Explaining the concept that dry weather was good for the park, head of the scientific unit at SANparks, Danie Pienaar, said: “Drought is a way to keep the ecosystem moving. There’s still a lot of water in the Kruger park”.

Pienaar said: “Droughts are natural and normal for areas like the Kruger National Park. Some animal numbers in fact increase”.

He said that global warming was making noticeable changes to weather patterns.

“Between 1 – 10 January 2016, the central parts of the country were extremely dry,” Pienaar said, adding: “Our rivers are low but not dry yet. In 1992 rivers like the Sabie went completely dry.”

Pienaar said the state of rivers was in fact better than it was in previous droughts – that was before the deluge on Wednesday, which flooded the southern part of the park.

Rivers in the area were flowing over bridges and authorities closed roads in the affected areas as a precaution.

“There are periods that are wet and periods that are dry,” said Pienaar.

He said during the drought people can expect poor veld conditions, which would mean less food for animals, rivers may run dry, as well as the increasing of poaching as hungry people hunt animals to eat.

Pienaar added that during such times refugees have been found walking in the park from Mozambique due to the tough situation in their country.

Wednesday’s rain came as SANparks was planning to deal with the drought. SANParks was planning to put in place a freshwater management plan, which was to include engaging with water users associations, as well as the implementation of water saving measures such as restrictions on irrigation.

Pienaar said elephants and rhinos were not as badly affected by the drought as other animals.

He said hippos suffer during the drought because rivers dry up and they cannot dip themselves in water resulting in many of them perishing. Pienaar said as many as 6 000 hippos were in danger.

“We currently have around 8 000 hippos and we expect the number to drop to about 2 000 hippos in the cause of the drought,” Pienaar said.

He said the Kruger National Park was in need of assistance from regional and municipal departments, which could do so by creating sustainable long-term land use plans.

The plans would ensure resilience to cope with increases in such events, for example the rehabilitation of plantations around municipal dams back to grassland, as well as promoting water-wise crops.

“There’s very little the Kruger National Park can do to meditate the effect of the drought due to the size of the park,” Pienaar warned.

As if in answer to Pienaar’s concerns, the heavens opened a few hours later and the park was soon flooded on the southern side.

ANA