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It's a nice park, really... Apart of the nice animals, there were also very nice flowers, and the views were nice... we also found a very friendly austrich, he bited our car many times, and followed us for a while running after us... I thing he didn't like us, whe just tried to get away, I think he was angry because he was hungry, and maybe he was expecting some food from us.. wich we obviously didn't do...

What I recomend is a 4x4 wheels to visit the park, we were driving a toyota Tazz, and we had a very hard time in some places... we had to cross several little rivers... I thought we would get stuck... That was hard...

but we enjoyed a lot... maybe it helped that we are not strict on our sightings.. I mean, we are happy if we see zebra, and we are happy if we see leopards... same!

You know what, the first game drive we made, we weren't driving our selfs, and we passed a family of zebras without stoping... I asked the driver to stop, and some of the people in the car got quite unpatient, because they didn't want to stop... It took only 5 minutes, and I wanted to see them, and to "hear" them hehehhe funny stomach they have But it surprised me that unpatience...

And that happened again with a jiraffe, lucky we were driving with a photographer in the car, and the jiraffe was in such a lovely place and position that he also wanted to stop...

I found the big-5 list quite strange thing, my favourite animal is not listed! Hyena

Hi Arnold

Aarwolves are stict termite-eaters. They do not eat meat. So it would have to be up to the jacals to enjoy this feast!

and Cheetah never scavange and so it would be left to the Crows and Jackal to clean up with the insects that do this job as well. They would no doubt have died from extreme exhaustion and wounds inflicted and trauma to their bodies. They can fight for up to a day as we saw once

Oh yes they do. Extremely seldom, and very few records of it happening exists, but they do.

Never seen them do it but I guess in a zoo they do. They generally kill every day or as close to that as possible and then eat as much as they can in a hurry and then push off or are pushed off by bigger mean and nasties...but again never ever heard or read about, looked at a pic of a cheetah scavenging anothers kill for example but plenty times I have seen or read about the reverse happenning

This past week was a very fruitfull week for the cheetah at MZNP, the two male cheetah killed a young black wildebeest calf close to the Ubejane 4x4 loop, unfortunately it was not possible to view from the 4x4 loop, so visitors lost out on this one . The one female, only 18 months old, killed an adult springbok ram on her own on Saterday. Well done to her. The other female was not found with a kill during the monitoring patrols, but she is also doing well and was sighted on Saterday following a small herd of mountain reedbuck.

Just a week earlier the two male cheetah caught a springbok next to the 4x4 loop, I wonder if any visitor may have seen the kill. Please let me know. The field rangers only discovered the carcass and tracks of the cheetah a day after the kill was made.

I will ask Dianne to upload some pictures of the cheetah at their kill. I dont know how pictures yet .

(the SANParks content keeper makes it hard for guru's to post pics...so thanks for still making the effort )

Hi,
can anyone tell me how many black rhinos there are in the Mountain Zebra National Park at the moment?
tx,
Sophia

Hi Sophia the Black Rhino population at MZNP is managed as a metapopulation (a population of sub populations) with Addo and Vaalbos (New name??)...I dont know the actual numbers there but remember the first 2 arriving.

Hi, Peter
Can't remember where I've read it, but I have it that there are 4 rhinos at the moment. But then I saw a pic with a rhino calf in it and now I'm confused as to whether the calf was born in the park, of taken there with the others.
Will try to contact MZNP and get us the answer!
regards,
Sophia

Hi Peter, I think the park in place of Vaalbos is the Mokala National Park just outside of Kimberley. It would be nice to know how many black Rhino's are in the MZNP.

Thanks Annalie that was just the name I was trying to remember..I'll try and find out the latest population at MZNP

Hi SophiaVT and annalie
There are six black rhino in Mountain Zebra National Park. Two of these are calves of about a year and a half old.

What's also interesting is that all six black rhino have been seen together on a few occasions, which puts a bit of a question mark on the widely accepted "fact" that black rhino are mainly solitary (except for mother and calves). Well, it gives everyone some cause to rethink things, anyway!

Howzat guys!

Just a few questions for soemone who is not clued up on this park.

1. Were lions historically present in the area? If so then if MZNP were to grow to say 150000Ha would there be a plan in place to introduce them again? Just curious.

2. The area also looks great for Brown Hyena, were they or are they present in the surrounding area or is this not there right place.

Looks like a great park and looking forward to visiting it... will be spending new years eve there!!

Thanks.

As far as I know brownies are due to be introduced in 2009.

The idea is to grow the park to join up with Camdeboo. Should this mammoth goal one day be achieved I'm sure lion would be a possibility.