Desert tracking

We countdown Namibia’s most dangerous wildlife and take a look at the big issue of saving Namibia’s big cats

Is it safe? African Animals with a bad reputation

Hippopotamus – hippos are credited with killing more people than any other African mammal. This is usually by accident, as they tend to clumsily overturn riverboats, leaving those thrown overboard to their mercy. Once thought to be common throughout Africa, only 170,000 hippos are left and they are now a protected species.

Crocodile – although attacks on humans are rare when a croc gets its teeth into you, you’ll be lucky to live to tell the tale. They rip your limbs off by clamping them in their jaws and then twisting and thrashing their bodies under water. The largest Nile crocodile on record was shot in 1952 on the Semliki River in Uganda. It was 6m long and weighed over a tonne.

Snake – snakes are more frightened of you than you are of them, and will flee at the mere sound of a footstep. However there are poisonous snakes in Africa, such as the vine snake, and there are constricting snakes such as pythons, although they are more interested in killing squirrels and monkeys. If you are worried about snakes the best thing to do is to wear long trousers tucked into your socks.

Shark – you may not think so, but Africa has plenty of sharks, especially the most deadly of them all – the Great White. Great Whites weigh up to a tonne and mostly eat seals, although they do sometimes attack people on the beaches of South Africa. But don’t worry too much – statistically speaking you’re more likely to be killed by a coconut falling on your head!

Mosquito – by far the biggest killer in Africa is one of its smallest animals. The mosquito can pass on yellow fever and Dengue fever, but it is best known for transmitting malaria, an extremely unpleasant disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people in Africa every year. You must take some form of protection against mosquitoes, in the form of a net to hang over your bed, chemical repellent or prescription drugs. Ask an expert.

10 things you never knew about Namibia

• At 825,000 sq km Namibia is as big as the UK and France put together
• There are only 1.8million people in Namibia, making it one of the least densely populated countries on earth
• Namibia is famous for having the world’s biggest sand dunes – the monsters at Sossusflei take over an hour to climb.
• Some of Namibia’s desert plants are over 1,000 years old. Experts think that the Welwitschia could even be over 2,000 years old.
• Although Namibia is rich in gold, diamond and oil deposits more than half of its people live  in poverty as subsistence farmers
• Namibia used to belong to Germany, which is why so many places – including the capital Windhoek – have German names
• Some of the most ancient tribal people on Earth live in Namibia. The San people, or ‘Bushmen’ are thought to go back 27,000 years
• The most popular game in Namibia is… football
• Namibia is home to the world’s largest population of wild cheetah – 12,000
• There is only one place on earth where four countries meet – a so-called ‘quadripoint’ – the four counties are Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and … Namibia

Saving the big cats

Although Namibia is home to the largest population of cheetahs, and the leopard is the most common of the ‘Big Cats’ in Africa, they are both endangered in Namibia. This is because the land that they like to hunt on has all been converted into cattle farms, and the farmers don’t want wild cats on their land – they mistakenly think they will kill their cattle.

Farms are different in Namibia from what we are used to in the UK. When we think of a farm we think of a small collection of fields where crops are grown or animals graze. But in Africa farms can be so big – some are as big as Kent – that the land is often shared with wildlife (or ‘game’). It is quite common to see giraffe or antelope on farms, and as they do not pose a threat to the cattle they are left alone. The problem is that there are 7,000 farms like this in Namibia, and they take up every inch of habitat that the cats need to live in. The only spare land out there is the desert and only a few big mammals such as the black rhino and the elephant, and some ancient tribal people, have learned to adapt to the harsh and arid conditions.

Big cats are different and farmers don’t like them. In the 1980s they shot 6,000 cheetahs, and that is half the population, while in the 1990s they shot another 3,000, virtually wiping out the entire species. Many scientists think this was a big mistake because they are not convinced that cats pose any real threat to the cattle. Conservationists claim that the cats have as much right to live there as the farmers, and could actually bring the farmers much needed income from increased tourism. The debate has raged for years, leaving farmers on one side of the fence and supporters of the cats on the other. The Namibian government has tried to step in by protecting the country’s wildlife, but with farms that big, if you shoot a leopard, no one will ever know.

It’s a sad story, but something is being done about it. In the 1990s Donna Hanssen and her brothers bought a huge cattle farm in the middle of Namibia and converted it into a sanctuary for local wild cats. Called the Africat Foundation they have so far saved nearly a thousand cheetah as well as leopards and lions. The idea is that the foundation will rescue cats, rehabilitate them and where possible, return them to the wild. The foundation also helps to educate local people and farmers, helping them to understand that these beautiful animals are worth more to them alive than dead.

A lot of the cats that come to Africat are admitted because they are orphans – usually a farmer has shot their mother and has no idea what to do with the ‘cute cubs’. Donna and her team of vets, trackers and other animal experts give these animals a new lease on life and help to preserve the wildlife heritage of Namibia for generations to come. Africat has a fantastic website and you can visit it at www.africat.org.