The Kruger National Park is one of the most beautiful game parks in the world, in my opinion.
Kruger National Park is a South African National Park and one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of 19,623 km2 (7,576 sq mi) in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, and extends 360 km (220 mi) from north to south and 65 km (40 mi) from east to west.
Areas of the park were first protected by the government of the South African Republic in 1898, and it became South Africa’s first national park in 1926.
Basically, it’s roughly the size of Israel.
Which is pretty damn big for a game park. It even has an airport for those who are too lazy to drive and prefer flying directly to the Skukuza camp.
My wife and I love going to Kruger, and we try to make it an annual roadtrip.
Some photos
The park is magical, and it’s impossible to see all of it in a single stay. The roads only cover around 4% of the land mass, and the speed limit is very low, obviously.
The following is a tiny snapshot from earlier this year.
However, there’s a problem
Kruger is dying.
And it’s largely because of an overpopulation of elephants. Establishment media is disconnected from reality (as usual) and perpetuates a complete inversion of what is true. My rule of thumb is to take mainstream claims with a pinch of salt because, often, they’re well-funded or influenced by ideological and corporate lobbying. Animal rights groups, for example, are typically politicised and, in fact, are harmful because they care more about their narratives than the animals.
Ignoring establishment media is something the fake pandemic and fake climate emergency has taught me.
Kruger’s own website has articles about the problems surrounding elephant overpopulation and the attempts to manage it.
Elephants are majestic and beautiful, but one has to put aside emotions and realise that Kruger has capacity for around 3500 elephants.
Currently, best estimates are that Kruger has somewhere between 35,000 and 45,000 elephants. This means that all life in Kruger, from trees to birds to animals, is being negatively impacted. For example, elephants are destroying trees faster than the trees are able to regrow, causing damaged habitats for many birds such as eagles. Sable (a type of antelope) are nearly non-existent in Kruger because of what elephants have done to their vegetation.
Important documentary
I strongly recommend watching the following documentary, which gives a good breakdown of the elephants breaking down Kruger.
Our conversation
Ron Thomson joined me for a discussion about Kruger’s elephants. His experience and knowledge are next level.
Ron Thomson has a total of 57 years of hands-on experience in wildlife management, national park administration and African big game hunting. This, together with his thorough understanding of the science of wildlife management, places him in a class of his own.
Throughout his professional life Ron Thomson was a game warden in one or another of Africa’s national park organizations – primarily in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). There his big game hunting experience grew out of government’s need to employ him, and others like him, to conduct problem animal control work – on leopard, lion, hippo, buffalo and elephant – wherever these animals were in conflict with man. Ron and his supporting team also captured 140 black rhinos on foot, using conventional hunting techniques but armed only with a dart gun.
Ron intricately understands conservation and how to best manage wildlife, especially big game. In his conversation with me, he outlines the challenges facing the Kruger National Park, and how to solve them.
The cold truth is that a .378 Magnum is one of the very few remaining solutions.
A response from Kruger
SANParks (South African National Parks) has issued a response, highlighted in the document below.
