Aren’t you about sick of this lockdown? Zambeze Delta Safaris to the rescue.

Image shows hunter with sable bull taken with Zambese Delta Safaris in Mozambique, just one of the 21 species of native game that are thriving under hunter-conservation funding and management.

Sable are just one of 21 native African game species that are thriving under conservation hunting management and funding through Zambeze Delta Safaris in Mozambique.

The current Covid 19 pandemic reminds me of what the veterinarian said when my dog ate a wash cloth: “This too shall pass.” And when the covid craziness fades, my wife and I are celebrating. We're making a safari to one of the most fecund, life affirming, wildlife-rich areas in the world: Zambeze Delta Safaris in Mozambique. Perhaps you can share camp and a hunt with us.

Photo shows aerial view of a large herd of Cape buffalo on Zambese Delta Safaris Mozambique delta habitat.

We photographed this herd of Cape Buffalo on our flight to Zambeze Delta Safaris camp several years ago. Since then the herds have grown even larger.

Zambeze Delta Safaris Wildlife Resurgence

How does a herd of 25,000 Cape buffalo sound to you? How would you like to stare at a hundred scimitar-horned sable grazing across an endless sea of grasses? Shaggy, spiral-horned nyala bulls browsing through forest glades and drying pans? Narrow-striped Selous zebra? Banana-tusked warthogs, bristly bush pigs, and climbing Colobus monkeys. Plus happy hippos floating and snorting in the backwaters? Not enough to lure you to Mozambique?

Photo shows a small herd of sable bulls near the Zambeze Delta Safaris camp. Sincer regulated conservation hunting began in 1994, sable have increased from a hundred or so to more than 3,000.

This is a typical scene at Zambeze Delta Safaris, a small herd of sable bulls at the edge of the woodlands/floodplains ecotone. Since conservation hunting began, sable numbers have increased roughly 30 times! Testament to the success of sustainable conservation hunting, which provides jobs for locals, provide them meat, and funds anti-poaching efforts.

Then let’s throw in thousands of common reedbuck. Hundreds and hundreds of Lichtenstein hartebeasts. We’ll find dozens of delicate oribi round every pan. Red duiker, blue duiker, and little Livington’s suni scamper through the forests. Expect secretive bushbuck, towering waterbuck, impish impala, skulking hyena, roaring lions, and coughing leopards.

Image shows a suni, one of the five tiny antelope species in the Zambeze Delta.

Most of the world's largest suni live in the Zambeze Delta miombo woodland

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Photo shows a young male common reedbuck.

Young common reedbuck ram at the edge of the floodplain. This is the most common species in the Delta.

Mark Haldane’s Coutada 11 lies in the floodplain delta of the Zambeze, Africa’s third largest river. It hosts the greatest wildlife restoration success story in recent yeas, possibly in all of history. When Mr. Haldane assumed management of this old hunting unit in 1994, aerial surveys uncovered 1,200 Cape buffalo. They counted a hundred sable and just five zebra scattered over a million acres. Most wildlife had been wiped out by nearly two decades of civil war and uncontrolled poaching. Today, under careful management and anti-poaching patrols funded by hunters, the region is essentially at carrying capacity. It boasts 21 species of game animals including four of the Big Five. Only the rhino is missing.

PH and hunter appraoch a downed Cape buffalo bull, illustrating the hunter activity that funds anti-poaching efforts while providing meat to local villagers.

Hunter fees fund anti-poaching patrols. Combined with a limited off-take of bulls and cows donated to local villagers, this conservation management program has nudged area herd numbers from 1,200 to more than 25,000 in 20 years.

Image shows hunters hand gripping a large warthog tusk.

Warthog tusks grow long in the sandy soils of the Zambeze Delta.

Image shows marabou stork and vultures clamoring over the remains of a buffalo.

Vultures and marabou storks are endangered across much of Africa, but not at Zambeze Delta Safaris where the remains of hunter killed game provide abundant food for these scavengers.

Wildlife Abundance Makes Magic Safari

This abundance makes for not just a grand safari, but a magical one. Whether you pack cameras or guns or both, you’ll bag all you hoped for. And then some. You’ll feel as if you’ve landed in a Tarzan movie set as you slowly cruise or stroll through subtropical miombo and sand forest woodlands serenaded by hundreds of exotic birds. You’ll feel like a 19th century explorer when you break out of the trees. Here are vast, open pans, game animals scattered across them like sheep in a New Zealand pasture.

Image shows a nyala bull in a grassy pan at Zambeze Delta Safaris in Mozambique.

Nyala bulls are one of the many species of native wildlife that forage in the grassy, drying pans amid the sand and miombo forests.

At forest edge the floodplain opens, a vast sea of grass interlaced with old river channels and dotted with palm tree hummocks, buffalo, and elephants. Travel here is by comfortable, multi-wheeled, all-terrain vehicles. They roll from dry ground to wet meadows to swamps until fully afloat like a boat. Flocks of white egrets flare and circle to divulge herds of black buffalo. Bring enough gun.

Image shows white cattle egrets flying over a herd of Cape buffalo nearly hidden in a sea of tall saw grass.

Flushing swarms of cattle egrets signal the location of Cape buffalo or elephant. In this case, it is a herd of buffalo nearly hidden in the sawgrass of the Zambeze Delta.

A cluster of scenic palms define a hummock in the vast floodplains at Zambeze Delta Safaris hunting area.

Comfortable Zambeze Delta Safaris Camps

We will stay in stone cabins or elaborate tents with floors, private bathrooms with hot and cold water. Cuisine is expansive and delicious including cuts of all the game meat we take. Our guides and hosts are friendly, welcoming, and encyclopedias of Africa natural history.

If you never take but one Africa safari, this should be the one. If you’re interested in being a part of this adventure, send your email address and we’ll provide more details.

Ron Spomer Outdoors will be sharing Zambeze Delta Safaris camp with a small, select group of conservation hunters in late August or September of 2021, Covid willing. Write if interested.

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