News

The Namibian Government has banned plastic bags in national parks and nature reserves as from 22 November 2018. Visitors and their vehicles will be searched at park entrances. A spot fine of N$500 (about 32 Euros) must be paid, when found with forbidden plastic bags inside a park by officials. Alternatively, a prison term of up to six months could be ordered or both a fine and imprisonment.

Over large parts of Namibia the sky has a greyish white tinge during August and September. From a plane you will definitely notice the layer of smog which hovers up to 12000 feet (3657 metres) above sea level, or about 2000 metres above the ground. Countless bushfires, some of them huge, are the reason for the greyish white sky and for air pollution at levels high above the ground – especially in north-eastern Namibia and in neighbouring Angola, Zambia and Botswana.

Fish wardens of the Sikunga Conservancy pulled an illegal net containing 341 fish from a tributary of the Zambezi in September this year (2018). The tributary, known as the Kalimbeza Channel, is a fish sanctuary on the Namibian side of the river. The fish wardens wage a relentless battle against illegal fishing activities.

The Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism MET has responded to recent appeals to secure the survival of the wild horses of the Namib. In a press release published on 26 November 2018, they acknowledged that the drought of the five past years and the predation by a pack of spotted hyenas brought the wild horses population on the brink of extinction.

The eggs of tadpole shrimps, or triops, can survive in the dusty soil of arid areas for years. The young shrimps hatch when heavy rain showers leave pools of water which do not dry out within a few days. These living fossils have inhabited the earth for more than 250 million years. They are a genus of small crustaceans in the order Notostraca. According to the Namibia Biodiversity Database, only two species are known in Namibia: Triops cancriformis, the tadpole shrimp, and Triops granarius.

Especially in drought years, many species of birds still find food in towns and settlements. The green oases provide shelter, food and water. Countless feeding stations, set up by bird lovers in the cities, offer a constant supply of food. Seed-eaters and fruit-eaters can survive in the gardens of the cities. Some birds remain in the man-made habitats, others return to the wild as soon as conditions improve there.

The last five years have been harsh for the wild horses of the Namib, with severe drought and predation by a pack of spotted hyenas, which moved into the area in 2013. Numbers have plummeted dramatically from around 300 to a mere 80 horses. The lives of the remaining horses are still in immediate danger.

It is more than 500 kilometres for the round-trip from the Chobe floodplains in Namibia to Nxai Pan in the Nxai Pan National Park in Botswana. Thanks to satellite tracking devices this migration route of Burchell's zebra, popularly called plains zebra, has been known for several years now. Previously, researchers and conservationists always wondered where the zebra population of up to 3000 animals migrated to in the rainy season, when only a few Burchell's zebra remain on the shallow banks of the Chobe.

Mark Boorman from Swakopmund and I ringed a total of 530 Carmine Bee-eaters of the breeding colony between Zambezi Mubala Camp (previously Island View Lodge) and Zambezi Mubala Lodge (former Kalizo Lodge) in September this year. Jim Kairu, a wildlife management lecturer at the campus of the University of Namibia (UNAM) in Katima Mulilo in the Zambezi Region, was also taking part.