Africa Wild

Lesego Nko
Admin · 45 mins
Media Release: Kruger National Park introduces vehicles for visitor management system

Kruger National Park (KNP) Management received four new vehicles from Toyota South Africa Motors yesterday(18 December 2017), which will be used for providing information to guests, visibility on the roads and law enforcement in the Park. The vehicles will begin to be operational during this festive season when the volume of visitors to the Park will be high.

The Park receives more than 1.7 million visitors per annum and to provide wildlife experience to these visitors, KNP developed a Visitor Management plan and these new vehicles form part of the plan. The vehicles will amongst others, assist in the patrols of various vulnerable areas, spot checks at strategic points such as gates with emphasis on adherence to the rules and regulations and general patrolling wherein relevant information will be given to guests.

“Now and then especially during busy periods, we receive feedback from concerned tourists about rule breakers who speed on the roads in the park – which leads to road kills, whilst some protrude or climb out of their vehicles. These vehicles are an extension to those of our traffic officials, Rangers and Security Staff and we are certain they will assist in this regard”, said the KNP Acting Managing Executive, Nicholus Funda.

Visitors are advised to plan their journey properly and to adhere to the gate times as recorded on maps, permits and signs at the camps. Some of the rules and regulations of the KNP, which are well communicated on entrance permits, signage and pamphlets, include the following:

• Visitors must remain in their vehicles unless in a designated area. Remember that no part of the body may protrude from a window or sunroof or any other part of the vehicle. Vehicle doors should be closed at all times.

• The maximum speed limit is 50 km/h on tar roads and 40 km/h on gravel roads. Speed checks are done throughout the Park. All speeding culprits will be fined.

• General rules of the road apply within the KNP; it is an offence to drive on South African roads without a recognized driver’s licence or under the influence of alcohol.

• Adhere to the gate times. Gate times must strictly be adhered to. You must be inside your allocated overnight camp or exit the Park before entrance gate closing time. No travelling before or after these times are allowed. (In December and January, KNP gates open at 05:30 and close at 18:30. Gate times must be strictly adhered to and late comers may be subject to a fine.

• No killing of animals – Poaching and killing of animals is strictly prohibited and severely punishable by law

• The feeding or disturbing of animals is a serious offence. Also remember, animals see litter as food!

• No pets may be brought into KNP.

• Declare all firearms/weapons of any sort at the entrance gate.

• Overnight visitors are only allowed to stay at a booked and recognised overnight facility and must report to reception before occupying accommodation or camping.

• Vehicles of a carrying capacity exceeding 4 000 kg, buses or any vehicles with more than 25 seats, are restricted to the tar roads.

• A stringent noise restriction is enforced between 21:30 and 06:00. Loud car stereo cause a disturbance to animals and other guests; volume levels should be kept to minimum. The use of cell phones is permitted only in camps, gates and in cases of emergency.

• The use of roller skates, skateboards, bicycles, motorbikes and quad bikes is prohibited. Drones are also prohibited in a National Park.

• Note that not all roads are accessible to caravans and, in case of high rainfall, certain tourists might be closed. You are not allowed to drive “off-road” or on roads with a “no entry” sign.

Rules and regulations are enforced under the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act, 2003 (Act no. 57 of 2003) and transgression can result in a spot fine of up to R1 500 and subjection to court. The amount of fine issued to a rule breaker depends on the nature and severity of offence committed.

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Issued by:
South African National Parks – Kruger National Park, Communications & Marketing Department

Media enquiries either:
William Mabasa
GM: Communications and Marketing
Tel: 013 735 4363, cell: 082 807 3919
Email: William.mabasa@sanparks.org

Lucy Nhlapo
General Manager: Marula Region – KNP
Tel: 013 735 4105 or cell: 082 908 4753

They might be a good thing if used in a proper way, but that of course depends on who are going to drive these cars.

All fine and well they just need to be on road and not parked at clubhouse. Think a lot of roadkill and speeding happens early morning before gate opening, will they be working then also?

The speeders are mostly staff, staff taxis and delivery vehicles.

Here's an interesting idea from BC on the Apps thread:

Bushcraft wrote:FB, I don’t believe that it can be stopped as the technology is available and people can’t be stopped from using it. Twitter, F-book, cell phones, etc can’t be stopped. In a way it’s just like someone at the old sighting board shouting his head off about a kill down the road, just as multiple OSV’s talk amongst themselves, etc. There will always be people who will rush off based on that, but now it’s potentially exponential with automatic updates available to all in the park.

If I get an update about a leopard on a kill next to the road, or a pangolin sleeping under a tree, etc, etc, in the area that I’m in there’s no way I’m not going to take a look.

The only options I see is for SANParks to also follow these updates and dispatch control vehicles accordingly, or effectively educate visitors on sighting etiquette, but SANParks can’t teach visitors manners, which seems to also be a large problem at a crowded sighting.

Another one from Flutts in 2012:

Flutterby wrote:Perhaps we should start a Name and Shame thread...actually to do it on FB would be even more effective!!!

We do have a "Gallery of Shame" thread...

That's BC's opinion and I remember it very well. That does not mean that we have to accept the technologies with closed eyes. They are not all inevitable and useful. We can very well do without them in certain circumstances and trying to be conservative when it comes to wildlife and Natural parks, does not mean that you are also against the same developments in the daily life.

Technology is being used in conservation, the wild dogs are all being tracked with technology. Let’s say they allow all this technology and apps and in fact encouraged people to use and report sightings. So many more sightings would be recorded and people will go to closest sighting and traffic would also be spread? Peopl would possibly also not hog sightings as there could be another close by they would like to see. Eventually some people will get bored of the apps.

Off topic, but the apps have been used extensively lately for the reporting of snared animals. Over the last few months it's clearly obvious that there's a massive problem in the Pretoriuskop area with snared leopard, hyena, wild dogs,etc, etc.........even an elephant. At least 1 snared animal per week reported. What is Sanparks doing about it

It seems the new Traffic control vehicles have not been totally successful utilised with some of the parks guests :

Lucy Botha‎ to SANParks - Kruger National Park
5 hrs · Mbombela ·
I feel today the beauty of the Kruger has been destroyed. We arrived at a sighting of a Leopard on the H4-1 with a ‘sighting monitor’ car with blue lights onsite. I’m a regular visitor to the Kruger and have never seen one of these before. It wasn’t a congested or intense sighting... I believe the Leopard had a kill in the tree but couldn’t see due to the cars being forced to move on. The lady in the car sat there and screamed down the microphone at cars to move on. There was no way the Leopard would of still been around with that noise, and the shouting was horrendous, if this is what Kruger is going to become it would be a huge shame. Let people use common sense at sightings... shouting down a microphone will help no one!!!!