The southern oryx, or gemsbok (O. g. gazella) is a large antelope with a stocky build and a short, thick neck. Both sexes carry long, almost straight, transversely ridged, rapier-like horns with those of bull shorter and more robust. The body is greyish-fawn in colour, with black-and-white marked faces; a black stripe extends down throat […]
The common eland is ox-like in appearance, especially in the case of bulls. Older bulls develop a large dewlap on the throat and most have distinctive mat of fairly long, coarse dark hair on the forehead. A short dark mane runs down the back of the neck of both bull and cow. Both carry shallowly […]
In my July column I discussed the mysterious deaths of numbers of elephants in the Okavango Delta region of Botswana. The authorities in that country have been rather reticent about releasing any results of the tests conducted on tissue samples from the dead elephants by a number of laboratories in several different countries, which in […]
Mike Angelides of McCallum Safaris Tanzania, offers an alluring introduction to western Tanzania. The west of Tanzania is predominately covered with miombo woodland made up of trees in the sub-family Caesalpinoideae, especially species in the genera Brachystegia and Julbernardia. Interspersed within the woodlands are broad, grassy depressions called “mbugas”. These seasonally waterlogged bottomlands can cover […]
The bushbuck is a medium-sized antelope with variable coat colouration and markings, and as many as 29 subspecies being recognised on this basis. Many of these subspecies and races are seen by some as being geographical variations that do not warrant subspecific status. They have short, bushy tails that are dark above and white below, […]
The Oosthuizen family arrived in the Cape Colony from Holland in 1671. The name featured prominently in two of the great events in South African history: the Great Trek of 1836 when the Boers migrated away from the British-controlled Cape and headed east and north-east; and in the second Boer War (1899-1902) when the two […]
I was born in 24 August 1977 in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State. (Now the Free State.) Since I can remember my dad and I went hunting in the June school holidays in the Dwaalboom area. We stayed in a small bungalow without electricity or running water, and every evening we boiled water on the fire […]
I was born in Pietermaritzburg in 1980. My parents, Paul and Jan, were living in Lotheni in the Drakensberg at the time, working in conservation for the Natal Parks Board. Therefore, my home has always been the bush, and for this I am ever grateful. With experiences in game reserves in Northern Zululand where my […]
Game Animals of the World by Chris and Mathilde Stuart African sunsets do not linger. Measly seconds exist between comfortable shooting light and pitch black darkness that is better suited for a hunting leopard. But right on cue my first wild gray duiker oozed from the Raisin bush and cautiously stepped out into the rapidly […]
Karl Stumpfe, owner of Ndumo Hunting Safaris, explains what makes Bwabwata so special. When one mentions the Caprivi, the wide-open floodplains of the Eastern Caprivi may come to mind. But the Caprivi is so much more than that, consisting of some of the most wonderful Kalahari-type woodland, and the jewel in the crown of this […]
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