KRUGER NATIONAL PARK
Kruger National Park, in north-eastern South Africa, is one of Africa’s largest game reserves.
The park was first proclaimed in 1898 as the Sabie Game Reserve by the then president of the Transvaal Republic, Paul Kruger. He first proposed the need to protect the animals of the Lowveld in 1884, but his revolutionary vision took another 12 years to be realised when the area between the Sabie and Crocodile Rivers was set aside for restricted hunting.
James Stevenson-Hamilton (born in 1867) was appointed the park’s first warden on 1 July 1902.
On 31 May 1926 the National Parks Act was proclaimed and with it the merging of the Sabie and Shingwedzi Game Reserves into the Kruger National Park.
The first motorists entered the park in 1927 for a fee of one pound.
Kruger is one of the premier game-watching destinations in the world. Approximately 147 mammal species occur in the park. It is possible to see all the classical African big game, including elephant, black and white rhino, hippopotamus, giraffe, zebra, buffalo, warthog and many antelope species. Large carnivores include lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog and spotted hyena.
The Kruger National Park covers nearly 20,000 km² (8,000 square miles) of undisturbed savanna, woodland, riverine forest and craggy mountain ranges. Kruger is comparable in size to Wales in the UK, the USA state of New Jersey, or Slovenia in Europe and larger than Israel and Netherlands.
Because of the sheer size of the Park, it is only to be expected that the vegetation changes as you travel from north to south, which has implications on the game viewing opportunities.
There are 336 tree species in the park, 53 fish, 34 amphibians, 118 reptiles, 517 bird species which represents 60% of the birding population in South Africa.
Kruger National Park is one of the flagships of South Africa and will undoubtedly bring you as close to nature as possible.