Nov 17, 2011 – Savute: Then and Now
For years the Savute Channel, once a vibrant flowing water source in Northern Botswana, lay dry due to gradually decreasing water volumes in the area. However, gradually over the past few years levels have once again increased and the Channel is flowing once again, a virtual magnet for a plethora of wildlife drawn to its life sustaining waters. Below, Mike Myers of Wilderness Safaris provides unique perspective born out of 30+ years experience in the area: the effects of the Channel drying up and the joy at seeing it come full circle as it flows once again.
Read Mike’s account below and visit our Linyanti page to learn more about how you can experience this part of Botswana.
I first set eyes on the Savute Channel, and the huge open marsh it flows into, in the first year I worked in Botswana – 1979. The channel had been dry for roughly 75 years until the huge flood of 1958 opened up the mouth at Zibadianja and it flowed again until 1982. I lived and worked in Savuti over this period and it was the most spectacular place for a young guide to be.
During the early part of the year the water flowed into the top of the marsh but then around August the annual inundation increased the volume of water and turned the area into a wetland paradise. I remember guiding a small group of people in late August of 1980 and parking on the edge of the marsh looking out, with the woodland behind us dominated by camelthorn acacias. It was spectacular – if one turned 360 degrees looking through binoculars, there were two huge herds of buffalo, a pride of 27 lion, a pack of wild dog, zebra, giraffe, warthog, impala, sable, tsessebe, wildebeest, waterfowl and, walking off the marsh towards us, a honey badger.
We thought it would be like this forever but we were wrong.
The dry period began in 1982 and the channel started to dry up, retreating from the marsh and working its way back to the lagoon at Zibadianja. It took some time; the channel had dried up as far as the park boundary by 1985 and over the course of the next seven or eight years dried up to about 17km from the lagoon at Zibadianja. This would be about where the hide is found at Dish Pan. The very dry years in the late 90s caused the process to speed up until 1999, when the actual lagoon at Zibadianja dried up – Mike Slogrove, an ex-warden of Chobe Park, drove a land cruiser across the dry base of the lagoon that year. From then things slowly got wetter and water movement up the channel started in 2008. The channel flowed past the old Lloyds Camp, now Savute Elephant Camp, on 9th January 2010 and into the marsh. I went back for the first time in many years and found a herd of elephant drinking at the old Presidents Camp in July of that year.
The time in this area over the whole of the 30-year cycle has been inspirational for me. I remember how depressed I was when Zibadianja dried up juxtaposed with the elation of seeing elephant drink again in the channel at Presidents Camp. Left on its own, Africa heals itself. – Mike Myers
Content / Photo Courtesy of Mike Myers & Wilderness Safaris