OLDEST - National Park in Botswana - Kasane, Botswana
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denben
S 17° 50.599 E 025° 08.612
35K E 303268 N 8026171
Chobe National Park, in northern Botswana, has one of the largest concentrations of game in Africa. By size, it is the third largest park of the country and the most diverse. It is also the country's first national park.
Waymark Code: WM17DMC
Location: Botswana
Date Posted: 02/01/2023
Views: 1
The historic sign at the Seduku entrance gate to Chobe National Park reads: "Chobe National Park - It was created on 14 July 1960 as a game reserve. This was later upgraded to become the first National Park on 31 August 1967. It is the second largest park and covers 10590.50 km. It is divided into four main focal points: Chobe River front with floodplains and teak forest, savute march in the west, the linyanti swamps in the north west, and the hot dry winter land in between. The original inhabitants were the San people. A major feature of Chobe National Park is its elephant population.
Donated by: Molepolole College of Education Wildlife Club year 2001"
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The idea of a national park to protect the varied wildlife found in the area as well as promote tourism first appeared in 1931. The following year, 24,000 km² around Chobe district were officially declared non-hunting area; this area was expanded to 31,600 km² two years later. The Chobe Game Reserve was officially created in 1960, though smaller than initially desired. In 1967, the reserve was declared a national park.
The park is widely known for its spectacular elephant population: It contains an estimated 50,000 elephants, perhaps the highest elephant concentration of Africa, and part of the largest continuous surviving elephant population. Elephants living here are Kalahari elephants, the largest in size of all known elephant populations.
During our 3 night stay in Kasane we did two game drives and two boat safaris on the Chobe River. We saw elephant, lion, zebra, giraffe, buffalo, hippo, rhino, warthog, jackal, baboon, vervet monkey, impala, kudu, sable, mongoose and many birds.
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