiday destination and to fulfil his vision of becoming a leader in building East Africa’s greenest hotel and promoting responsible tourism. With his deep roots in the community, he added that he wants to give back and contribute to tourism and job creation in a positive way.

He went on to say that by commissioning Verde Hotels, a sustainable hotel management company, he was able to incorporate and employ green building elements, strategies and practices that will benefit the environment, the locals and guests. By sourcing from local suppliers - from food, to staff, amenities and logistics - they are able to support the community, the economy and responsible tourism.

The hotel is situated 2km from the popular and ever-developing Stone Town where African tradition combines with Persian, Indian, Arab and European influences in the historic buildings, architecture and spectacularly carved wooden doors. The island has an incredible history so be sure to make time to visit the National Museum, the town market, The Old Fort and Cultural Centre, Hamamni Persian Baths or the Old Dispensary, Sultan Palace, The House of Wonders, the old Slave Market or any one of the fifty-one beautiful mosques.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vicky Karantzavelou
Co-Founder & Chief Editor
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales. She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.

Hotel Verde Zanzibar–Azam Luxury Resort and Spa opens its doors to the public

 

[Geza Ulole]

EXPLORER

A Family Adventure in the Wild Heart of Tanzania
The Selous Game Reserve in central Tanzania is one of Africa’s last, great, uninhabited safari areas, delivering all the big game without the big (human) crowds.

By Jeffrey Gettleman

April 2, 2018
Few wildlife parks in Africa allow you to drift lazily along a calm stretch of water like something out of “The African Queen” and take in an incredible amount of wildlife from a boat. The Selous Game Reserve, a remote and spectacular wildlife refuge in central Tanzania, is one of them.

Last year, I took a wonderful safari here with my family, and on one of our first afternoons, we glided along a shallow lake in an aluminum-hulled skiff. There’s something serene — and a little sneaky — about seeing animals from the water. You’re not trailing behind them as they step out of the bushes and move toward their watering holes; you’re inside their watering hole.

Image

In and around Lake Manze in the Selous Game Reserve, elephants gather at sunset.CreditRobert Ross

As we floated along, maybe 100 yards from shore, a distance close enough to observe, but hopefully not, disturb, we watched baboons, zebras, giraffes and gazelles head down to the lake for a drink. Palm trees on the water’s edge cast long pillarlike shadows. Behind them stood a wall of thick green bushes and thorn trees that wrapped around the entire lake. A rich silence hung in the air, broken only by the occasional chitter of a kingfisher.

The Selous’s many shallow lakes dramatically stretch and shrink with the rain. We were there just after the rains and the lakes were swollen and full of life — especially water birds, hippopotamuses and crocodiles. I’ve been all across Africa and I’ve never seen so many crocs, sunbathing their scaly selves on the beach, slithering around in the sediment-rich, chocolate-milk-colored water and waiting until the last possible instant to slowly sink away before our skiff bumped into them.

Image

A lioness and her three cubs were among the animals the author saw on safari. Here, a lioness keeps watch from a tree.CreditRobert Ross

As our boat approached a pod of hippos (Don’t you love animal group names? Apod of hippos? A bask of crocodiles? Acoalition of cheetahs? A tower of giraffes? Who gets to come up with these, anyway?), an enormous hippo popped out of the lake. We couldn’t have been more than 20 feet away and it stared right at us, beads of water dripping off its whiskered face, sizing us up. “Don’t you wish you knew what that guy was thinking?” I whispered. “He’s probably thinking one thing,” my wife, Courtenay, answered. “ ‘What’s that?’ ”

I wish I could bring all the people I love to the Selous. It’s a magnificent reserve, swallowing you up in endless expanses of acacia trees and emerald green swamps and tawny savannas. Well off the beaten path and one of Africa’s last, great, uninhabited safari areas, the Selous delivers all the big game without the big (human) crowds that descend on the better known African parks like theNgorongoro Crater in northern Tanzania or the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.

Image

Cape buffalo roam across the brilliant green, rain-washed plains of the Selous Game Reserve. At nearly 20,000 square miles, the reserve is bigger than Switzerland.CreditRobert Ross

I found it so relaxing and rejuvenating — the perfect antidote to staring at a computer all day or constantly checking my iPhone — to just gaze across those mirror-flat lakes and smell the wild jasmine in the air and watch giraffes saunter past so delicately it looked like their long femurs were filled with helium — that’s how lightly and soundlessly these giants float across the earth.

I wish, too, the Selous Game Reserve was as animal-friendly as it feels, but that would be giving you the beauty of the place without the truth. A Unesco World Heritage site, the Selous also happens to be one of Africa’s largest hunting grounds. I know, it’s hard to believe, but gunning down endangered wildlife, including lions and elephants, is perfectly legal here, as it is in several other African game reserves. Hunters love the Selous for the same reasons I do: its remoteness and abundance of game.

Image

A nursing elephant calf.CreditRobert Ross

Everybody has an opinion on hunting and I’m no exception. Countless times before, I’ve heard the spirited defense: that big game hunting actually helps protect wildlife, that you sacrifice a few older animals for the betterment of the group, that the presence of licensed hunters scares away poachers who would kill many more animals, and that the proceeds of hunting (it ain’t cheap – in Tanzania, people pay up to $100,000 to kill an elephant) help cover conservation efforts. I’m not going to dispute any of this. But still, there must be more respectful ways to protect wildlife than shooting a few so their heads can be stuffed to gather dust on a wall.


If hunting turns you off, please don’t let that keep you from visiting the Selous. You probably will never come across a hunter. The Selous is enormous, nearly 20,000 square miles, bigger than Switzerland, and the designated hunting area within the reserve is separated from the game-viewing side by a big river. In two visits to the Selous that I made last year, I didn’t hear a single gunshot and never saw a single hunter.

Image

Hippopotamuses are not an uncommon sight in the lakes of the Selous reserve.CreditRobert Ross

And the African hunting business isn’t what it used to be, thanks to Cecil. (In case you forgot, Cecil was a beloved Zimbabwean lion blasted into the afterworld by an American dentist. The controversy his death caused in 2015 and the harsh spotlight it cast on African hunting scared away many potential hunters.)

For how remote the Selous is, getting there is surprisingly easy, which makes me wonder if its days of tranquillity are numbered. We caught a small propeller plane from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial capital. It was a 35-minute flight to a little dusty airstrip inside the reserve. As we puttered through the sky, my boys, Apollo, 8, and Asa, 6, spotted hippos, left and right, below.

About a dozen safari companies spanning the range from rustic to glamorous operate in the Selous, far less than say, in the Masai Mara, which may be one reason why the Selous doesn’t draw the khaki-clad masses, at least not yet. We chose the down-to-earth Lake Manze Camp, which several friends who live in Tanzania had recommended. The camp, a collection of 12 large tents, didn’t feel like many of the safari lodges I’ve visited in East Africa. It felt like it had been plopped down the day before we got there.

Our tent sat in the middle of a copse of trees and bushes, reachable by a dirt path, positioned so close to the lake that while we lay in bed we could hear hippos splashing around. Our three-day safari, which included game drives, accommodation, food, drinks, park fees, tips and getting up close and personal with a pride of lions, cost about $2,500.

Image

Northern carmine bee-eaters near Lake Manze.CreditRobert Ross

Shaun O’Driscoll, a gregarious South African, runs Lake Manze Camp with his wife, Milli. Shaun is opinionated, direct, no-nonsense, but also deeply empathic, a man whose mosquito-bitten legs and perma-smile reveal how much he relishes living in the wild.

“You see, we got no gates or fences,” Shaun explained when we arrived, sitting us down in the lodge’s dinning area, a big thatched hut. “Anything can come in here. Lions, elephants, buffalos, hippos, anything. You leave your tent, you look around, ‘kay? Now, for you young guys,” he looked down at Apollo and Asa, who were watching him raptly. “No running. You got me? No. Run. Ing. You never know what’s hiding in the bush. And the last thing you want to look like is prey.” Courtenay and I shot each other a worried glance: We definitely didn’t want our kids looking like prey.

Image

Lions and cubs on a dry river bank.CreditRobert Ross

That night our proximity to nature almost felt reckless. We ate dinner outside under a sky smeared with stars, and after a tasty meal of chicken in ginger sauce, fresh rolls, rice pilaf and chocolate mousse (it’s pretty standard to be stuffed silly on safari), we walked back to our family tent that consisted of two rooms separated by a zippered enclosure. The tent was comfortable but utilitarian – a cot each for the boys, a double bed for us, a steel basin sink, small toilet, shower and a couple of canvas safari chairs on the porch.

Around midnight, I heard someone frantically trying to unzip the zipper to our part of the tent. “Daddy! Mommy! Daddy! Mommy!” Apollo yelled. “I just heard a branch break! I just heard a branch break!” Apollo jumped into our bed, his little heart pounding.

Image

An elephant eats the fruit of the doum palm.CreditRobert Ross

I had no idea what had stepped on what outside. But I knew that feeling, that sudden terror a random crack in the night can trigger. We quieted him down and he drifted off and eventually so did I. But it wasn’t for long.

A few hours later, I woke up again – with a jolt, this time to hear, in the span of about eight seconds, a pod of hippos snorting, two monkeys scrambling on our tent top and one lion a-grunting. A lion’s grunt doesn’t sound like the MGM roar; it’s more of a deep, rhythmic cough. And this cough sounded like it was coming from the next room.

Image

On Lake Manze, boats offer excellent viewing of Tanzanian wildlife.CreditRobert Ross

My pulse accelerated. The saliva in my mouth dried up. My skin tingled. I confess: I started to panic, imagining two huge yellow eyes surfacing in the mesh window right next to me. I sat up in bed as alert and wired as I’ve ever been. A lion’s claws would have shredded our tent like crepe paper.

The next morning at breakfast, in the bright tropical sunshine, we were all cracking up about being wimps as we helped ourselves to scrambled eggs and thick slices of warm banana bread. We then headed off on a game drive – game drives are the backbone of an East African safari, though in the Selous you always have the boat option as well.

Image

Impalas on the grasslands of the Selous reserve.CreditRobert Ross

As our open-sided Land Cruiser rolled through the reserve, I was impressed by how varied the landscape was. Because of all the rivers and lakes, wide swaths of the Selous are impenetrable — picture green, overgrown, scratchy and thorny bush. I can only imagine how grueling and tortuous it was for the first batch of explorers, like Frederick Selous, the Victorian hunter and collector who the reserve was named after, to hack their way through this place. But the Selous also contains wide-open areas, with wavy yellow grass and, in the distance, jagged brown hills; in between are cool forests.


That afternoon we found ourselves in a cool forest. A light rain fell, more like a mist. It softly brushed our skin, tiny droplets sticking to the hairs on our arms. Our falcon-eyed guide, Zacharia, had found some lion spoor near the road and he was tracking it deeper and deeper into the forest. “There!” he finally said, and we all followed where his finger was pointing. Just up ahead a lioness and her three cubs wrestled on a log. We drove even closer and Zacharia cut the engine. We rolled to a stop just a few feet away. Oblivious to us, the lions pawed each other’s heads, pushed each other off the slippery log, tumbled down and hit the muddy ground and sprang back up, training for the rigors of hunts to come. It was as if they were playing king of the mountain but there was clearly a point to it.

What made our experience even sweeter was that we were by ourselves. So many times when you’re on safari and spot lions in action, the drivers get on the radio and next thing you know, several other trucks come chugging in, tourists popping out the sunroofs of their trucks, snapping photos like crazy. Here, we were the only car for miles.

That’s the magic of this place. It’s all yours. My friend Rob Ross spent four years photographing it for a lavish photo book, “The Selous in Africa: A Long Way From Anywhere.” (Some of Ross’s shots illustrate this story.) He slogged through mucky water, got chewed up by tsetse flies, waited in the intense heat for sleepy wild dogs to wake up and go on a hunt (and sometimes they didn’t feel like it), and he still considers those four years the most rewarding of his life.

Where else, he asks, can you “actually feel like you might have been the first person to stand where you’re standing for 10 or a hundred or a thousand years?”

I guess the dominant feeling I had in the Selous was being free. Lake Manze Camp made that feeling even deeper. We didn’t have to keep anyone else’s schedule. Shaun gave us a four-wheel drive truck and assigned us a driver and a guide. We could get up when we wanted and drive (or boat) around when we wanted and have our meals in the bush, if we wanted.

Every part of the reserve we visited brought the same joys: few cars, zero garbage, trees and plants and wildflowers that couldn’t have looked much healthier, and lots of animals.

As Shaun put it on our last evening when we gathered for a final beer by the fire: “There are now traffic cops in the Kruger.” (He was referring to South Africa’s best known wildlife park, which has paved roads cutting across it and the occasional traffic jam.) “This,” Shaun said, spreading his arms as wide as possible, “is the real Africa.”

Over the years, in my travels across Africa, I’ve heard that claim many times, in many different places. Who knows what the “real” Africa is. So many of us outsiders seem to be on a search for the Africa we imagined. And for the Africans who live in this part of the world, what we romanticize is simply their home.

But that said, there is something undeniably special, and moving, about these last undisturbed places. And standing outside in the dying twilight, surrounded by miles of bush, in the middle of one of the last great untouched spaces left on the continent, I knew exactly what Shaun meant.


Jeffrey Gettleman, the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, was the East Africa bureau chief for more than a decade. He is the author of the memoir “Love, Africa.”

A Family Adventure in the Wild Heart of Tanzania

 

[Geza Ulole]

Masai giraffes in the Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania.CreditRobert Ross
EXPLORER

A Family Adventure in the Wild Heart of Tanzania
The Selous Game Reserve in central Tanzania is one of Africa’s last, great, uninhabited safari areas, delivering all the big game without the big (human) crowds.

By Jeffrey Gettleman

April 2, 2018
Few wildlife parks in Africa allow you to drift lazily along a calm stretch of water like something out of “The African Queen” and take in an incredible amount of wildlife from a boat. The Selous Game Reserve, a remote and spectacular wildlife refuge in central Tanzania, is one of them.

Last year, I took a wonderful safari here with my family, and on one of our first afternoons, we glided along a shallow lake in an aluminum-hulled skiff. There’s something serene — and a little sneaky — about seeing animals from the water. You’re not trailing behind them as they step out of the bushes and move toward their watering holes; you’re inside their watering hole.

Image

In and around Lake Manze in the Selous Game Reserve, elephants gather at sunset.CreditRobert Ross

As we floated along, maybe 100 yards from shore, a distance close enough to observe, but hopefully not, disturb, we watched baboons, zebras, giraffes and gazelles head down to the lake for a drink. Palm trees on the water’s edge cast long pillarlike shadows. Behind them stood a wall of thick green bushes and thorn trees that wrapped around the entire lake. A rich silence hung in the air, broken only by the occasional chitter of a kingfisher.

The Selous’s many shallow lakes dramatically stretch and shrink with the rain. We were there just after the rains and the lakes were swollen and full of life — especially water birds, hippopotamuses and crocodiles. I’ve been all across Africa and I’ve never seen so many crocs, sunbathing their scaly selves on the beach, slithering around in the sediment-rich, chocolate-milk-colored water and waiting until the last possible instant to slowly sink away before our skiff bumped into them.

Image

A lioness and her three cubs were among the animals the author saw on safari. Here, a lioness keeps watch from a tree.CreditRobert Ross

As our boat approached a pod of hippos (Don’t you love animal group names? Apod of hippos? A bask of crocodiles? Acoalition of cheetahs? A tower of giraffes? Who gets to come up with these, anyway?), an enormous hippo popped out of the lake. We couldn’t have been more than 20 feet away and it stared right at us, beads of water dripping off its whiskered face, sizing us up. “Don’t you wish you knew what that guy was thinking?” I whispered. “He’s probably thinking one thing,” my wife, Courtenay, answered. “ ‘What’s that?’ ”

I wish I could bring all the people I love to the Selous. It’s a magnificent reserve, swallowing you up in endless expanses of acacia trees and emerald green swamps and tawny savannas. Well off the beaten path and one of Africa’s last, great, uninhabited safari areas, the Selous delivers all the big game without the big (human) crowds that descend on the better known African parks like theNgorongoro Crater in northern Tanzania or the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.

Image

Cape buffalo roam across the brilliant green, rain-washed plains of the Selous Game Reserve. At nearly 20,000 square miles, the reserve is bigger than Switzerland.CreditRobert Ross

I found it so relaxing and rejuvenating — the perfect antidote to staring at a computer all day or constantly checking my iPhone — to just gaze across those mirror-flat lakes and smell the wild jasmine in the air and watch giraffes saunter past so delicately it looked like their long femurs were filled with helium — that’s how lightly and soundlessly these giants float across the earth.

I wish, too, the Selous Game Reserve was as animal-friendly as it feels, but that would be giving you the beauty of the place without the truth. A Unesco World Heritage site, the Selous also happens to be one of Africa’s largest hunting grounds. I know, it’s hard to believe, but gunning down endangered wildlife, including lions and elephants, is perfectly legal here, as it is in several other African game reserves. Hunters love the Selous for the same reasons I do: its remoteness and abundance of game.

Image

A nursing elephant calf.CreditRobert Ross

Everybody has an opinion on hunting and I’m no exception. Countless times before, I’ve heard the spirited defense: that big game hunting actually helps protect wildlife, that you sacrifice a few older animals for the betterment of the group, that the presence of licensed hunters scares away poachers who would kill many more animals, and that the proceeds of hunting (it ain’t cheap – in Tanzania, people pay up to $100,000 to kill an elephant) help cover conservation efforts. I’m not going to dispute any of this. But still, there must be more respectful ways to protect wildlife than shooting a few so their heads can be stuffed to gather dust on a wall.


If hunting turns you off, please don’t let that keep you from visiting the Selous. You probably will never come across a hunter. The Selous is enormous, nearly 20,000 square miles, bigger than Switzerland, and the designated hunting area within the reserve is separated from the game-viewing side by a big river. In two visits to the Selous that I made last year, I didn’t hear a single gunshot and never saw a single hunter.

Image

Hippopotamuses are not an uncommon sight in the lakes of the Selous reserve.CreditRobert Ross

And the African hunting business isn’t what it used to be, thanks to Cecil. (In case you forgot, Cecil was a beloved Zimbabwean lion blasted into the afterworld by an American dentist. The controversy his death caused in 2015 and the harsh spotlight it cast on African hunting scared away many potential hunters.)

For how remote the Selous is, getting there is surprisingly easy, which makes me wonder if its days of tranquillity are numbered. We caught a small propeller plane from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial capital. It was a 35-minute flight to a little dusty airstrip inside the reserve. As we puttered through the sky, my boys, Apollo, 8, and Asa, 6, spotted hippos, left and right, below.


About a dozen safari companies spanning the range from rustic to glamorous operate in the Selous, far less than say, in the Masai Mara, which may be one reason why the Selous doesn’t draw the khaki-clad masses, at least not yet. We chose the down-to-earth Lake Manze Camp, which several friends who live in Tanzania had recommended. The camp, a collection of 12 large tents, didn’t feel like many of the safari lodges I’ve visited in East Africa. It felt like it had been plopped down the day before we got there.

Our tent sat in the middle of a copse of trees and bushes, reachable by a dirt path, positioned so close to the lake that while we lay in bed we could hear hippos splashing around. Our three-day safari, which included game drives, accommodation, food, drinks, park fees, tips and getting up close and personal with a pride of lions, cost about $2,500.

Image

Northern carmine bee-eaters near Lake Manze.CreditRobert Ross

Shaun O’Driscoll, a gregarious South African, runs Lake Manze Camp with his wife, Milli. Shaun is opinionated, direct, no-nonsense, but also deeply empathic, a man whose mosquito-bitten legs and perma-smile reveal how much he relishes living in the wild.

“You see, we got no gates or fences,” Shaun explained when we arrived, sitting us down in the lodge’s dinning area, a big thatched hut. “Anything can come in here. Lions, elephants, buffalos, hippos, anything. You leave your tent, you look around, ‘kay? Now, for you young guys,” he looked down at Apollo and Asa, who were watching him raptly. “No running. You got me? No. Run. Ing. You never know what’s hiding in the bush. And the last thing you want to look like is prey.” Courtenay and I shot each other a worried glance: We definitely didn’t want our kids looking like prey.

Image

Lions and cubs on a dry river bank.CreditRobert Ross
That night our proximity to nature almost felt reckless. We ate dinner outside under a sky smeared with stars, and after a tasty meal of chicken in ginger sauce, fresh rolls, rice pilaf and chocolate mousse (it’s pretty standard to be stuffed silly on safari), we walked back to our family tent that consisted of two rooms separated by a zippered enclosure. The tent was comfortable but utilitarian – a cot each for the boys, a double bed for us, a steel basin sink, small toilet, shower and a couple of canvas safari chairs on the porch.

Around midnight, I heard someone frantically trying to unzip the zipper to our part of the tent. “Daddy! Mommy! Daddy! Mommy!” Apollo yelled. “I just heard a branch break! I just heard a branch break!” Apollo jumped into our bed, his little heart pounding.

Image

An elephant eats the fruit of the doum palm.CreditRobert Ross

I had no idea what had stepped on what outside. But I knew that feeling, that sudden terror a random crack in the night can trigger. We quieted him down and he drifted off and eventually so did I. But it wasn’t for long.

A few hours later, I woke up again – with a jolt, this time to hear, in the span of about eight seconds, a pod of hippos snorting, two monkeys scrambling on our tent top and one lion a-grunting. A lion’s grunt doesn’t sound like the MGM roar; it’s more of a deep, rhythmic cough. And this cough sounded like it was coming from the next room.

Image

On Lake Manze, boats offer excellent viewing of Tanzanian wildlife.CreditRobert Ross

My pulse accelerated. The saliva in my mouth dried up. My skin tingled. I confess: I started to panic, imagining two huge yellow eyes surfacing in the mesh window right next to me. I sat up in bed as alert and wired as I’ve ever been. A lion’s claws would have shredded our tent like crepe paper.

The next morning at breakfast, in the bright tropical sunshine, we were all cracking up about being wimps as we helped ourselves to scrambled eggs and thick slices of warm banana bread. We then headed off on a game drive – game drives are the backbone of an East African safari, though in the Selous you always have the boat option as well.

Image

Impalas on the grasslands of the Selous reserve.CreditRobert Ross

As our open-sided Land Cruiser rolled through the reserve, I was impressed by how varied the landscape was. Because of all the rivers and lakes, wide swaths of the Selous are impenetrable — picture green, overgrown, scratchy and thorny bush. I can only imagine how grueling and tortuous it was for the first batch of explorers, like Frederick Selous, the Victorian hunter and collector who the reserve was named after, to hack their way through this place. But the Selous also contains wide-open areas, with wavy yellow grass and, in the distance, jagged brown hills; in between are cool forests.


That afternoon we found ourselves in a cool forest. A light rain fell, more like a mist. It softly brushed our skin, tiny droplets sticking to the hairs on our arms. Our falcon-eyed guide, Zacharia, had found some lion spoor near the road and he was tracking it deeper and deeper into the forest. “There!” he finally said, and we all followed where his finger was pointing. Just up ahead a lioness and her three cubs wrestled on a log. We drove even closer and Zacharia cut the engine. We rolled to a stop just a few feet away. Oblivious to us, the lions pawed each other’s heads, pushed each other off the slippery log, tumbled down and hit the muddy ground and sprang back up, training for the rigors of hunts to come. It was as if they were playing king of the mountain but there was clearly a point to it.

What made our experience even sweeter was that we were by ourselves. So many times when you’re on safari and spot lions in action, the drivers get on the radio and next thing you know, several other trucks come chugging in, tourists popping out the sunroofs of their trucks, snapping photos like crazy. Here, we were the only car for miles.

That’s the magic of this place. It’s all yours. My friend Rob Ross spent four years photographing it for a lavish photo book, “The Selous in Africa: A Long Way From Anywhere.” (Some of Ross’s shots illustrate this story.) He slogged through mucky water, got chewed up by tsetse flies, waited in the intense heat for sleepy wild dogs to wake up and go on a hunt (and sometimes they didn’t feel like it), and he still considers those four years the most rewarding of his life.

Where else, he asks, can you “actually feel like you might have been the first person to stand where you’re standing for 10 or a hundred or a thousand years?”

I guess the dominant feeling I had in the Selous was being free. Lake Manze Camp made that feeling even deeper. We didn’t have to keep anyone else’s schedule. Shaun gave us a four-wheel drive truck and assigned us a driver and a guide. We could get up when we wanted and drive (or boat) around when we wanted and have our meals in the bush, if we wanted.

Every part of the reserve we visited brought the same joys: few cars, zero garbage, trees and plants and wildflowers that couldn’t have looked much healthier, and lots of animals.

As Shaun put it on our last evening when we gathered for a final beer by the fire: “There are now traffic cops in the Kruger.” (He was referring to South Africa’s best known wildlife park, which has paved roads cutting across it and the occasional traffic jam.) “This,” Shaun said, spreading his arms as wide as possible, “is the real Africa.”

Over the years, in my travels across Africa, I’ve heard that claim many times, in many different places. Who knows what the “real” Africa is. So many of us outsiders seem to be on a search for the Africa we imagined. And for the Africans who live in this part of the world, what we romanticize is simply their home.

But that said, there is something undeniably special, and moving, about these last undisturbed places. And standing outside in the dying twilight, surrounded by miles of bush, in the middle of one of the last great untouched spaces left on the continent, I knew exactly what Shaun meant.


Jeffrey Gettleman, the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, was the East Africa bureau chief for more than a decade. He is the author of the memoir “Love, Africa.”

Explorer
A collection of “Explorer” columns published in The New York Times.

 

[Geza Ulole]

 

[Geza Ulole]

"

SECOND OPINION
Chimpanzee feud turns toxic in Tanzania
Primates fight like humans fuelled by power, ambition and jealousy

Kas Roussy · CBC News · Posted: Apr 03, 2018 2:17 PM ET | Last Updated: 11 hours ago

Humphrey was the alpha male of the group at the time of the conflict. (Geza Teleki)
5 comments
This is an excerpt from Second Opinion, a weekly roundup of eclectic and under-the-radar health and medical science news emailed to subscribers every Saturday morning.

If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.

You think you have a dysfunctional clan?

Check out the family feud involving Humphrey, Charlie and Hugh.

In the early '70s, the trio was part of a tight-knit community of wild chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania.

These are some of the same chimps that British primatologist Jane Goodall was studying at the time, looking at social and family dynamics.

"Jane and other researchers who came to Gombe initially had this idea that chimpanzees were these idyllic forest-dwelling species that could provide this model for what humanity could be like," says Duke University researcher Joseph Feldblum. "They thought they were peaceful and egalitarian."

They were about to get a reality check of the wild kingdom variety.

According to a new study, the same things that fuel deadly clashes in humans — like power, ambition, and jealousy — can also tear apart chimpanzees. You'll recall from all those wildlife documentaries that chimps are our closest animal relatives.

In Gombe, Goodall and her colleagues watched a once-unified group of chimps disintegrate into two rival factions.

Primatologist Jane Goodall sits near a window where behind a chimpanzee eats in its enclosure at Sydney's Taronga Zoo. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File) (Rick Rycroft/Associated Press)
"There's still a bit of uncertainty, even with people who were there at the time, about exactly what happened," Feldblum tells CBC News.

But thanks to new digitized data taken from Goodall's own field notes from that period, Feldblum and a team of scientists were able to get a clearer, more detailed picture of what they call "the seeds of the conflict."

"We were able to examine the course of the split in more detail and pinpoint when it became obvious more precisely," says co-author and Duke anthropologist Anne Pusey.

'When Hugh and Charlie came charging … they were very intimidating'.- Prof. Anne Pusey, Jane Goodall Institute Research Center, Duke University
Pusey worked alongside Goodall in Gombe and has spent the last 25 years archiving and digitizing Goodall's handwritten notes.

Researchers have analyzed what they call "shifting alliances" among 19 male chimpanzees, leading up to the big split.

Clusters of males grew more distinct over time, they say. They started noticing that some males spent more time in the northern part of the park, while another group would hang out in the southern part.

Which brings us back to Humphrey, who was partial to hanging out in the north. Charlie and Hugh, who are believed to be brothers, withdrew to the south. There was increasing tension among this trio.

"To be clear," says Feldblum, "Humphrey was the alpha male of the group at the time, and he was able to intimidate all the other males individually."

In the early 1970's, British primatologist, Jane Goodall and her colleagues studied the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park, and witnessed as a once-unified communities turned on each other. (Jamie Hopkins/CBC News)
But the other two were no shrinking violets.

"When Hugh and Charlie came charging with their hair on end into a group, in tandem, they were very intimidating," says Pusey.

By 1971, researchers found the northerners and southerners met less frequently.

"The cliques began to harden," according to the new data.

When there were encounters, it got ugly.

"What chimpanzees do as part of dominance competition, male chimpanzees can puff up their hair and make themselves look bigger. They'll run and stomp and drag branches," says Feldblum.

'Very, very rare'
Researchers now believe this power struggle between the three "high-ranking males" triggered the big split.

And perhaps, not coincidentally, this all happened at a time when female chimpanzees, especially the ones of child-bearing age, were in short supply.

"There were a lot of males competing for a small number of reproductively available females," says Feldman.

"What started as infighting among a few top males vying for status and mates is likely what eventually caused the whole group to splinter."

• Primatologist Jane Goodall to receive honorary degree from Western University

• VIDEO
  'They all love him:' Chimp rescued by Alberta man thrives at Kenyan sanctuary

• Babysitters are a big help for chimpanzee moms, study finds

In anthropology and primatology circles, this is a big deal. This kind of split, which scientists call "fission," is rare.

"This makes our case very interesting," Pusey says in an e-mail.

"Chimpanzees have the unusual pattern of males staying in the community that they're born into," adds Feldblum. "And in male philopatric primates, these sorts of fissions are very, very rare."

"We showed that this was indeed probably the only split of one coherent chimpanzee group that's ever been observed in the wild."

It didn't end well for the simians of Gombe.

The split led to the brutal Gombe Chimpanzee War. Goodall called it the "Four-Year War" from 1974 to 1978, "a period of killings and land grabs, the only civil war ever observed in wild chimpanzees."

To read the entire Second Opinion newsletter every Saturday morning, subscribe.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kas Roussy

Senior Reporter

Kas Roussy is a senior reporter with the Health unit at CBC News. In her more than 30 years with CBC, Kas’s reporting has taken her around the globe to cover news in countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan, Chile, Haiti and China, where she was the bureau producer.

CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices
Send Feedback

chimpanzee feud turns toxic in Tanzania | CBC News

 

[Geza Ulole]

Rare Pair of Elephant Twins Thrill Conservationists in Tanzania
Female named Eloise thought to be oldest mother of twins known


Log In to Vimeo

WCS Tanzania Program

WCS scientists say that the mother elephant named Eloise, estimated to be 57 years old, gave birth to the twins in August 2017, which makes her the oldest mother elephant known to have given birth to twins.


Article ID: 692334

Released: 5-Apr-2018 2:05 PM EDT

Source Newsroom: Wildlife Conservation Society

Credit: WCS Tanzania Program

Researchers report that the twins are both doing well and are already approximately eight months old. They will continue to suckle with their mother for another three to four years while making the transition to the park’s lush vegetation.

Credit: WCS Tanzania Program

WCS conservationists working in Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park have not one but two good reasons to be hopeful for the park’s savanna elephant population: a pair of rare twin calves who have recently joined their mother’s herd.

Credit: WCS Tanzania Program

Researchers report that the twins are both doing well and are already approximately eight months old. They will continue to suckle with their mother for another three to four years while making the transition to the park’s lush vegetation.


Credit: WCS Tanzania Program

WCS conservationists working in Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park have not one but two good reasons to be hopeful for the park’s savanna elephant population: a pair of rare twin calves who have recently joined their mother’s herd.

Credit: WCS Tanzania Program

Researchers report that the twins are both doing well and are already approximately eight months old. They will continue to suckle with their mother for another three to four years while making the transition to the park’s lush vegetation.


Credit: WCS Tanzania Program

WCS conservationists working in Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park have not one but two good reasons to be hopeful for the park’s savanna elephant population: a pair of rare twin calves who have recently joined their mother’s herd.
PrevNext
MEDIA CONTACT
Available for logged-in reporters only

CHANNELS
Wildlife, African News, Local - New York, Local - New York Metro
KEYWORDS

Elephant, Tanzania


Newswise — Conservationists working in Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park have not one but two good reasons to be hopeful for the park’s savanna elephant population: a pair of rare twin calves who have recently joined their mother’s herd.

Researchers for WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) who have been studying the Tarangire ecosystem’s northern subpopulation for 25 years recently spotted the calves—one male and one female—during their monitoring efforts and have been keeping a close eye on the infant animals. It is estimated that one percent of all elephant conceptions results in twins.

The scientists report that the mother elephant named Eloise, estimated to be 57 years old, gave birth to the twins in August 2017, which makes her the oldest mother elephant known to have given birth to twins.

Unfortunately, twin elephant calves have a bigger challenge than single offspring in the journey to adulthood; mortality among twins is usually greater than with single infants. Male infants, with their higher growth rates and greater nutritional needs, are particularly vulnerable during their infancy.

In spite of the odds, Tarangire researchers report that the twins are both doing well and are already approximately eight months old. They will continue to suckle with their mother for another three to four years while making the transition to the park’s lush vegetation.

“The twins were originally quite thin and we were worried that they wouldn't survive. Fortunately the park has experienced good rains in the past three months, and both twins have gained significant weight and we are happy to see that they are now playing more frequently,” said Dr. Charles Foley, Director of WCS’s Tarangire Elephant Project. “The elephants in and around Tarangire National Park are well protected by the park rangers and local communities, and with the guidance of an experienced matriarch, we have high hopes for their survival. Every elephant calf born is a step towards the recovery of the species, and twins are even better.”

WCS works across the African continent to study and protect both savanna and forest elephants, both of which have become imperiled by a number of threats, foremost of which is the illegal killing of these charismatic animals for the ivory trade.

###

WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society)MISSION: WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. To achieve our mission, WCS, based at the Bronx Zoo, harnesses the power of its Global Conservation Program in nearly 60 nations and in all the world’s oceans and its five wildlife parks in New York City, visited by 4 million people annually. WCS combines its expertise in the field, zoos, and aquarium to achieve its conservation mission. Visit: newsroom.wcs.org Follow: @WCSNewsroom. For more information: 347-840-1242.

96 Elephants WCS is leading global efforts to save Africa’s elephants and end the current poaching and ivory trafficking crisis. In September 2013, WCS launched its 96 Elephants campaign to amplify and support the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) “Partnership to Save Africa’s Elephants” by stopping the killing, stopping the trafficking, and stopping the demand. The WCS campaign focuses on: securing effective moratoria on sales of ivory; bolstering elephant protection; and educating the public about the link between ivory consumption and the elephant poaching crisis.www.96elephants.org

Rare Pair of Elephant Twins Thrill Conservationists in Tanzania

 

[ISIS]

Maulana Mola wangu alinde nchi yetu Tanzania milele yote!

 

[Geza Ulole]

 

[Geza Ulole]

Battle to save Africa’s elephants is gaining some ground

In this photo taken Wednesday, March 21, 2018, a team of wildlife veterinarians use a 4x4 vehicle and a rope to turn over a tranquilized elephant in order to attach a GPS tracking collar and remove the tranquilizer dart, in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania. The battle to save Africa’s elephants appears to be gaining momentum in Mikumi, where killings are declining and some populations are starting to grow again. (Ben Curtis/Associated Press)
By Christopher Torchia | APApril 13 at 3:41 AM

MIKUMI NATIONAL PARK, Tanzania — The elephant keeled over in the tall grass in Tanzania, where some of the world’s worst poaching has occurred.

It wasn’t killers who targeted her but conservation officials who shot her with a dart of drugs. Soon she was snoring. They slid on a 26-pound (12-kilogram) GPS tracking collar and injected an antidote, bringing her back to her feet.

The operation was part of a yearlong effort to track 60 elephants in and around Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve, widely acknowledged as “ground zero” in the poaching that has decimated Africa’s elephants. The Associated Press went there to witness how the battle to save them is gaining momentum, with killings declining and some populations growing again. Legal ivory markets are shrinking worldwide and law enforcement has broken up some trafficking syndicates, experts say.

But it’s too early to declare a turnaround. Poachers are moving to new areas and traffickers are adapting, aided by corruption. The rate of annual elephant losses still exceeds the birth rate. And the encroachment of human settlements reduces the animals’ range.

“We have a long way to go before we can feel comfortable about the future,” said Chris Thouless of Save the Elephants, a group based in Kenya, where elephant numbers are increasing.


Britain this month announced a ban on ivory sales. In China, trade in ivory is illegal as of this year. In the U.S., a ban on ivory apart from items older than 100 years began in 2016.

If poaching can be brought under control in Tanzania, there is hope that the killing can be stemmed across Africa.

The continent’s elephant population has plummeted from millions in 1900 to at least 415,000 today. A ban on commercial trade in ivory across international borders began in 1990, but many countries continue to allow domestic trade.

Increased demand in China fueled a new wave of killings. Africa’s savanna elephant population declined by 30 percent between 2007 and 2014 to about 352,000, according to one census.

In Tanzania, the elephant population declined by 60 percent to 43,000 between 2009 and 2014, according to the government. Much of the slaughter occurred in the Selous-Mikumi ecosystem.

The killings appear to have slowed. A count in Selous-Mikumi last year added up 23 carcasses, 20 percent of the number found four years earlier. And African elephant poaching has declined to pre-2008 levels after reaching a peak in 2011, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

It’s a positive trend, but there is speculation that many areas have fewer elephants to kill.


“All the ‘easy’ elephants are dead,” said Drew McVey, East Africa manager for the WWF conservation group.

Battle to save Africa's elephants is gaining some ground

In Tanzania’s Selous region, more newborn elephants are visible and elephants are moving more widely outside officially protected areas, said Edward Kohi, principal research officer with the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute and leader of the WWF-funded GPS collaring program.

Poaching of elephants will probably never be eradicated, Kohi acknowledged.

When gains against the illegal ivory trade are made in one area, killings intensify in another. And international seizures of smuggled ivory appear to be as large as ever, a possible sign of traffickers’ efforts to move stockpiles before business becomes too difficult.

Another worrying development is evidence of increased processing of ivory into jewelry and trinkets within Africa, allowing traffickers to transport ivory in smaller, harder-to-detect quantities.

Tanzania’s vast wilderness still offers hope for the world’s biggest land animal.

In 50 to 100 years, Kohi said, “when the human population is skyrocketing, this will be one of the important areas for the conservation of elephants.”


___

Follow Christopher Torchia on Twitter at www.twitter.com/torchiachris

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

[Geza Ulole]

 

[Geza Ulole]