The Serengeti Game Drive

The term game-drive sounds somewhat inhumane to some people and even cruel to others. But in fact, it amounts to a vehicle with passengers armed with cameras and binoculars, driving the roads of the outback with an eye out for animals. The vehicles are driven by knowledgeable and responsible guides with the understanding the vehicle is not allowed to leave the road or chase the animals if they are on the road.

The animals here are constantly scanning their environment for anything moving. They immediately recognize their subject as a prospective mate, food, a predator requiring their defences, or lastly something of little interest, like our vehicle.

However, we have been part of more than one viewing where things went a little too far in our opinion, and we felt sorry for the animals. Whenever there is one of the more exotic animals spotted or there is a kill with it's flurry of interesting activity, the spotting is radioed from vehicle to vehicle. The information is even passed between guide companies, and there appears to be many of  those operating in the area. The result is that as many as 20 vehicles locate the sighting and crowd around it, constantly jockeying for position to get the best view. Often, the vehicles are as close as a couple of meters to the animal.

If the animals start to move, the crowd of vehicles follow along and at times interfere with the animals' activity. We were part of a cheetah sighting, and the event extended in excess of an hour. It appeared that the cheetahs were only slightly impacted by our presence, and of course they could choose to shy away from the roads not playing a role in our game drive.

In another event however, where a leopard took down a red buck, the leopard brought his kill and laid it out front, just meters from us, then while straddling it, looked up at us in pride. Subsequently, he climbed the adjacent tree and positioned himself for us to admire. The act was similar to a well fed house cat bringing home a mouse. It was the oddest thing.

Fortunately,  for the most part, the game drive controls are reasonable, necessary, and effective, including a limit to the number of vehicles in the national park at any one time. Also, to put the game drive in perspective, these animals live a dangerous life avoiding predators, and humans armed with a camera are not of much concern. So, we'll be heading out on another game drive tomorrow to see what else we can find in the wilds of Africa.

Click here for the next story in this series: http://travellingwithsteveandmarlene.blogspot.ca/2016/10/the-takedown.html