Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Increasing Smog Cloud over Makgadigadi Dried out Pan
Lake Ngami may have dried out because white men's guns killed off hippos that kept the
narrow channels between Okavango swamps and Lake Ngami open, allowing reeds to
overgrow and block the channels. Running from Gaborone in the south to Kasane at Chobe
game reserve in the north, there is a highway built by the Italian government on the eastern
border of Botswana, just like the one built on Mozambique's eastern border.
To keep cattle off the road fences were built on either side but these obviously could not
prevent animal migrations, particularly elephants.
Loaded Taxi
This road is analogous to the road that is being planned right through the center of the
Serengeti. In the Kalahari Desert rain and moisture is so rare that any water that falls on the
road runs off to the sand on both sides and grass shoots sprout. The decrepit and starving cattle
are let onto the highway to eat the measly grass on either side of the paved road. On one
occasion when headed up to Chobe, a herd of sable broke through the fences in front of us and
crossed over from Hwange Game Reserve to Botswana's Moremi Game Reserve. We also
had to put on brakes on the highway for a herd of elephants that trundled across the road in
front of us. Although Mbuti Pygmies will sneak under the belly of a forest elephant for a fee,
doing so with a car is hardly feasible or recommended. Indeed, elephants have ended up as
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