The Savute Channel Flows Again

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Savute, Jan 2010 – breaking news!
Our rangers from &Beyond Savute under Canvas, report that the channel is flowing once again and that the waters have reached Savute Safari Lodge.

The Savute channel runs through Savute and has the tendency to flood and dry up, unrelated to rain or the lack thereof, but it has not flowed since the early 1980’s.  Due to a combination of tectonic movement and heavy flood waters, it is flowing once again!

Savute, a remote and wild corner of the Chobe National Park, is situated south of the Chobe River. This is an area of open savanna grassland through which a seasonal river used to spill out into a marsh. It last flowed in the 1980s. Today, the channel and marsh are usually dry except after heavy rains, but several artificial waterholes offer breathtaking wildlife viewing.

The landscape of Savute, with its almost desert-like feeling, is strikingly different from the lush Chobe riverfront. Sizable numbers of elephant bulls are invariably present at Savute and close encounters with these great pachyderms are commonplace. In the wet season, large herds of zebra and tsessebe feed on the Savute plains.

During the summer rains, the pans of Savute fill with water, which sustains wildlife long into the dry season. Zebra and wildebeest congregate and it is not uncommon to catch sight of leopard, cheetah and African wild dog.

There is also a Zebra migration in Savute.  The zebra start moving down from Linyanti to Savute in November / December when the rains start.  They move back up to Linyanti between February & April.  This is mostly composed of small groups of zebra and not a large herd, and a lot of the zebra ‘disperse’ into Chobe.   More impressive than that is the migration of zebra from the Mababe depression up northwards to Savute Marsh, and this occurs towards the end of the rainy season and they stay in Savute for a few weeks and then return to Mababe.  Some of our guides have reported a herd of up to a thousand zebra.
Savute also supports the greatest concentration of the king of all beasts – the lion. Savute is also a famous battleground for lion and spotted hyena whose ongoing fight for dominance has been captured in the brilliant National Geographic documentary film Eternal Enemies filmed by Deryck and Beverly Joubert.

Pictures courtesy of Desert and Delta Safaris