As we fly over the flat, featureless grasslands of Zambia’s Liuwa Plain National Park in our tiny spotter plane, eight round-eared faces with wet twitching noses peer up at us from the edge of a flower-ringed pool.
This terribly rare and seldom-seem African wild dog pack seems unconcerned by the sudden appearance of our plane, as do the clan of hyena with whom they are resting. The thousands of nearby wildebeest take a different view, however; they scatter from our shadow in panic; swerving and weaving away below us like a swarm of little black ants.
‘That’s fantastic,’ yells Craig Reed, the park manager, over the plane’s intercom. ‘This is the first time we’ve spotted the dogs from the air since beginning surveys in 2003. Their presence here means that the ecology is recovering and that we, as wildlife managers, are doing our jobs well.’
The Liuwa Plain National Park is part of the great Zambezi floodplain; a 200,000-hectare region of seasonally inundated grasslands and forests where the second largest wildebeest migration on earth occurs.
Not only does the region often overflow with water, it should also overflow with wild animals, but sadly decades of commercial poaching have taken their toll.
In 2003, though, things began to change for the better after a three-way partnership was forged between a private parks management service called the African Parks Network (APN), Zambia’s wildlife authorities (Zawa) and the local royal establishment.
Says Reed: ‘The APN is a transparent conservation management and funding agency that has attracted investors and donors to an otherwise largely ignored area. And one of our first priorities was to use that funding to employ, train and equip a dedicated team of ground staff.’
With poaching now a thing of the past, tourists are visiting the region, the local economy has improved, jobs have been created and animal populations are well on their way to a full recovery.
Peering through the open doors of the plane I see that all around, from horizon to horizon, there are vast herds of zebra, clusters of various antelope and enough wildebeest to make a pride of lions dance for joy.
Later that same day, I am taken into the park on the back of a motorbike by long-time local ranger Roger Monde. He has an easy smile and a gun – just in case we run into any residual poachers.
‘I hope you have strong thighs,’ he tells me, in a deep baritone voice, ‘you’re going to need them.’
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