Everywhere we have been, people have commented that it is unseasonably warm, and have predicted that the rains will start early this year. Normal fall rains start mid-October; last year they started in late November. We have had thunder and lightning the past two nights, and early this morning it rained heavily…of course the weather bird predicted the rain. The rain bird is the White-browed Coucal. Local people in various parts of Africa use the song of the coucal as a prediction of rain — the higher the pitch the great the rain fall. Luckily we heard a coucal in the lower part of its range.
We started the day with a 3-hour bush walk, in cooler temperatures and occasional rain. It is always fascinating to see wildlife and wild landscapes from that perspective. Today that was particularly true for hippo behavior. We stopped several times at the top of steep embankments above narrow sections of the river— had we been on a sloping shoreline there might have been at risk of attack, but because we were well above them on a steep bank, they tended to flee from us, or make a great deal of noise and commotion without moving much, except for the dominant male. On a short drive after our walk and bush breakfast, we saw a black mamba.
On our afternoon game drive we witnessed the final stages of a three day disposal of a dead hippo by over thirty crocodiles. The first day we saw what we suspected was a dead hippo lying on its side in shallow water with a baby hippo still swimming near it. About thirty crocodiles were lined up near it but not yet touching it; we surmised that since hippos are pretty massive creatures and spend much of the day nearly motionless, the crocodiles wanted proof it was dead and wanted the baby to leave, lest other hippos rush in to protect the baby. On day two, the hippo had rolled onto its back, all four feet in the air, and the smell of death was strong, that afternoon other guests watched as the crocodiles dismembered the carcass. By this afternoon, there were twenty-plus crocodiles, clearly well fed, basking on a sandbar. All that remained was the head, and a few crocodiles were working from the inside out to finish that (an eerie sight).
Pictured: giraffe eating grass, hippo trying to scare us off, black mamba, hippo -crocodile puppet
Throughout the trip, we were impressed by the passion for wildlife preservation stain and the lengths to which the government is going to protect wild lands. Poaching is obviously a big concern, not just for ivory, but for food including honey. But the next big threat is water. Katavi is at the mercy of the seasonal rains, which have become much less predictable. This year the camp is closing one month early in anticipation of the early rains. At Ruaha, the river system used to retain water for many months after the rainy season. Now the river is largely dry a few weeks after the rains stop, because so much water is being diverted to rice farms in nearby villages. The lack of water inside the park forces animals to go farther downstream in search of it. This increases human-animal interaction, which often does not end well for the animal. And at Sand Rivers, an enormous hydroelectric dis, is being built upstream on the Rufiji River. An ecosystem that evolved based on spring floods and later subsidence now has the same water level all shear round; it is too early to tell what the effect of that will be. It is also unclear whether downstream camps and communities will have any warning if the dam needs to open its floodgates from time to time.
