[et_pb_section transparent_background=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” inner_shadow=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” padding_mobile=”off” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” make_equal=”off” use_custom_gutter=”off”][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n
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Ecology:<\/strong><\/p>\n The vegetation on a property determines the type and number of animals that can be housed on that particular property. It is therefore very important to monitor the health and composition of plants on the property. Mabula has implemented a vegetation monitoring system 16 years ago which is implemented every year once the grasses have flowered. The focus of this monitoring system is to determine the species composition of grasses and the biomass available for grazing. The result of this exercise and the game counts that are performed during March and September each year are used to determine which animal species numbers to reduce or increase. Mabula also adopted a policy of excluding short term burning of the veld as a management tool. An extensive vegetation management system is in place that involves the slashing of thatch grass, the reduction of bankrupt bush, the eradication of invasive plants such as lantana and prickly pear and the control of bush encroachment. All of these resulted in a gradual increase in veld condition and therefore also an increase in the number of animals that the veld can sustain. It is therefore no surprise that Mabula is currently home to more animals than ever since its start almost 30 years ago.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Elephants<\/strong><\/p>\n The Mabula elephant herd entered a new era in their long and fruitful history. In April this year we sadly lost one of the Mabula icons. Ngama, the adult elephant bull, unfortunately passed away as a result of serious injuries sustained during a fight with the younger bull Mafuta. Mafuta, aged 16, now has the responsibility of filling the shoes of an adult. This role usually fall upon elephant bulls at the age of about 25. This means that Mafuta did not have the opportunity to go through his teenager phase. The sudden passing away of the dominant bull resulted in Mafuta going into musth a lot sooner than anticipated. This sudden change in his hormones causes confusion for both him and the herd. It is therefore that we replaced his old satellite collar with a new one so that we can keep track of his movements and closely monitor his behaviour. During this exceptionally long and dry winter, we needed to supplement their diet. Supplementing their diet is a vital part of managing these animals. If we do not supplement their diet in winter, the veld cannot provide in all their nutritional needs. This then lead to them uprooting many trees in order to get to their nutrient rich roots. Adding some supplementary feed reduces this seemingly destructive behaviour of the elephants. Overall it is still going very well with the herd. They continue to provide good sightings for those lucky enough to come across them on their game drives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cheetah<\/strong><\/p>\n In January 2015 Mabula became the proud home of 4 baby cheetah. It was a very welcome surprise when we found out that the young female(Released in December 2013) gave birth to 4 healthy cubs. We decided to stay away from her and the cubs for five weeks in order for her to start raising her first litter without interference from people. Unfortunately, when we tracked her again after the five weeks we noticed that she lost two of her cubs. The remaining two cubs, a brother and sister,\u00a0 is doing very well. They follow their mother all over the place and is already big enough to start taking part in hunts. They are still very clumsy and do not know what to do with their prey once they have caught it.\u00a0 In the meantime the males are carrying on with life as normal. Between all of them, they hunt a wide variety of game that include impala, eland, zebra, blue wildebeest, kudu, nyala, red hartebeest and other smaller mammals. This is very good news and means that they do not target one specific prey species and therefore leading to that species disappearing from Mabula. Maintenance<\/strong><\/p>\n A new water reservoir has recently been built at one of our Timeshare camps. This reservoir increased the holding capacity of water on Mabula with 350,000 liters. This means that should we experience a power failure or should one of our water supply pipes burst that we now have the ability to provide water for up to 36 hours without having to pump water.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=”Sidebar” orientation=”right” area=”sidebar-1″ background_layout=”light” remove_border=”off”] [\/et_pb_sidebar][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ecology:<\/strong><\/p> The vegetation on a property determines the type and number of animals that can be housed on that particular property. It is therefore very important to monitor the health and composition of plants on the property. Mabula has implemented a vegetation monitoring system 16 years ago which is implemented every year once the grasses have flowered. The focus of this monitoring system is to determine the species composition of grasses and the biomass available for grazing. The result of this exercise and the game counts that are performed during March and September each year are used to determine which animal species numbers to reduce or increase. Mabula also adopted a policy of excluding short term burning of the veld as a management tool. An extensive vegetation management system is in place that involves the slashing of thatch grass, the reduction of bankrupt bush, the eradication of invasive plants such as lantana and prickly pear and the control of bush encroachment. All of these resulted in a gradual increase in veld condition and therefore also an increase in the number of animals that the veld can sustain. It is therefore no surprise that Mabula is currently home to more animals than ever since its start almost 30 years ago.<\/p> Elephants<\/strong><\/p> Towards the end of 2011, and during the first few months of 2012, our elephants began aggressively accessing food, mainly citrus at certain Wholeowners and Timeshare units at Sunset Hill and Modjadji. An investigation revealed that some people at these units were actively feeding the elephants which led to them realising that these were easy sources of food. In order to reduce the possibility of injury to guests or the loss or damage of property it was decided to put a two strand electric fence around these two camps. This has proven effective in keeping the elephants out of these camps and limits the possibility of a physical encounter between elephants and guests.<\/p> Cheetah<\/strong><\/p> It has now been a year since the two cheetah males were released on Mabula. They have adapted well to conditions on Mabula and they are providing good sightings on game drives. Initially they focussed their hunting efforts on ostrich and kudu which are species familiar to them from their home reserve in the Western Cape. Through trial and error they have learnt to hunt other species found in their new home. The two main species in their diet are now impala and kudu. Through extensive monitoring it was found that they hunt twice a week and that their kills remove less than 30% of the production of the two species mentioned. This in conjunction with them hunting other species in between led to the decision to introduce a female during 2013. Suitable females have been found and we are looking forward to welcoming one of them on Mabula around August 2013.<\/p> Maintenance<\/strong><\/p> A new water reservoir has recently been built at one of our Timeshare camps. This reservoir increased the holding capacity of water on Mabula with 350,000 liters. This means that should we experience a power failure or should one of our water supply pipes burst that we now have the ability to provide water for up to 36 hours without having to pump water.<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-49","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bushtime.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bushtime.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bushtime.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bushtime.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bushtime.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bushtime.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":621,"href":"https:\/\/bushtime.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49\/revisions\/621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bushtime.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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