St Lucia water levels rise
The Lake St Lucia Narrows are full at the moment with good fresh water flowing from the Mfolozi River
FOLLOWING the devastating drought which saw Lake St Lucia level drop to around 10% in February, the good news is that good rains over a few months have lifted the water level and the lake level is now 90%.
The Lake St Lucia Narrows are full at the moment with good fresh water flowing from the Mfolozi River, as the rehabilitation of the system continues to take shape.
Much to see
But it is not only the lake levels causing a stir in the park.
The iSimangaliso elephants gave visitors and park staff a festive season thrill in a fun show that saw the bulls bathing in the Lake Narrows in the typically steamy weather.
Visitors on the Lake St Lucia Estuary boat cruise on Sunday and Monday got more than they expected when the four bulls took a leisurely swim in the fresh water among the resident hippos and crocodiles.
Skipper Dennis Roberts of Shoreline Boat Safaris, said he and their boat guests have seen them swimming across the Lake Narrows a few times in recent months.
Confident swimmers
Elephants are confident swimmers and often cross between the Western Shores and Eastern Shores sections of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.
iSimangaliso CEO Andrew Zaloumis thanked the ‘ellies’ for providing regular season entertainment saying, ‘This is iSimangaliso’s equivalent of uShaka water world for animals!’
Not to be outdone, two leopards and a pack of hyena feasting on a kudu also presented themselves to game drive operators Rick and Elise Stadler of Safari and Surf Tours when they took a group onto the Eastern Shores recently for a snorkel trip.
Elephants in the Park
iSimangaliso has approximately 200 elephants, 100 in the uMkhuze section and 100 in the south.
The southern herd is loosely broken into three breeding herds and they frequent the Western Shores, but regularly cross to the Eastern Shores.
A few breakaway bulls tend to wander off on their own.
iSimangaliso undertakes contraception of elephants to manage the herd size within the Park’s ecological carrying capacity.
Several elephants are collared to enable tracking for management purposes.
If elephants are encountered while driving or in the water, the golden rule is to give them space so that they do not feel hemmed in.
Leave at least 50m when in a boat and much more distance when on land.
Miracles every day
Zaloumis says,’Surely there cannot be any other place in the world where one has the possibility of such incredible sightings and animal interactions alongside beautiful beaches a short distance away.
‘It is at times like this that we get a sense of Nelson Mandela’s vision for our heritage when he attended the first introduction of the elephants.
‘It is indeed a place where miracles happen every day.’
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