Kolobe Ya Naga Bush Lodge GameDrive

Game Drives

The game reserve was officially opened on 22 September 2011 after the introduction of four of the Big 5. The last of the Big 5 to be introduced in late 2012 were the buffalo and they have settled in well. The animals, including buffalo, elephant, and rhino and predators like lions and leopards, are free-roaming and there are no fences except for the electric game fences around each encampment. The game reserve currently has limited self-drive routes, so we offer private exclusive game drives to get you and your family closer to the wildlife inside the reserve. Please refrain from hiking or cycling through the bush, rather make use of your automobile when travelling inside the game reserve. Trespassers are not prosecuted, they are eaten. All the pictures below were taken inside the Dinokeng Game Reserve.

Click here to see some of the animals and birds that call this reserve home

Big Five - African Lion (Panthera Leo)

Lions are the second largest big cat species in the world (behind tigers). The average male lion weighs around 180 kg (400 lb) while the average female lion weighs around 130 kg (290 lb). Lions can reach speeds of up to 81 kph (50 mph) but only in short bursts because of a lack of stamina. The roar of a lion can be heard from 8 kilometers (5.0 miles) away. The lion is a vulnerable species, having seen a major population decline in its African range of 30–50% per two decades during the second half of the 20th century. Lion populations are untenable outside designated nature reserves. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are currently the greatest causes of concern. West African lion population is particularly endangered.

Big Five - Leopard (Panthera Pardus)

Leopards are renowned for their agility. They run up to 58km/h and can leap 6m horizontally and 3m vertically. They are also very strong swimmers. Leopards tend to have two or three cubs per gestation. Mothers refrain from wandering their territories after giving birth until their young are capable to come with them. Cubs suckle for around 3 months and are kept hidden for about the first 8 weeks to protect them from predators. Leopards are strong swimmers and very much at home in the water, where they sometimes eat fish or crabs. The most secretive and elusive of the large carnivores, the leopard is also the shrewdest. Pound for pound, it is the strongest climber of the large cats and capable of killing prey larger than itself.

Big Five - African or Cape Buffalo (Syncerus Caffer)

The African buffalo is not the ancestor of domestic cattle, and is only distantly related to other larger bovines. Owing to its unpredictable nature, which makes it highly dangerous to humans. When faced with predators, animals of the herd form a circle around the young, old or weak animals, exposing their large and sharp horns toward the predators. This barrier is very effective and prevents predators to reach the animals that are not strong enough to fight. African buffalo has poor eyesight and sense of hearing, but their sense of smell is excellent. Mating season of African buffalo takes place between March and May. Pregnancy lasts 11 and half months and ends with one baby (calf). Average lifespan of the African buffalo in the wild is 20 years.

Big Five - African Elephant (Loxodonta Africana)

Elephants are large mammals of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea. Traditionally, two species are recognised, the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), although some evidence suggests that African bush elephants and African forest elephants are separate species (L. africana and L. cyclotis). Elephants are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Elephants can hear one another’s trumpeting 8km away. The largest Elephant recorded weighed +/- 10 888kg with a height of 3.96m. Elephants can get sunburned so they cover themselves with sand. Adult Elephants require up to 300kg food and 160 litres water per day.

Big Five - White or Square-lipped Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium Simum)

		There are two species of white rhino: northern and southern. They can grow up to 15 feet long, stand over 6 feet tall and weigh over 7000 pounds (3.5 tons). Both have two horns on their snout, with the larger (in front) averaging nearly 3 feet and, on the truly exceptional, reaching almost 5 feet. Sadly, the northern (Ceratotherium cottoni) is nearly extinct, with no known individuals existing in the wild; those that remain are so few, that we know most of them by name: Suni, Fatu, Sudan and Najin. Conservation efforts with the southern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) have been a wild success (pun intended). In 1900, only 100 individuals were known to exist. Today, over 17,500 are alive and well, mostly
in South Africa. An adult rhino’s skin can be as much as 5 cm (2 inches) thick, with typical range of thickness across species being 1.5-5 cm thick. Rhinos are lovable lummoxes, herbivores who roam grasslands and forests nibbling on foliage, fruit and grasses. When left alone, they can live for over 40 years in the wild. Able to reach speeds of up to 35 miles per hour, they are still not fast enough to outrun, or small enough to hide from, human hunters. As such, today there are just five remaining species of rhinoceroses: three Asian and two African.

Information supplied by Wikipedia.