Botswana
My work has taken me to Botswana virtually many times; mapping cape buffalo, African elephant, and plains zebra migrations throughout the region. It's a unique place for migratory wildlife, with the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) stretching across parts of Botswana, Angola, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, making it the world's largest land-based transboundary conservation area. All told, its 106 million acres largely made up of national parks, game reserves, forest reserves, and community managed areas, built on the idea of a thriving coexistence between people and wildlife.
As wonderful as this landscape is, it is still diminished from what it once was. In the second half of the 20th century, veterinary fences were erected across Botswana as a means to limit the spread of disease from wildlife to cattle. This was primarily done to appease the European Union, which refused to buy Botswanan beef otherwise. Of course, this had devastating impacts on migratory wildlife that moved between the Kalahari and the Okavango Delta. It's estimated that millions of wildebeest and zebra died against the fences, and populations are still only a fraction of their original numbers.
Since then, some of the fences have come down, opening up routes that had been blocked for decades. Incredibly, thousands of zebra have reestablished their historic migrations within only a handful of years. Yet none of these zebra were alive before the fences were built, raising the question; is some genetically encoded memory motivating these long-distance movements? Or simply an exploratory instinct? I don't know the answers, but I do have maps!
Maps I made for the Atlas of Ungulate Migration
Meanwhile, my grandpa had apparently heard of this zebra migration and planned a trip to Botswana in hopes of seeing it. And lucky me, he thought I might be interested in joining, which was absolutely correct. His itinerary took us on a two week journey from Maun to Nxai Pan NP, to Makgadikgadi Pans NP, and back over to the Okavango Delta.
Critters of Nxai Pan. Truly the most diversity and abundance of wildlife I'd ever seen.
Baobab trees! My big tree cravings were satisfied, although they are really giant succulents more than trees.
We caught up with the zebra in Makgadikgadi Pans and the dry riverbed of the Boteti.
Although it wasn't strictly zebra...
The critters of the Okavango.
And one gallery just for the birds of the Okavango! This is just a fraction of them!
Ridiculously beautiful sunrises and sunsets.
Anyways, truly a once in a lifetime experience! But I still have so many photos to delete...
