Head-butting zebra

The afternoon was spent in Ongava’s reserve and was quiet on the wildlife sightings. In fact, we had only managed to see Kori Bustard (yep, you read that right), a kestrel and a lion before it was time to return to camp. On discussing this with Siggi it seemed there were two likely reasons for this. One, a large pride of lion with around 12 cubs had been around the area for the last few days, keeping any prey animals away. Second, in 2019 Namibia suffered from, what meteorological services called, the deadliest drought to hit the country in 90 years. In May 2019 the president declared a State of Emergency in the country as they believed over 500,000 people would be affected. In June 2019 the Namibian government authorised the sale of at least 1,000 wild animals to limit loss of life and generate money for conservation. This, unsurprisingly, is all down to human impact on climate change caused by what is known as the La Nina effect, whereby constant warmer winters and drought affect the country. Indeed, every hotel/lodge/camp we stayed in had placed notes in bathrooms to plead using water as sparingly as possible, and in some reserves they were supplementing food for their wildlife.