I’ve been reading travel reviews written by people who have taken ‘game drives’ in
reserves or parks near Johannesburg, South Africa. I have been forced to the horrified
conclusion that many tourists don’t actually appreciate the distant sight of a herd
of giraffe or antelope running on rolling veld. It seems that if there isn’t the
immediate gratification of close-up photo opportunities to prove that one has been
there and done that, then there must be something wrong with the trip. Are there
really only five important types of wild animal to be viewed on a game drive? Is
a zoomed photo of a pride of lion devouring dead meat really the most sought after
momento of a trip to Africa?
In one review of the Lion Park near Lanseria Airport , the writer was thrilled that
a giraffe had poked its head into her car and that she had been able to feed a giraffe
in an encampment, play with lion cubs and walk with a cheetah. Clearly the writer
was fixated on the level of unique edutainment about African animals. I was gratified
that another tourist regarded the petting experience as a commercialized excursion,
and not as a real safari-type game drive. Unfortunately he also conveyed a sense
of disappointment that he had not seen really wild animals in their natural environment.
He should actually have gone to a large national game park, not a commercial educational
enterprise with herbivores separated from carnivores.
A third reviewer came a little closer to South African locals’ understanding of a
game drive. He felt he had experienced the African wild in the nearby Rhino and Lion
Nature Reserve. This was apparently because he was able to drive around observing
all manner of large and small game more easily than in the Kruger Park and because
the lions seemed less tame than in the Lion Park. The first part of his assessment
is correct, but the assumption that any lions in reserves are truly tame has cost
many people their lives. A case in point was when the owner of the lions in the Krugersdorp
Game Reserve jumped out of his vehicle to fight a veld fire in the lion encampment
and was attacked and killed by his own lions. Even a well-fed lion living in the
‘wild’ of a reserve will attack when it feels endangered or sees easy prey. That’s
why the open-air game viewing vehicles favoured by commercial game farms are usually
accompanied by an armed ranger who will keep a watchful eye on lions or rhinos that
might attack at any time.
Part 1, 2
