A highlight of any trip to wildlife areas is seeing predators in their natural habitat although as many of them are only active overnight or during cooler days sightings can be frustrating when all they are doing is lying in the shade for hours!! The gates of the Rest Camps in the Kruger are open at different times depending on the season. In November (summer) they open at 4.30am so, quite often, we were up soon after 4am, had some coffee and a rusk and were out and about as soon as the gates opened.

 Cheetah

 Undoubtedly our best sighting was quite early one morning when we came across 5 cheetah next to the tar road between Letaba and Satara, and only 1 other vehicle there. They were walking alongside the road and, to start with, only a few metres from the road. As we followed them they wandered along, occasionally stopping for a rest and gradually getting further from the road. We followed them for around an hour, by which time there were about 6 vehicles following them. Eventually they headed off into the bush.

All five looked much the same size so we weren't sure if they were siblings or a female with 4 well grown cubs. We thought perhaps the latter when we saw one of them hiding amongst the grass and then running towards and, jumping over another one.

Lion 

One morning Kevin wanted a lie-in so I went out early on my own. I was just approaching the place we'd seen the five cheetah when I saw 4 or 5 cars ahead. As I got closer I noticed a couple of lions in the road ahead , then I noticed more lions further along the road walking away from us. As we slowly followed they walked along the road and then moved off into the grass next to the road. Eventually I counted 10 lions and, as they were generally well spread out, all the cars were able to get great views. Mostly they just walked slowly through the grass but occassionally the youngsters would pounce on one another.  After at least an hour, as it was getting hotter, they stopped near a pool in a small river valley, some had a drink but most just lay in the shade.

Most of our other sightings of lions were in the Southern part of the park, especially in the Lower Sabie area when we drove out from Skukuza.  They were later in the day so they were much less active and there were a lot more vehicles around.

Leopard  

We only saw two leopard in the 3 weeks and both times for only a short time. As they prefer to lie up during the day and tend to keep to the more dense bush they are always difficult to spot unless they happen to walk across the road in front of you.

Hyena

Undoubtedly the most common predator that we saw throughout the Park . Apart from seeing them patrolling the fences at several of the Rest Camps we saw them during the day on many occasions, always in groups.  On one occassion we saw a pup.  Most of the time it was behind its mum but it did pop its head up a couple of times.  

Crocodile

These were present wherever there was water but the largest concentration was along pools in the Luvulhu River near the northern border of the Park. We'd left Punda Maria Rest Camp early and were in the Pafuri area before it got too hot so many of them were still lying about in the early morning sunshine.

Jackal 

We were surprised how few jackal we saw. They are usually in the vicinity of waterholes but we hardly saw any.

Last updated: January 2021