BEE Partner, South Africa Economy Watch

THE DON’TS

• Don’t camp near a water source. Camp at least three kilometres away.
• Don’t use soap or shampoo if you are washing in a river or stream. Fill a bucket with water instead, and find a place away from the water source to wash yourself.
• Don’t leave any toilet paper uncovered. Use the ‘cat’ method and bury all the evidence.
• Don’t leave your refuse behind or try to bury it, as scavengers will dig it up. Keep refuse in a sturdy bag and wait until you reach a town or an official municipal dump before disposing of it.

• Don’t make fires against trees or leave fires burning when departing your camp site.
• Don’t dish out money or other items to the beggars who sometimes congregate at fuel stops. Sometimes a handout to one produces a riotous free-for-all, with a shower of stones hurled at your vehicle as you flee the scene.
• Don’t take fruit into Botswana’s game reserves or into some Zimbabwean parks, such as Mana Pools. In Botswana, you are prohibited from taking fruit into the game reserves, as elephants have a keen sense of smell and will destroy your food boxes (and even your vehicle) if they smell fruit.
• Don’t approach wild animals even if they look peaceful.
• Don’t try to handle tame-looking animals, such as mongoose and suricate, as they could have rabies.
• Don’t imitate the Camel Trophy teams. Drive slowly and stay alert.
• Don’t under any circumstances make new tracks in sensitive areas such as the gravel plains of the Namib Desert. If the road is washboarded, deflate your vehicle’s tyres and proceed slowly.
• Don’t make a noise at water holes. Sit quietly and be patient. You will be rewarded.
• Don’t throw a burning cigarette away as it could cause a serious veld fire. Smokers should never discard their cigarette butts in the veld, but should use a tin as an ashtray.
• Don’t throw your leftover food into the bush. Put it in a refuse bag and hang the bag high above the ground at night.
• Don’t feed jackal, hyaena, baboon, monkey, warthog or any other wild animals.

In recent years, I have noted the increasingly aggressive behaviour of baboon, monkey and hyaena in the parks of Botswana and northern

Zimbabwe. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main one is that people feed these animals.

At Savuti in the Chobe National Park, I have seen hyaena walk right into the circle of firelight, having lost their fear of fire, while people threw leftover braai meat at them in order to take a good photograph.

At Serondella in the Chobe and at Third Bridge in Botswana’s Moremi National Park, I saw people feeding sweets to monkeys and baboons, which led to a troop of baboons attacking a camp site.

Complaints to the authorities in Botswana seem to lead nowhere, but in Zimbabwe the game wardens are taking drastic (and deadly) measures to keep these animals under control. At Okaukuejo in the Etosha National Park, jackal will steal meat directly from the grill, even though the camps in Namibia are fenced in (they dig holes under the fencing). The authorities here regularly shoot these animals to prevent them from becoming a nuisance. Remember that wild animals that have lost their fear of humans are dangerous, and have to be killed. Do not unwittingly sentence these animals to death by feeding them.

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