Page 13 - IFV_Issue 3_March_2022

Along the Sabie – best place in South Africa to see lions

It was partly this threat that, in 1998, Last year again saw a memorable flood This dismayed Stevenson-Hamilton,
caused National Parks to launch the along the Sabie. for farmers had been clamouring for the
Kruger National Park Rivers Research The Sabie is by far the most biologically, reserve to be opened up for hunting. For a
Programme – the largest and most hydrologically and geomorphically time, sheep grazed there and Stevenson-
comprehensive multidisciplinary river researched river in South Africa. It was Hamilton, in trying to hold off the
research programme ever undertaken in intensively monitored during the Rivers pressure of the hunting lobby, suggested
South Africa. Research Programme by scores of the reserve be allowed to make money
The 10 years of seminars produced scientists in various disciplines and, for by capturing young animals for zoos
vital new data – but too late to influence years, updated data were sent to around here and overseas. In those days, soon
the building of the Injaka Dam whose 100 scientists who have developed a after World War 1 (1918), giraffe landed in
impoundment was completed the more than academic interest in the England would fetch £1 000 and a hippo
following year and whose impact will Sabie’s health. would fetch £600.
take years to assess. In fact, directly Kruger Park has continued facilitating In fact, out of desperation, for a time
after the dam was completed, in 2000, seminars and appraisal meetings to make the warden did just that even though
Mpumalanga was hit by the Millennium sure that what is happening and what he abhorred having to compromise the
Flood, which was said to be a ‘one in 100 is planned for the Sabie River supports conservation ethic. He hoped a time
years flood’. their vision for South Africa’s flagship would come when the government
Some hydrologists believe that floods tourist attraction. Their vision has been would proclaim the Sabi Game Reserve a
of this magnitude are more common described as “to maintain biodiversity national park.
than is realised. Months after the in all its natural facets and fluxes and to That’s exactly what happened. In 1926,
Millennium Flood an old staff member at provide human benefits . . . in a manner the government took over the Sabi Game
Skukuza pointed out a mark painted by which detracts as little as possible from Rerserve and the Shingwedzi Reserve
Lt-col Stevenson-Hamilton, Kruger’s first the wilderness qualities of the KNP”. further to the north. The first tourists
warden, on the Selati railway bridge that I have been re-reading Stevenson- arrived at the new ‘national park’ in 1927.
spans the Sabie at Skukuza. The mark Hamilton’s book, South African Eden, The gap between the two protected
showed the height of a flood in 1950. and in it he gives an account of how, areas was filled in 1944 when Eileen
There was little difference between the when he was living at Skukuza not long Orpen bought seven farms and donated
two levels. Later, somebody recorded after World War 2 he was told that certain them to the government.
that Stevenson-Hamilton, in 1950, was farmers were to be allowed to graze Stevenson-Hamilton retired as the
shown a landmark by a Shangaan staff sheep in his Sabi Game Reserve and park’s first warden 20 years later. He died
member who recalled a flood reaching around Pretoriuskop and that, because aged 90 in White River in 1957.
there in 1900 – a flood that appeared to of the presence of predators, they could
be as high as the Millenium Flood. carry guns.

The Villager • Issue 3 2022 • 11