The old seasons are over, seasons of change | Great Plains Conservation скачать в хорошем качестве

The old seasons are over, seasons of change | Great Plains Conservation

No matter what the cause, the seasons in Africa are undoubtedly changing. Some of this is extremely exciting, and some we need to adapt to. As we go to Paris to sit on the Sustainability Commission at Relais & Châteaux’s World Congress, this will be a major topic: How we adapt. There is a possibility that the wildebeest migration may start arriving later and leaving Kenya’s Maasai Mara earlier, for example. This may actually be a blessing in disguise. Beverly and I spent a few months in the Mara this year and noticed a few things. First of all, the mass tourism is out of control. But that chaos is entirely restricted to the migration season. I am often asked what wildlife is left once the herds move south. Well, the short answer is ‘everything!’ We filmed cheetah cubs wobbling about behind their mother months later and lion cubs climbing trees and getting up to mischief. The Loita zebra migration came into the conservancies where Mara Plains and Mara Nyika are located, and giraffe gave birth. Topi youngsters are racing around now. Storm clouds came and went, filling our frames with dramatic backdrops, and a leopard gave birth to her cubs under one of our tents again.  We followed a serval cat for hours - almost every day for a month. Her two kittens escaped an attack by buffalo. An impala fawn didn’t escape from a hyena. A demonic-looking jackal chased and got chased by a Thompson’s gazelle in a glorious dance of survival, and all of this happened without a wildebeest in site! In Botswana, elephants crowd the Selinda Spillway during October and into November. Last week, painted dogs chased leopards at Duba Plains. Zimbabwe’s Tembo Plains is seeing elephant births and exceptional wildlife right up to and into the old ‘rainy season.’ The old ‘seasons’ are over. Our Great Plains camps and reserves are perfectly positioned to show our guests something spectacular any time of the year. As a result, we are changing the labelling of seasons. Out with ‘wet’ and ‘green,’ and definitely the ‘off’ season. In with the calving seasons everywhere in the last quarter of the year and into the first quarter of the next. This is a time you really want to know for anyone who is an aficionado of safaris. It is best almost precisely when most people think it isn’t, and less so when the others arrive. The winds of change have arrived in Botswana, and they are exciting. I encourage everyone to visit our beautiful country for the first time, or again, during any season. At Great Plains, we are ready to welcome you. Kind regards, Dereck