As a guide at Sabi Sabi it is impossible not to feel privileged and humbled to work and be part of the massive, majestic wilderness area that is the Sabi Sands and the Greater Kruger area. Every guide in South Africa should strive towards experiencing the bush and sharing his passion with guests here as the biodiversity, quality of sightings and animal interaction is unrivalled anywhere else.

Being a guide here one doesn’t only love and admire the animals, but also follow and have a keen interest in the movement of these magnificent beasts. Guests often ask me if that leopard or lion has a name and what do we call them then. For someone that is unfamiliar with life and guiding in the bush this may sound like a silly question as they are not pets, but actually it’s spot on! They do have identities and names as that is how we keep tabs on them for research study purposes. The names are normally given to animals to describe the place of birth, physical characteristics or behaviour as you don’t really want to over personify a leopard by naming him Batman or Tim for example.

It doesn’t matter whether it is lion prides, leopards or wild dog packs as one gets to know these animals we also understand their movements a little bit better and gives us the opportunity to follow their life’s story. It is now even possible to follow the movements of these individual animals when they move on to different properties as the next door neighbours do the same thing and by using Social Media we can have an idea what is happening in the whole Sabi Sands and even into the Kruger National Park!

Some examples here worth mentioning at Sabi Sabi is the more regular visits of the Styx Pride, normally found in the Northern Part of the Sabi Sands, and another familiar face in the form of Mahlathini male leopard who we haven’t seen for months. The appearance of the female leopard, Warthog Wallow, is also always welcomed. Which makes one wonder what they have been up to?

Another pleasant surprise was seeing the Lower Sabie pack of Wild dogs and this reminded us again that there are no restrictions for the animals here.

Once you as guide experience the vastness of the Greater Kruger area and see the massive untapped gene pool of the Kruger National Park at play whether it is new male lion coalitions arriving out of nowhere or young leopards trying to settle in and become territorial. I can imagine it must be pretty difficult to work anywhere else. An important aspect that we always need to remember is that we are merely spectators of what unfolds in this wonderful and mysterious environment and the outcome is control by the animals that roam free here. That is what humbles us.