Luxury safari in Botswana with Victoria Falls

Many thanks for taking the time to send your feedback. It was so distressing to read of your experience. This is an unusual situation and a first for us all. Thank you for allowing us time to investigate this issue and then get back to you. We received the following reports from Managers/Guides.

At Hyena Pan Camp the Manager of the Khwai Private Reserve who is also a Conservationist and very involved in the matter reported they have been trying their utmost to figure out what is going on with all the elephant mortalities on the concession and arranged for the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) to draw some blood for tests, and have both the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) vet and DVS to do a post mortem. On Sunday the 26th, they flew the vet out again by helicopter to come and dart the effected elephants, to investigate the issue. They have recorded every single elephant mortality and reported it with GPS co-ordinates, age of carcass, possible cause, male/female and shared it with DWNP and DVS. Currently there seem to be a number of elephant mortalities in the whole northern part of Botswana and Zimbabwe, where a study was conducted, and feedback shared on Sky News in October.
There are no concrete answers yet and the investigation is ongoing. The issue has been reported to vets in Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe), Namibia as well as South Africa to get as many opinions as possible. Bearing in mind the reserve is not fenced off, animals are free to roam far and wide and they can only report on what we have seen here. It is something that has occurred naturally and is not due to human interference. In instances where humans are involved, such as being caught in a snare, then we would 100% intervene with immediate action to try and assist the animal.
There is a lot of speculation – not one of the vets the information has been shared with, have seen it before.
What the PhD student said is speculation too, and not fact. Please know that we are not taking the situation lightly, and I am sorry if it seemed that way. The day the elephant died in the waterhole, we had the tractor and JCB engaged in another project in the south of the concession, but they went back to the north the very next day and removed the carcass from the waterhole. We will continue to engage with the relevant authorities and every effort will be made to monitor the situation and try to find answers, with we hope, a course of action.
Kadizora would like to extend their apologies if you felt in any way they were chasing animals, this is certainly not the norm and in fact the first time to their knowledge they have received such a complaint. To this end they have already engaged with their guides and re-iterated how to conduct the safari from all aspects to ensure a great experience. The below points raised are well noted and they will continue to address and monitor accordingly.

They are saddened to hear you also feel they are failing at the balance between community and wildlife. The cattle fence erected in the 1950’s is definitely derelict and serves no purpose, this is something the government is addressing and as private individuals are not permitted to touch the fence and the removal of this fence has been a debate for many years that needs to be addressed. They believe that they have done more than “just put solar”, when they built the lodge- they engaged the local community to build the lodge and also employed staff from the local community which has gone a long way to creating opportunities and income for the community where previously there was no opportunity. They are a relatively new lodge in the area (opening a few years before Covid) and have further plans and projects they are working on for the benefit of the area as a whole as they recover from the devastating effects of Covid.

In terms of the burning, this is something that cannot really be controlled as it is not manmade. Due to the high temperatures in Botswana in summer, there is a pattern of “veld fires” that occur – these spread out through the Boteti, Makgadikgadi as well as Okavango Delta regions. All camps/lodges surrounding each respective area have systems in place to control or create barriers that somewhat keep the fire out of their properties and communities are supported by government in the form of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks personnel patrols. There is no easy way to mitigate this occurrence.

Possibly the best known fence is the 'Buffalo Fence' that separates Maun from the Okavango Delta. It literally stretches across the breadth of the country. There was a huge outcry when the fence was erected but it has since been acknowledged by many that the fence may have saved the Okavango Delta. At about the same time as the erection of the fence the Botswana government had embarked on a project to wipe out the Tsetse fly from the delta. The Tsetse fly was the very reason that cattle had not moved into the prime grazing lands of the Okavango floodplains. Sleeping sickness and Nagana were prevalent in Botswana at the time and with the Tsetse fly gone it would be a free for all for cattle in the delta. The fence stopped that before it could happen.

An example of the former is the Makgadikgadi / Boteti fence - one of the most recent to be erected. The issue at hand is that the Boteti River, once a major overflow of the Okavango Delta began to dry up in the early 1990's. Waterholes were sunk in the dry channel to provide for the wildlife and cattle alike. The Boteti was a natural barrier between the wilderness of Makgadikgadi and the cattle farmers on the opposite bank but with the drying up water was at a premium with the herds of zebra and wildebeest competing with cattle for the diminishing resources.

A fence was considered the only option but with that decision a debate arose over the sighting of the fence. Finally it was decided to zigzag the fence in the channel so as to provide some waterholes for wildlife and others for the cattle. The issue rages on. Everyone has an opinion on the veterinary fences and few will seek to see all sides of the debate.

Every camp/lodge that establishes or rather develops and operates within these areas is obliged to sign a memorandum of agreement with the respective Communities in that area.

I trust that the above will shed some light and give a clearer picture as well as diminish any doubts that Government and her stakeholders are not doing anything nor are they not aware of the livelihood of their people.