Buffalo at Chada Katavi

By Frank Japhet, Scout - Chada Katavi

The cape buffalo are highly gregarious animals, living in large herds up to 4000 in Katavi National Park.

Buffalo drink daily because they are not able to conserve water like some animals, so it is difficult for a large herd to find enough to drink in the dry season.  That is why they split up sometimes.

Due to this dry season, the herds are also breaking up because of scarcity of food.  They must travel a lot to make sure they don’t deplete the grass in one area.

They are grazers on the taller grasses, but sometimes they can browse on other plants, but this is rare.

The smaller units that break from the herds are led by a matriarch cow who leads her clan members who are usually closely related.  In large herds as well, there are older cows who want to be in the front of the herd.  These cows are called Pathfinders.

Other buffalo can be sedentary, not moving great distances because they are not in large herds.  The most sedentary buffalo are older bulls who are solitary or in small bachelor groups. 

The distance travelled by buffalo in a day ranges from 5 to 18 kms as they commute between pastures and water.  In Katavi, even in dry season, there are some areas where the herds are still large.  Rungwa river, Lukima river, and other areas where there is natural spring water are examples.

 

Katavi lion kills

By Philip Pendaeli - Guide, Chada Katavi

Katavi is the park which has only one rainy season from Nov-April which makes the plains flood and rivers run for a while and make the animals happy.

From Sept-Nov (just before rain) things go differently. Due to drought there are no running rivers or any water in the plains. Animals congregate by the water holes supplying easy daily meals to predators as we found close to the Katisunga water hole (also known as Chem Chem) when we went out in the morning for a game drive.  We found a pride of lion, 6 of them, and they killed two old buffalo bulls, one right next to the other.  The buffaloes were facing in different directions as if they were sitting there before.

Everyone in the car was excited to see that very rare sighting in the bush.  Myself, I have seen a lot of lion kills, but this one was very special.