African Wildlife and Environment Issue 67

FAUNA, FLORA & WILDLIFE

the major birding pans of Nyamithi, Banzi and Shokwe were only accessible by Parks Board vehicles, with Gilly Schütte as the regular guide. It was in the mid-1960s, if memory serves me correctly, that Tony Pooley started his first crocodile farm on the banks of Banzi Pan (now dry) from whence he and his staff netted tilapia to feed the hatchlings and subadults before they were released back into the wild (in those days the water-lilies on Banzi were spectacular, and Nolly Zaloumis told me he once counted in excess of 5 000 Pigmy Geese on the pan!). Much, much more can be written about Ndumu and the adjacent country, and lots has changed ecologically and demographically over the intervening years. Today, with climate change, one has to wonder how this biodiversity gem that attracts birders globally will survive in the next few decades. I visited Ndumu in October 2016 as part of a biennial Ndumu Club visit and I was stunned to find that the Nyamithi Pan was almost dry. This shallow pan that is filled by rainwater, and also by water from the Pongolo River that when in flood together with the Usutu River, backs up water that overflows ‘back’ into the pan. Never in living memory has this pan been reduced to a central puddle some few hundred metres long and ~30-50 m wide. Testimony to the impact of the drought is that on this birding trip not one duck of goose was observed, a record for the club and as far as I am aware for any existing bird list. Now Nyamithi Pan is not deep, possibly when full maybe 3-5 m in the deepest part, and the level does fluctuate by some 20% of its total extent from when full to low seasonally; but for one to be able to walk across the pan that is some 4.5 km long and at its widest perhaps 500 m wide, was for me a once in a life-time experience. It was also scary to think that like Banzi and also Shokwe that perhaps it was the new reality; that from now on Nyamithi is also going to be more dry than full? Nyamithi Pan is really an old river bed that has, over geological time, filled with alluvial soils washed down from the mountains. The base of Nyamithi is a heavy impervious clay with a much siltier, thin overburden. Around the margins of the pan that are seasonally flooded are some enormous fever tree stands, which is typical of similar areas as one goes north. Where there are no trees, grasses, which are grazed to lawns by hippo and other herbivores, edge the pan. On the remaining edges where the slope is steep, common bushveld trees flourish, and at the over-flow to the Pongolo River there are substantial reed and sedge beds. To those of us who walked across the pan in October 2016, the terrain we traversed was puzzling, as the photographs and captions will attest. So, I have written this article to stimulate questions and ask for any in-puts from readers. So please have a think about this puzzle and let me know what you think.

Also, the climate is tropical, and in addition to the east lie the enigmatic Sand Forests of the Tongaland Plain and Tembe Elephant Park. To the west are the Lebombo Mountains that form the border between KZN and Swaziland. Finally, in the heart of Ndumu lies the Mahemane Bush that is a tangled mass of low trees and climbers, the origin of which has been debated back and-forth with no real conclusion. Back in the early 1960s I visitedNdumu and surrounds on many plant collecting trips. In those days it was reliably accessible by 4x4 vehicles along a network of tracks traversing the Lebombo foothills, or through the deep pallid sands of the Makatini Flats. In the 1950s Ken Tinley, the remarkable ecologist who made Tongaland his early home, and wrote magnificent reports on the gems of the region like St Lucia, Kosi Bay, Lake Sibayi and Ndumu itself (and later a report published as a supplement to African Wildlife on the Kaokoveld, and eventually did his PhD on Gorongosa) drew scientific attentionto the rich biodiversity of Tongaland. When I visited Ndumu >50 years ago Paul Dutton was the ranger in-charge and Tony Pooley (later of crocodile fame) with Elsa his wife was also at Ndumu. Back then

Eugene Moll Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology University of the Western Cape emoll@telkomsa.net

35 | African Wildlife & Environment | 67 (2017)