Straight and Curly

Taken at Kgalagadi Transfrontier Reserve, South Africa

Driving through the dunes of Kgalagadi, gemsbok are often seen in small herds walking knowingly to the next waterhole. I loved the contrast of the gemsbok’s sabre-like straight horns with the warning of the sign indicating the curves up ahead.  Gemsbok are also known as oryx due to their scientific name, Oryx gazella, though there are 2 other species of the Oryx genus.

The Gemsbok has an important part in the histroy of this park as Kgalagadi Transfrontier Reserve. Initially, South Africa established a reserve in order to protect migrating game (especially the gemsbok) from poaching. The park is a now combination of the National Parks in South Africa (Kalahari Gemsbok National Park) and Botswana (Gemsbok National Park) who have dropped fences in a similar method to Kruger National Park with no fences but a border post between the countries.

–Alex Tweedie


Have your say...


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo



Connecting to %s