We are in the third year of a serious drought. The second in the ten years I have been living in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa
I am standing on the top of the dam wall, the biggest on the farm!
A tractor and five farm staff members are visible at the waters edge, dwarfed by the dam wall.
They are repairing an underwater duct which had rusted through . . .
The dam, when full is some 15 meters deep
One of the farm managers recently waded across without getting his belt wet!
The drought has serious farming implications. It also has a profound effect on nature
These fish, nine in all, were regurgitated at the bottom of this dam wall by a Cormorant. A large aquatic bird that dives while swimming on the surface of both sea and freshwater dams
Why?
Two years ago the wild guinea fowl on the farm laid no eggs and we saw no chicks. Customers of mine across three provinces told of the same phenomena
Game ranges in our biggest nature reserve, The Kruger Park reported that the Impala - The most prolific buck in SA - had dropped virtually no young and that, that was an indication of a coming drought! How accurate they were
There is still a devastating drought across most of our country
It is an historical fact that most droughts are broken when there is a flood
A small town in one of our provinces had a major flood yesterday . . . !