Elephant Management in Kruger National Park Series1-8

Endangered Baobab Trees Becoming Extinct – Visuals

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The latest pictures – sent home by a visiting tourists from the United Kingdom.

A picture of the “New Natural World” taken in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

The changing mood of Kruger National Park. – where they don’t kill their too many elephants but they allow the endangered baobab trees to become extinct.

Credit: Images received from Peter Levey

Please read: MISS-Management of the Kruger National Park

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Baobabs

Baobabs are deciduous trees that grow to be between 5 and 20 meters tall. The Baobab tree is an interesting tree that can be found in low-lying parts of Africa and Australia. It can develop in immense proportions, and radiocarbon dating suggests they could live for 3,000 years.

In Zimbabwe, one historic hollow Baobab tree is so big that it can accommodate upwards to 40 people within its trunk. Baobabs were used as a store, a jail, a home, a storage facility, and a bus stop, among other items.

The tree is unmistakably distinct from any other. The trunk is sleek and polished, unlike the bark of other species, and is pinkish grey or occasionally copper in colour.

The expanding branches of a Baobab, once empty, resemble roots reaching up into the air, as though it had been placed upside-down. When they die, they decompose from within and crumble, leaving a pile of fibers, leading many people to believe that they do not really die at all and simply vanish.

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View Ndluvo the documentary on habitat destruction in the Kruger National Park by Ron Thomson.

Ron Thomson

I am NOT a ‘trophy hunter’ - and never have been. I am not involved in the trophy hunting safari business. I am also not a game rancher. But I have ‘administratively controlled’ professional hunters and safari outfitters in my capacity as a government game warden. I am an 80 year old ex-game warden with 60 years of continuous experience in hands-on wildlife management, and national park management, in Africa (1959 to 2019). In breakdown, I have 24 years experience in the management of national parks in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe - and in the management of the wild animal populations that lived inside those national parks; one year as the Chief Nature Conservation of the Ciskei in South Africa; three years as Director of the Bophuthatswana National Parks Board in South Africa; and I worked for three years as a professional hunter in the South African Great Karoo (taking foreign hunters on quests for plains game trophies). I discovered, however, that professional hunting was not my forte. I worked as an investigative wildlife journalist for 30 years in South Africa. I have written fifteen books and hundreds of magazine articles on the subject of wildlife management and big game hunting in Africa. Five of my books are university-level text books on wildlife management. I am a university-trained ecologist; was a member of the Institute of Biology (London) for 20 years; and was a registered chartered biologist for the European Union for 20 years. I have VAST experience in the “management hunting” of elephants, buffaloes, lions, leopards and hippos (as part of my official national park work in the control of problem animals); and I pioneered the capture of black rhino in Zimbabwe’s Zambezi Valley (1964 - 1970). My university thesis was entitled: “The Factors Affecting the Survival and Distribution of Black Rhinos in Rhodesia”. Look at my personal website if you want any further details about my experience: www.ronthomsonshuntingbooks.co.za.

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