Ever wondered exactly how many animals visit the pan at Kavinga Safari Camp? If you have, read on, because we’ve got the answer.
Counting the game
Every year, Wildlife and Environment Zimbabwe (WEZ) conducts game counts across many of Zimbabwe’s national parks, including Hwange, Gonarezhou and Mana Pools.
The purpose behind the game counts? As the name suggests, it’s to count the number of animals in an area, and to get an idea of the species distribution in each park. The annual census – which has been running for approximately 30 years – also provides useful trend information for WEZ and other researchers.
Taking place over a weekend closest to the September full moon, the Mana Pools game count concept is relatively simple. People volunteer to either sit at a specific waterhole, spring or stretch of water for 24 hours and count the animals that visit (static count) or they take part in a walking game count across the floodplain (transect count). It’s a fantastic way for ‘ordinary’ people to get involved in conservation and research – you don’t have to be a scientist to take part.
Of course, the numbers are never precise – some animals drink more than once a day – but the census still provides a good indication of the various species in each area and their movements.
Highlights from the 2024 Kavinga game count
The waterhole at Kavinga has been one of the static spots for the Mana Pools National Park Game Count for many years, since long before we set up camp. In fact, it was through their involvement in game count over the years that some of our shareholders learnt about this beautiful spot.
This year, four volunteers from Harare sat on our top deck from midday on Saturday 14 September until midday on Sunday 15 September, recording all the species (including attempting to count males, females and young) that came to drink at the pan.
As it’s already very dry in Mana Pools this season, we were expecting to see more animals than the past couple of years. And we weren’t wrong.
Over the 24-hour period, the team counted 1,844 animals across 14 different species. Comparatively, in 2023 we recorded 1,506 animals (16 species); and in 2022 671 animals across 15 species.
Although substantially less buffalo were counted this year compared to 2023 (133 vs 536), about 250 drank at the pan just before the team started the 24-hour period. We saw more baboons (306), impala (742), elephants (488) and bushbuck (20) compared to the previous two years. And we recorded seven eland, which is always a sure sign that water is scarce in the valley.
The game count team was also lucky enough to see a kill. At around 6pm on the Saturday evening, three lions took down a buffalo near the pan. In terms of special nocturnal sightings, we counted several civet and porcupine, and even a pair of mating leopards!
Here’s a link to the game count team’s instagram video of their experience.