The Future

It's wonderful to here about such success stories in wildlife conservation, and here's the proof. The subjects are nicely posed for comparison. The only slight negative I can see is that the habitat does appear quite "managed" by man. No slight on your photography Ken, just what you had to work with. The composition is nicely balanced though.

Gary,

Thanks for your comment I presume the "hand of man" refers to my terrible cloning on the LHS, in a clearly failed attempt to remove piles of Elephant poo

Ken, actually by "hand of man" I wasn't referring to cloning (didn't detect that at all). I just meant that the habitat appears to have be literally touched by man, cultivated and trees removed for example. The pond in the foreground has no vegetation at the shoreline and I see some repetitive lines of greenery on the ground in front of the adult's head (caterpillar tracks?) in the background. So, I have no idea how this landscape "actually" came to be, but it just appears to be managed by man, or altered by man might be a better choice of words. So, what's the significance of this anyway? Well, maybe not a whole lot. I mention it because in an ideal wildlife photo I guess I always strive and hope for those photos where the environment "appears" truly wild. Sometimes subjects are in wide open wild spaces and sometimes they are lying in the middle of a highway. When I looked at this image and after reading your commentary I was left wondering a little if perhaps this was a reserve or enclosure developed for the wildlife. I could be completely wrong so feel free to let us know a little more about this location if you wish. Hope I have explained my comments a little bit better. As an aside, my photograph of the group of caribou was taken along a road. The caribou are standing in a roadway allowance along a highway. I had concerns with that photo that it might appear unattractive because of the stark edge and obvious appearance that man likely cut those trees down. It would have been better/nicer if the caribou were at a natural edge of the forest. This is an example of what I'm referring to.

Gary,

Thanks for your explanation I'll try to give you some further detail.

The "pond" at the front is actually the shore line of Lake Kariba

Matusadona is probably one of the "wildest" game parks you could visit in Africa, its biggest drawbacks are a lack of roads and the vast amounts of shrubbery, known locally as Jess.

The only real open areas are around the lake which rises and falls according to season ( or how much water they let out of the hydro-electric dam), this results in the small grassy plains around the shores such as the one seen here. Which are closely "mown" by the large population of Hippo.

We say at a small but perfectly formed camp on a place called Rhino Island, from which dependant on water levels you can reach by vehicle or boat. If I could I would live there!

Cheers

Ken

Thanks for the further details of your image, it still looks perfectly natural to me