Makgadikgadi Pans Game Reserve includes a portion of the 12000 sq km (4600 sq mile) Makgadikgadi Pans,
MAKGADIKGADI PANS

Makgadikgadi Pans Game Reserve includes a portion of the 12000 sq km (4600 sq mile) Makgadikgadi Pans, which is the size of Portugal. Over 10,000 years ago these pans were one of the world’s largest prehistoric lakes. They dried up due to continual shifting of the earth’s crust and formed the Pans as we see them – salt plains covered with grasslands and isolated “islands” of vegetation marked by baobab and palm trees.

When the sparse summer rain comes, shallow depressions of saline clay and silt become pools that attract a migration of wildlife – zebra, wildebeest, eland, gemsbok, springbok and hartebeest ebb and flow across the plains in ceaseless pursuit of water and grazing. Following in their footsteps are the inevitable array of carnivores – lion, cheetah, leopard, wild dog, and hyena. It is not an uncommon sight to see game, far out on the pans eating the mineral-rich silt, as if up to their knees in water as the heat shimmers a mirage across the surface of the pans.

Though man has been around these parts from time immemorial, the pans are nearly devoid of human habitation and give one the feeling of true isolation. There are Bushman hunting shelters and sacred sites and the shorelines of Makgadikgadi are littered with archaeological relics including Stone Age tools. The seasonal bounty of game has attracted hunters through the ages.

The bird life is a specialist’s dream – white backed and lappet faced vultures, bateleur, ostrich, kori bustard, black korhaan and bronze winged courser, four species of sand grouse and a startling variety of larks. In the wet season flamingos, pelicans, avocet and a huge range of ducks move into the area.