Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Watching Wildlife: Southern Africa
(Matthew Firestone and Nana Luckham, 2nd edn, 2003) Lonely Planet's
very own field guide, complete with colour photographs.
Mammals of Botswana & Surrounding Areas
(Veronica Roodt, 2011) Handy, well-written guide available in
many lodges and bookstores around Botswana.
Birds of Southern Africa
(Ian Sinclair et al, 4th edn, 2011) Easily the best field guide to the country's birds.
ELEPHANTS
Botswana has more elephants within its borders than any other country on earth. While
elephants elsewhere are facing a renewed threat from poaching - an estimated 25,000 ele-
phants were killed for their ivory in 2011 - Botswana's elephant populations remain in
rude health. Latest estimates suggest that there are 130,000 elephants in Botswana, includ-
ing as many as 71,000 in Chobe National Park alone - the Chobe population represents
the densest concentration of elephants on the planet.
RHINOS
Rhinoceroses were once plentiful across Botswana, particularly in the north, with black
rhinos concentrated around the Chobe River and white rhinos more widely spread across
Chobe, Moremi and elsewhere in the Okavango Delta. But the poaching holocaust in the
1970s and 1980s that sent numbers of both black and white rhinos plummeting across
Africa saw the rhino all but disappear from Botswana. By 1992 the black rhino was con-
sidered extinct in Botswana, with just 19 white rhinos remaining in the country.
At around the same time, the 4300-hectare Khama Rhino Sanctuary was established,
and all remaining rhinos were shut away there in a bid to save the species. The sanctuary
has been something of a success story, protecting around 40 white rhinos and four blacks.
Better still, in 2001 the Botswana Rhino Reintroduction Project, a collaboration between
the government, conservation groups and tourism operators, began the process of sending
rhinos once more out into the Botswana wild. At the time of writing, 32 white rhinos have
been set free in Botswana's Moremi Game Reserve, particularly around Chief's Island and
the exclusive Mombo Camp (the owners, Wilderness Safaris, were involved in the project
from the beginning). Poachers killed two rhinos in 2003, but otherwise the population has
continued to grow - with an estimated 11 calves having been born to released rhinos, the
current population is believed to be 38 wild rhinos.
Two females refused to be confined to their new surroundings and were last seen in
Makgadikgadi Pans National Park; in 2008 a male white rhino was sent to Makgadikgadi
from the Khama Rhino Sanctuary in the hope of establishing a small population there.
