KRUGER NATIONAL PARK
As the Kruger Park commemorates its 120th year, Esma Marnewick looks back on 12 decades of wild history.
Everyone’s favourite park turned 120 years old in 2018. To mark the occasion, we’ve delved into the history books…
Many South Africans have a connection to the Kruger Park. Some have camped in the park every June holiday since childhood; some literally grew up in Skukuza; others are retirees who visit the park for three months at a time… I’ve never met someone who has lukewarm feelings about the park. Most people love it. I discovered the magic of the Kruger late in life, almost by accident, when I was assigned to compile a Kruger guide for this magazine. In December 2016, my family and I explored the park from Punda Maria in the north to Bergen-Dal in the south. We saw the Big Five, the Ugly Five, hippos, crocodiles, wild dogs, monitor lizards, jackals, saddle-billed storks, a banded mongoose… The only animals we didn’t see were a sable antelope and an aardvark! I fell in love. Since then I’ve been back four times and I’m already planning a visit for this year. I won’t believe you if you say bad things about my favourite park. I know the Kruger has its shortcomings: the southern camps can be crowded, there’s sub-standard kitchenware in some units, mouldy towels, bat droppings on the stoep, vervet monkeys with long fingers, slow service in the restaurants… But be realistic. You don’t go to the Kruger for fine linen and chocolates on your pillow. You go to enjoy a holiday in one of the most accessible, wildest places on earth. It’s even relatively affordable if you camp or stay in safari tents or rondavels with communal facilities. Where else in the world can you go on a game drive in a Chevy Spark and see a lion duking it out with a hyena over an impala? Here at go! we sometimes receive letters complaining about the park – wonky thatched roofs, brooms left out, old dishcloths – and I always wonder how you can focus on such minor issues when the trees around you are filled with hornbills and barbets, there are geckos on the walls, rhino beetles scuttling around, a bushbaby jumping from branch to branch… But like I said, I’m hardly objective. I have interviewed many SANParks staff members over the years and this is my understanding of how the Kruger works: Their mandate is conservation above all. For nearly 20 years, the rangers have been waging a war against poachers, which means there aren’t always funds for renovations. Part of the Kruger’s profits are also channelled to smaller national parks. Don’t be so hard on the Kruger. If the service and facilities are not up to your standards, rather stay at a private camp in a concession, or in one of the reserves on the border.
If a dirty dishcloth bothers you now, I’m not sure you would have managed in the park in its earlier years. There were no facilities (or roads) – and no real rules. Visitors had to make their own bush camps. Sometimes you’d have to spend the night in a tree to escape wild animals! Former president Paul Kruger proclaimed the Sabie Game Reserve in 1898. (It was called the “Gouvernement Wildtuin” at the time.) A few years later, in 1902, James Stevenson-Hamilton was appointed as the park’s first warden. In those years, conservation was still in its infancy. Animals were hunted for meat, hides and trophies. By the end of the 19th century, many species were almost extinct in what was then the Transvaal. A “conservation area” was often nothing more than a region where hunting or poaching wasn’t allowed. Only after the turn of the century did people around the world begin to realise that a country’s natural heritage was something that could be enjoyed. Tourism in the park was considered, but it didn’t gain much traction. In 1923, South African Railways launched a tour called Round in Nine, which went from Pretoria
to Lourenço Marques in Portuguese East Africa (now Maputo in Mozambique) via the Lowveld. One of the overnight stops was at Sabie Bridge, now Skukuza. There were no facilities. The guests slept on the train. In the late afternoon, everyone would gather around a big fire while rangers entertained them with anecdotes. The guests loved it. The Pretoriuskop area was the first to be opened to the public – in 1927. But visitors were only allowed in for a day and they could only bring a revolver to protect themselves. (No rifles for day visitors!) The tariff was R2 per person. Three vehicles visited the park that first year, but word soon spread and in 1928 there were 180 vehicles. In 1929, almost five times as many vehicles arrived – about 850. These days, the Kruger gets nearly two million visitors per year!
To make the park more attractive as a tourist destination, there had to be roads and places to stay. Construction on the first basic huts started in 1928, at Pretoriuskop, Satara and Skukuza – with the emphasis on “basic”. The huts were open between the wall and the roof and there was another opening above the door that you could look through for wild animals. The huts had riempie beds and no running water, flush toilets or air conditioning. Go have a look at the huts in Balule rest camp to get a better idea. The first ablution block was built in Skukuza in 1932. Hot water came a year later, to the chagrin of parks board chairman Jack Brebner, who considered it an unnecessary luxury. The other rest camps only got hot water in 1939. Men were not allowed to bath, only shower; women were allowed to bath between 5 pm and 9 pm. Despite the rudimentary facilities, more and more visitors streamed in and the park had to make a plan to supply accommodation. By 1946 there were 11 rest camps: Pretoriuskop, Satara, Skukuza, Lower Sabie, Crocodile Bridge, Letaba, Punda Maria, Malelane, Shingwedzi, Olifantskamp (now Balule) and Olifantspoort (closed). In 1947, the British royal family toured South Africa. King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret all stayed in the Kruger. Two houses were built for the occasion in Pretoriuskop. This was long before social media, but who knows? Maybe letters, photos and carrier pigeons spread the word to international visitors because by 1955, an estimated 100 000 people went through the gates.
Only 0,3 % of the park’s total area is developed; the rest is wild. (About 63 km² out of 20 000 km².) However, the relatively flat topography of the Kruger means there aren’t many places where you properly appreciate the vastness of the wilderness you’re in. My best recommendation is to go to the Shirimantanga viewpoint south of Skukuza early one morning. From there you have a 360-degree view of the southern parts of the park – Bushveld to the horizon in every direction. (The Tshanga viewpoint near Bateleur bushveld camp in the north is also such a place.) It’s amazing to think that all that space is teeming with animals. Again, this wasn’t always the case. Animals were hunted in large numbers for their skin, horns, meat and ivory. An estimated 20 000 tonnes of ivory was collected in the Lowveld alone, to ship overseas from the Durban harbour. The situation worsened when a rinderpest epidemic broke out at the end of the 19th century, which almost led to the extinction of kudu, eland and buffalo in the Lowveld. The
construction of the Selati railway line through the park in 1893 further impacted wildlife numbers because of the influx of railway workers who all had to hunt for food. When James Stevenson-Hamilton arrived at the Sabie Game Reserve in 1902, it was in a bad state. There were no white rhinos left, hardly any elephants… “It was possible to cover very large tracts of country, especially in the western portions where the winter hunters had been most active and numerous, without seeing a sign of life, not even a solitary spoor,” Stevenson-Hamilton wrote in his annual report of 1906. Predators were thriving, but that wasn’t a good thing. They feasted on the shrinking antelope populations – and on cattle on nearby farms. Predators were seen as vermin and a threat to conservation efforts. A large-scale predator control programme was launched. Lions, leopards, cheetahs and wild dogs were culled, as were smaller predators like African wildcat, snakes and raptors. Even crocodiles were shot. By 1913, there were no leopards left in certain areas. From 1912, certain animal populations started to recover. Data shows 25 elephants, 100 hippos and 200 giraffes were recorded that year. The culling of animals will always be a sensitive issue. In those years, as it does now, it evoked heated debate at board meetings. At first, Stevenson-Hamilton and other members saw culling as a way of maintaining balance in nature, but their opinions changed as conservation research began to indicate otherwise. It also became clear that lions were a big tourist attraction. According to SCJ Joubert in A Cameo from the Past, predator control was put on the back burner from the 1940s until Stevenson-Hamilton retired. In a way, the big question the Kruger Park poses is the same now as it was 120 years ago: How do you let nature take its course within manmade borders? “Full answers [...] cannot be expected today as a certain amount of artificiality is inevitable, but in the Kruger National Park we have the opportunity of getting nearer the truth than is possible anywhere else in the world today.” Those were Stevenson-Hamilton’s words on the matter. I tend to agree. We’re inundated with bad news about plastic pollution, mass extinctions and climate change. It’s important to be aware of what’s going on, but the onslaught of information can leave you dispirited, numb. When you’re the only vehicle on the S90 between Olifants and Satara late in the afternoon, however, all the love comes flooding back. You realise why you need this park so much; why we all do. I pull over when I notice a martial eagle on a branch. It has a vervet monkey in its claws. Perched on another branch, a tawny eagle is watching the martial eagle closely. The martial eagle seems injured. It dare not move or the tawny eagle will attack. I watch this stalemate for almost an hour. The gates are about to close and I must get back to Olifants. I make my way through the ancient landscape. It’s a brooding, cloudy afternoon. Marabou storks soar above; amur falcons fly up and down looking for prey. A black-backed jackal trots across the road. This is what the Kruger does: It reminds you that nature was in charge before humanity became such a destructive force in the world – and it’s something we should be reminded about again and again. For our own sake.