Ezangaphakathi
Drought Cycles
By Reg Gush who was involved with Mkhuze for 40 years
Mkhuze game reserve - now in the grip of an appalling drought -- has lived
through many cycles of drought and floods.
These have been well documented. Singie Denyer, ranger-in charge of the
reserve at the time, recorded the 1957 floods, when 150mm of rain fell in
that October, so that is difficult to believe that by August 1958 the reserve
was again in the grip of drought.
On my arrival in Mkhuze in November 1960, the reserve was in a pitiful condition.
To the untrained eye, the scene from the entrance gate in the western section
to Mantuma camp was an attractive one - large expanses of yellow flowers
covered the veld. Closer inspection revealed virtually no grass cover and
the yellow-flowering weed was merely primary cover of no nutritional value
to the game.
In early December 1960 we had been happily driving across the dried-out
and dusty bed of the Nsumu pan in our Landrovers, but by the end of the
month, the pan was full to the brim! And, by December 1961 the reserve was
again in the grip of drought.
An aggravating factor in the droughts of the early sixties was that, with
the river and natural pans having dried up, the only water available to
the animals and birds was what we could pump to Bube pan via the Vulture
pan, and we had to keep our Climax pumps working day and night to ensure
an adequate supply to these water points.
Periodic droughts will continue to pose a serious threat to the welfare
and tourism potential of this reserve and I believe it is essential the
pumping of water to the two central pans at Bube and Msinga be maintained.
* Reg Gush is author of Mkhuze, The Formative Years, published in 2000.
MANAGEMENT CHALLENGE
DR PETER GOODMAN
That Mkhuze is suffering under the throws of drought is undeniable. But
despite what people with short memories might say, the current event only
ranks third in terms of its impact on food resources.
Earlier droughts between 1956 and 1970 (14 years of below average rainfall)
and 1978 and 1982 (five years of below average rainfall) were much worse.
Nevertheless, at the end of this dry season, food resources for large herbivores
are almost entirely depleted. This has lead to an almost unprecedented exodus.
Hippo (resident population of 80 at Nsumo) have moved to Ceswana and Muzi
pans) and about 800 wildebeest have moved to the grassy floodplains at the
confluence of the Mkuze and Msunduzi rivers.
Wildebeest, zebra and white rhino have also moved in smaller numbers into
the hills to the west, and onto communal land. Some nyala have also moved
onto the communal land to the north and east along the Mkuze river.
These are perfectly natural responses to food-related stress. But people
might ask, what management is in place to minimise
effects of drought?
The answer to this goes back to decisions taken and strategies developed
after the end of the 1980s drought: that we should replace reactive management
with management strategies that either re-established or simulated the natural
processes that regulated large herbivore populations.
In Mkhuze, one of the most important was the mimicking of the gross effects
of predation on large herbivores. This means that each year since 1983,
animals equivalent to the number that would have been caught by lion and
wild dogs no longer present in the system, have been removed in the annual
programme.
The effect is to hold the populations of prey species slightly below carrying
capacity which buffers the impact of drought. So, we view the current situation
as being perfectly normal, and for those species subject to predation by
large predators, there is no need to take any extraordinary management action.
This has underlined that as Mkhuze (and the whole of the Park) is gradually
fenced , it is going to be critical to build in the necessary buffers -
an exciting management challenge.
Ngwenya herders water cattle as the drought grips