Great Fish River Nature Preserve

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The huge area was once farms, but is now a nature preserve with many different kinds of wildlife. The giraffe were easy to photograph. The Springboks and other ungulates would only let you get within a 100m. The warthogs were extremely sensitive to being viewed. Mother warthogs and piglets would tear off into the bush the moment I'd step toward them.

We did not see any elephants, which was probably a good thing. Warren Dauncey and I went off into the bush following a dried stream bed in search of any elephants we could find. We found a lot of elephant scat. A story was going around at the time about a guy who thought he'd get real close to an elephant - she picked him up and threw him!

Population pressures are having a negative impact on nature preserves all over Africa and the Great Fish is no different. Armed forest rangers are very necessary if the wildlife is to survive. Warren pointed out a typical snare to me as we were wandering along the stream bed.