Etosha National Park; Wildlife Park & a Place Connected to Great History

Etosha National Park:

Etosha National Park is located in Namibia and is one of the best places in Africa to visit for adventure and abundant wildlife.

It’s a place where you connect with wildlife. The park has four entrance gates, which are as follows:

1. Southern gate: Anderson Gate
2. Eastern gate: Von Lindequist Gate
3. South-western gate: Galton Gate
4. Northern gate: King Nehale Lya Mpingana Gate

Well, you can enter from any one of these gates. Your choices and feasibility matter.

You never get lost in the park because now you can access offline navigations and mark your sighting… Must be thinking how?

Then, all you have to do is download the Etosha App.

Etosha National Park is home to 150 mammal species, and when you enter the space, you feel like you are experiencing the live Lion King.

You will usually find active waterholes because Etosha National Park is so dry, that all the animals gather at one of the park’s few waterholes, to drink water.

If you want to experience the difference between Day & Night Safari. Then Etosha National Park should be on your wishlist.

A Place Connected to Great History:

The Etosha Pan and the area that would later come to be known as Etosha National Park was first discovered by Europeans in 1851 when explorers Charles Andersson and Francis Galton came to the wild region in the company of Ovambo traders. Etosha can be loosely translated as “Great White Place” in the Ovambo language. European trade routes to the East and West of the Pan soon began to open up.

For the proceeding thirty years, the history of the region was characterized by temporary settlement and movement, the sporadic confrontation between Europeans and the Hei//om and Ovambo people that were native to the region, and the increasing threat to animal populations from over-enthusiastic European big game hunters.

MAMMALS IN ETOSHA NATIONAL PARK:

In 1896 German troops sent by the German Reich occupied the Namutoni region and built a fort in 1899. This original fort was raided and razed to the ground by Ovambos in 1904. But it was rebuilt the following year and still stands today as one of the most interesting features of the park and a national monument.

In the 20th century, the Governor of German South West Africa (Namibia), Dr F von Lindqvist, claimed Etosha as a national game reserve in 1907. At the time, the reserves covered over 100,000km 2 of territory, stretching west to the Skeleton Coast in parts and making it comfortably the largest game reserve in the world. But after various controversial and much-contested boundary reconfigurations and political shifts over the years, the park was reduced to its current size of just over 20,000km 2 in 1970.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a vast majority of the wildlife in the park was wiped out either by severe drought or after being caught in the crossfire of the so-called Border War that engulfed Namibia, South Africa and Angola at the time.

Today Etosha is once again one of the best places in the World to view Africa’s unique wildlife. While the still-visible remnants of its turbulent history continue to add another layer of interest to its mysterious allure.