Bushcraft Magazine Free Article

Wildlife and Tracking in Namibia

By Pablo, Woodlife

It was hard to believe that this was Southern Africa. It wasn’t Longleat or Marwell Safari or Zoological Parks. What I was seeing were free-roaming animals in their native environment; a dream of mine since I was a kid. It certainly wasn’t a game drive either. A ‘lion-lookout’ posted on some high ground while we examined a local water-hole convinced me of that. Elephant prints and trees at acute angles reminded me of the power of these animals and a giraffe carcass under a nearby mopane tree reminded me of the brutality needed to survive here.

Natural camouflage at its best

The first thing that struck me was the natural camouflage. Every animal had some unique method of blending into the environment, from the simple stripes of the zebra to the complex and amazing colour-changing cells of the chameleon.

The most common animal we saw had to be the zebra. There were two types, the plains zebra with its shadow stripes and the more uncommon mountain zebra lacking the shadow stripes but with a white underbelly.

The two short days at Hobatere were arguably the best days for natural wildlife observation, camping out in the shadow of one of Africa’s best National Parks, and nervously hoping a pride of lions would wander near enough to raise the heart-rate and fill the viewfinder. Despite updates from locals via radio systems, saying that lions were near, we were unlucky. This didn’t stop us from learning about dangerous animal confrontation procedure. We tracked around the area, examining prints, animal trails and dung, and sat up above the water-hole to be enthralled by visitations of mountain zebra, warthogs, springbok, giraffes, oryx and kudu.

This was not an area to practise my speciality of getting close to animals. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help making friends with the endearing rock hyrax or, as they are locally called, klipdassie; a rock-dwelling mammal similar to an oversized guinea pig.

Lizards and other reptiles were another thing entirely. The orange-faced endemic Namibian rock agami provided entertainment as he picked flies off our heads and a chameleon was scooped up from the middle of a dusty track. We would discover more wildlife as we set out for the second phase of our adventure, the journey through the Etosha National Park.

A rock hyrax. The only animal I dared get close to.

As we traversed along the southern edge of the dried-up Etosha salt pan, we came across more elephant and giraffe, particularly at the regular waterholes. What makes this area so interesting is that in the dry season the waterholes attract more of the animals, making them easier to see. The waterholes (when not already dried up themselves) are also visited by a large variety of birds, including young flamingos and cattle egret and large birds of prey like the tawny eagle. Springbok, steenbok, kudu and gemsbok (oryx) were amongst the most common species, but we did see a dik-dik and an eland - the world’s largest antelope.

The salt pan was home to jackals and hyenas

We spent a while watching a pair of spotted hyenas traverse the foreground and eventually wander nonchalantly in front of the Land Cruiser, while in the distance a black-backed jackal was leading two of the hyenas’ mates away from what might have been a den.

It wasn’t until we visited the floodlit waterhole at Halali that I saw the pièce de résistance – an uncommon sighting of a leopard who had sneaked up to the back of the waterhole under cover of dusk. I held my breath as I struggled to make out the crouched outline, while he eagerly lapped up well-needed water. Unfortunately, the other big cats remained elusive with a fleeting glimpse of a female lion and no sighting of a cheetah at all.

The same waterhole hosted two rhinos. These seemingly gentle giants won my admiration as they playfully locked horns face to face in the dusk and grunted some unknown language to each other. While I was distracted looking for the source of the unmistakable chirring of a nightjar, a herd of elephants, in unbelievable silence, had reached the water-hole completely without my knowledge.

A rhino joins the water hole at sunset

With a number of animal tracks identified, listed and photographed, it only remained for me to track in earnest. The highlight of the adventure, and my main reason for joining the expedition, was to track with arguably, the world’s best indigenous trackers, the Ju/’hoansi.

The ancestors of the first nation of Ju/’hoansi practised hunting even before hunting weapons were invented, by running down their prey in what is termed as ‘persistence’ hunting and is surely the first instance of a requirement to track an animal by human-kind; so ancient is the art of tracking and how ancient and perfect is their skill at doing so! I considered myself privileged just to watch them, let alone join in.

Over the next five days we learnt their bushcraft and survival skills but it was the day spent tracking that would be forever imprinted in my memory.

The day started with a light shower of rain, even better to pick up any prints in the red earth of the Kalahari sandvelt and it wasn’t long before we picked up a fresh track. It was thrilling to see the trackers un-shoulder their bows and string up an arrow. I noticed one of them had a short spear with him. I was following them closely and listened to the whispered and translated explanations. We were following a duiker (pronounced dyker), a small antelope very similar in size and shape to a muntjac (although I didn’t know this at the time). I was in no doubt that this was an active track. This was for real.

We set off with the Ju/’hoansi trackers on an active duiker track

For a while we followed the tracks until the trackers suddenly stopped. They looked at each other and then started their clicking chatter. They seemed to be carrying out some sort of lost spoor procedure and retraced their steps slightly. I was entranced by their hand movements as it appeared as though they were mimicking the springing motion of the duiker with their hands. Then they had it. They walked forward quite a way and resumed their tracking. I couldn’t see the signs at all and wondered how they had found the track again.

They must have read my thoughts because they came back and gestured that the duiker had leapt a huge distance after hiding in a bush. Apparently (and I only know this from later research), the duiker hides or freezes when it thinks it’s in danger and at the last minute, springs out of hiding only to dive into another bush: hence its name duiker or ‘diver’.

Therefore, it was intimate knowledge of the quarry that had found the tracks and not some mystical or shamanistic vision. We measured the leap and it came to approximately seven metres. That’s some long jump and it would have confused the best tracker had they not known the traits of the animal.

Then, to my amazement, they gestured for me to take over the tracking. Nervously and hesitantly, I followed the tracks until I got the cadence and got into my stride. All was going well, until after some time, the tracks stopped abruptly. A tap on my shoulder told me I was going in the wrong direction (no surprise there!) and the trackers were pointing another way. I struggled to imagine why the duiker had actually turned nearly 180 degrees and then gone off at an acute angle. Nevertheless, looking on the ground, I saw the spoor and I eagerly started off in pursuit. After a couple of strides, I heard a giggling behind me and turned to see everyone sniggering behind their hands, including the trackers. Apparently, I was successfully following stick marks that they had jabbed in the sand!

I took the meaning of this respite from the seriousness of the previous period of tracking to mean the hunt was over. They brought out the hand drill and made an ember. Instead of making a cup of tea, which was a bit of a shame, they studied the smoke and determined that the wind was swirling everywhere and therefore, our scent was also blowing about. They told us that the duiker had taken us in a complete circle to try and get downwind of us. They decided that it had won the day and it would live to tell the tale. Unbelievably, we had been out for three hours.

Studying the GPS track later, we saw that indeed we had gone in a large figure of eight which showed the way the duiker had out-smarted us. Kgau interpreted the last sign we saw. The duiker had knelt down and rested for a while until it had risen on its knees to walk away in the same direction it had come. I imagined the small antelope looking through the bush in our direction at the noise we were making, and slowly rising to sneak away as we talked about some aspect of the track.

The Ju/’hoansi trackers

My time in Namibia was coming to an end. I felt incredibly privileged to have had the opportunity to learn these ancient skills from these ancient people. But more than anything, I had a very strange and uncanny feeling that this was not only where our ancient ancestors had hunted and survived but also exactly how they did it.

Namibia Expedition by Bushcraft Expeditions