Park

Etosha is Namibia’s premier park. It is the oldest. It is one of the largest. It is the most-visited. It simply is spectacular. Epic landscapes populated by wild animals in incredible numbers, close as you like.

From the first sight of those endless plains of short yellow grass, dotted with herds of wildlife, to the view across that white expanse of pan stretching beyond the horizon; from a quiet vigil at a bushland waterhole, witnessing a perpetual procession of animals, to an unhurried drive through enchanting mopane woodlands; from being delighted by two blue cranes and their vulnerable chick, to encountering a great herd of elephants up close … Etosha instils in us an awe of primordial nature.

Etosha is vastness and wildlife. It is a huge park: a hundred kilometres north to south, 300 east to west. The extreme flatness of the land just seems to expand the vastness beneath that infinite sky. And the sheer wildlife numbers are truly awesome – the herds of springbok, zebras and wildebeest out on the plains; the stately giraffe nibbling on tall acacias; the thirsty elephants, the kudus and impalas, the flocks of sandgrouse at the water… Meanwhile, the stalking predators create a constant, concealed suspense that reminds us of the natural cycle of life and death.

Today, Etosha’s abundance and diversity of wildlife may give the impression that this is how it always was: a pristine wildlife haven, preserved unchanged for eternity. Yet the park’s populations have a surprisingly turbulent past. As is the case for so many Namibian parks, the story of Etosha is a story of the return of wildlife. The populations of many species have had to be rebuilt from scratch. The park is a salute to successful conservation.

And it is a story of people and their environment. Hai||om hunter-gatherers, Ovambo salt caravans, Herero and Ovambo stock herders, European explorers and hunters, Dorsland Trekkers, the German Schutztruppe and their forts … and then the full spectrum of a century of nature conservation in Namibia. What marvellous, fascinating variety.

When to Be There

The park is open all year; the cool & sunny winter months afford the most comfortable travel
Wildlife viewing is best in the dry season, when game congregates in great numbers at waterholes
Birding is best in the rainy season; huge flocks of wetland birds are attracted by water in the pan
During the rainy season, young animals abound, but wildlife is more dispersed

What to Do

Spend a day at one waterhole; experience all its moods & the full spectrum of its regulars
Take in the vastness of the pan at one of the viewpoints along its edge
Drive slowly along one of the woodland drives & revel in the suspense of potential sightings
Witness a sprinkling of night secrets at one of the floodlit resort waterholes

What to Remember

Park entrances & resort gates open daily from sunrise to sunset; no driving after sunset
It is strictly forbidden to get out of your vehicle or lean out of its windows in the park
Animals have right of way! Always drive with caution & never exceed the speed limit!
Etosha is in a malaria area; ensure the necessary precautions

African Comb Duck

African Pygmy-Goose

Cape Shoveler

Cape Teal

Hottentot Teal

Maccoa Duck

Northern Shoveler

Red-Billed Teal

South African Shelduck

Spur-Winged Goose

White-Faced Whistling-Duck

Yellow-Billed Duck

African Palm-Swift

Damara Red-Billed Hornbill

Monteiro's Hornbill

Southern Yellow-Billed Hornbill

History

The Hai||om have a legend about Etosha being the lake of a grieving mother’s tears. The devastating history of these people over the last two centuries makes the link between grief and Etosha a poignant one. Yet there is reconciliation. Johannes Kapner is one of a number of modern Hai||om bridging the negative past with a positive future in Etosha. Johannes is amongst MET’s most experienced field staff. Whenever practical skills, bush knowledge and courage are needed, Johannes is there. He is based in Etosha, but has worked across much of Namibia on game translocations, rhino conservation and more.

The bounty of the Etosha environment has attracted the attention of people for probably hundreds of thousands of years. Without clear oral histories and lacking definitive pre-colonial or even early colonial records, attempts to disentangle and categorise the historic ethnicities of Khoesan hunter-gatherers in southwestern Africa have been relatively unsuccessful. Yet it’s likely that the direct ancestors of the Hai||om inhabited much of the Central Highlands of Namibia and parts of the Cuvelai Basin for at least a thousand years.

Unlike other San, the Hai||om speak a language of the Khoekhoegowab group, which has caused much speculation about their origins. Amongst many labels, they’ve been called an ‘ethnographic anomaly’. More than other San even, the Hai||om have been exposed to marginalisation, oppression, dispossession and active extermination. The history of Etosha is infused with their story. Many lived traditional lives in the park until they were evicted in 1954. Close to 400 still live in Etosha’s staff quarters today.

The Ovambo (also known as Ambó) arrived in the Cuvelai in the early 1500s during the broad Bantu expansion across southern Africa. As croppers and herders, they found this an ideal place to settle and spread out across the basin. Relatively fertile soils and permanent water from shallow wells, abundant indigenous fruit trees and wildlife, and the annual flow of the iishana that offers prolific fish catches enabled a higher population density than most parts of southern Africa. The people planted crops and grazed their livestock on vast grasslands. They hunted, and they harvested salt from the saline pans. They blossomed into eight closely related dynasties, with the Kwanyama and Ndonga being the largest. Together, they became the most powerful and numerous people in the area. Less than 100,000 in the 1800s have multiplied to a population of over one million today.

Herero pastoralists arrived in the region at a similar time to the Ovambo. While the majority subsequently settled across the Central Highlands, some remained in the northwest and have utilised the western fringes of the Ovambo Basin and parts of what is today Etosha National Park for centuries.

Life in the Ovambo Basin was not always tranquil. The slave trade had a significant impact on the people, reaching a peak in the 1800s. Slavery was officially abolished in 1875, but was for several decades replaced by a system of forced labour in Angola. Development of the German colony of South West Africa led to an increasing demand for labour on mines here and the establishment of a migrant labour system. Over time, this involved about three quarters of all Ovambo men. Labour export remains an entrenched practice – many people still leave the Cuvelai today to seek employment elsewhere.

The first European known to have traversed parts of the Cuvelai was Andrew Battels, an English prisoner sent to Angola by the Portuguese. He escaped and fled south in 1589, and lived with the Ovambo for 16 months. His account, published in 1595, was the first description of the interior of this part of southern Africa.

European explorers only reached the area over a century later – the Swede Karl Johan Andersson and the Brit Francis Galton were the first to survey parts of Etosha Pan in 1851. The western and southern entrance gates are named after them. Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, was an industrious explorer and scientist, who later devised human fingerprint identification.
Etosha served as a stop-over for the Dorsland Trekkers on their epic journey to and from Angola. They settled in the Etosha area twice, between 1876 and ‘79 and again from 1885 to ‘87, and were based at Namutoni and Rietfontein.

The first colonial infrastructure was established in the vicinity of Etosha Pan a decade after the proclamation of the German colony. When rinderpest broke out in 1896, Okaukuejo and Namutoni were set up as livestock control posts to stem the spread of the disease, which caused massive losses of wildlife and livestock across southern Africa.

Okaukuejo and Namutoni were turned into fortified military posts in 1901 and ‘03 respectively. The military presence was not welcomed; the Ondonga King Nehale ya Mpingana ordered an attack on Namutoni in 1904. The first onslaught was warded off, but the Germans fled and the fort was destroyed. A stronger fort was built in 1905, which is today a tourist attraction. The northern park gate is named after King Nehale.

During World War I, the British considered the Kwanyama King Mandume ya Ndemufayo, who had been involved in clashes with the Portuguese in Angola, ‘uncooperative’. A military offensive was dispatched and the king was killed in battle in 1917. Mandume was the first and most prominent of several Ovambo leaders killed during the periods of British and South African rule.

The Oshivambo word etotha, which evolved into today’s Etosha through European use, is interpreted as ‘place where no plants grow’. The spelling Etotha can still be found in early literature. Other interpretations include ‘great white place’, ‘place of emptiness’ and ‘bare place’.

Activities

Conservations

Etosha without elephants, without rhinos or lions seems unimaginable. Etosha has been famous for its great herds of game ever since the first explorers described them to the world more than 160 years ago, yet it’s seen dramatic population declines and the local extinction of numerous of species. While many of these have returned over the last half century or so, others have experienced more recent declines. Such fluctuations – including current rhino poaching impacts – dramatically illustrate human influence everywhere, even on a place as immense as Etosha.

Etosha has undergone many transformations. Its colonial conservation history in a sense began when German soldiers were stationed at the newly built Okaukuejo outpost from 1896, and tasked with ‘controlling hunting’ (and ensuring ‘law and order’) along the Ovamboland frontier. When the game reserve was created a decade later, no elephants were found in the vicinity of Etosha Pan.

In the half-century between the first expedition to Etosha by Europeans and the park’s proclamation, wildlife had been decimated. The great pachyderms, and their smaller counterparts, the rhinos, had been shot to local extinction. The ivory trade – and wanton shooting of wildlife – had wreaked havoc. During the 1860s, the Ndonga King alone is reported to have collected around two tonnes of ivory per year. The last elephants were apparently shot near Namutoni in 1881. White rhino became extinct in the entire colony around the turn of the century. Black rhinos were reduced to isolated populations in inaccessible parts, and a few small herds of elephant were left in the most remote northwestern and northeastern corners of the territory. It took elephants seven decades to return to Etosha. Fifty to 60 were estimated in 1952; today, there are around 3,000. Lions were also rare or absent for years. The resident ranger reported the first roar of a lion at Namutoni in 1912.

The earliest systematic survey of wildlife, done in 1926, recorded no roan or black-faced impala, no rhino and no elephant in Etosha. Interestingly, the survey did show oribi and bushpig in the park, and hippo, buffalo, reedbuck, roan and black rhino in small numbers in Ovambo. The survey revealed significant wildlife numbers and diversity north of the park, very little of which is left today.

The return of wildlife to Etosha is a story of mixed fortunes. White rhinos have increased steadily after a series of reintroductions of animals from South Africa, starting in the mid-1990s. More than 50 black rhinos were relocated to Etosha from northwestern Namibia between the late 1960s and late ‘70s. After independence, the growth of this population allowed translocations of black rhino from the park to many parts of Namibia, as well as to other southern African countries. Black-faced impala were brought to Etosha from a dwindling population in Kaoko, and have thrived, dispersing across the park. In an action that made game-capture history, 74 roan were airlifted from the Khaudum area to Etosha in 1970, but this vulnerable antelope did not manage to re-establish a viable population. Attempted reintroductions of wild dog and sable were also unsuccessful. The oribi has not just disappeared from Etosha, but is currently considered extinct in Namibia.

Managing wildlife populations in confined areas is often a difficult balancing act. On the one hand, the conservation of vulnerable and threatened species can be problematic. On the other hand, overpopulation, especially of potentially destructive species such as elephant, may have a devastating impact on vegetation and other wildlife. In 1983, the decision was taken to cull more than 500 elephant, as well as springbok and gemsbok in Etosha. An abattoir was built at Olifantsrus (‘elephants’ rest’) to process the carcasses, giving the name of the waterhole a macabre new meaning. Culling is very controversial, and other options are generally preferred. No culling of elephant has been carried out in Namibia since independence.

When Wild-Reservat 2 was created in 1907, it extended from Etosha Pan to the coast and the Kunene River, covering about 80,000 square kilometres, which made it the world’s largest game reserve at the time. Numerous communities lived in the reserve, especially in the northwest. The subsequent size reductions were an outcome of national development. The three initial reserves created by the German administration actually appeared to serve partly as buffer zones to perceived threats (Ovamboland and the British enclave at Walvis Bay) in addition to being conservation units.

In 1947, the northwestern corner between the coast and the Kunene became the Kaokoveld Native Reserve, although the game reserve status of the area was not immediately revoked. This happened in 1958, when the reserve became Etosha Game Park, with a much narrower band now reaching the coast between the Hoarusib and Koigab rivers. In 1963, the Odendaal Commission recommended the creation of Damaraland adjacent to Kaokoveld, thus reducing the park to more or less its present size (implemented in 1970). Its status was upgraded to Etosha National Park in 1967, and the current boundary was gazetted in 1975. The establishment of the Etosha Research Section in 1965 (which became the Etosha Ecological Institute in 1974) was an important milestone that cemented the role of research in conservation and the management of protected areas in the country.

By 1955, all land to the south and east of Etosha was freehold farmland, and an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 1961 triggered the construction of a fence along these park boundaries. By 1973 Etosha was completely fenced. This had a huge impact on migrating wildlife. The populations of blue wildebeest and Burchell’s plains zebra were reduced by 90 and 80 per cent, respectively. The fence also stopped the seasonal migration of thousands of eland from the Kalahari sandveld to the east.

Etosha National Park