Greater Makalali Nature Reserve

Greater Makalali Nature Reserve The GMNR is a private nature reserve based in the Limpopo province of South Africa.

22/01/2026

the dark of night, surprises await… 🌙
The Tembe cubs — no longer so little — caught enjoying a well-earned cat nap 🐾✨
Before scurrying off to cause a little mischief!

14/01/2026

Mother Nature is flexing her muscles...💦💪

We have received over 200mm of rain in the past 48 hours, and the GMNR is flooding. The Makhutswi River has broken its banks and is thundering away, and many of its tributaries that usually lay dormant have come to life. The vast majority of our dams are over capacity, creating new temporary river systems. The rain is expected to stick around for a few days💦

Many properties in the greater area have experienced heavier rainfall, and we hold them in our thoughts!

Stay safe out there!

A sight to behold🦁 managed to squeeze the entire Tembe Pride and one of the Tembe Males into this one beautiful photo!Ho...
07/01/2026

A sight to behold🦁

managed to squeeze the entire Tembe Pride and one of the Tembe Males into this one beautiful photo!

How many can you count?

🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁

📸 Photo Credit:

16/12/2025

The rain has been plentiful, and all of the dams are full!

Here are the camera trap highlights from the past two weeks! There is water everywhere at the moment, so the cameras have been a little slow, but we still managed to get some great pictures.

Enjoy!🐘

12/12/2025

🐃🐃🐃🐃
A few months ago, routine disease testing was carried out on the buffalo herds in the GMNR.
The buffalo were tested for 3 diseases: Brucellosis (bacterial), Corridor Disease (tick-borne) and Tuberculosis (bacterial and can spread to other mammals).
It was a long and challenging day, but it was a great success with no diseases picked up in the reserve buffalo population.
The GMNR is proud of our disease free status, which we work hard to maintain!

🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃🐃

Thank you to and
for helping make this day such a success!

🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘Charlie has a new party trick!Standing up on his hind legs so he can reach the branches higher up in the tree!Fortu...
03/12/2025

🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘
Charlie has a new party trick!

Standing up on his hind legs so he can reach the branches higher up in the tree!

Fortunately was there to capture this rare moment.

📸 Photo Credit:

🚫Invasive Species Control🚫The prickly pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) is a category 1 invasive w**d that needs to be control...
19/11/2025

🚫Invasive Species Control🚫

The prickly pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) is a category 1 invasive w**d that needs to be controlled and eradicated. It's seeds are easily dispersed by birds, elephants and baboons, and even worse, a whole new plant can grown from a single fallen cladode (leaf).

Here on the GMNR, when a new prickly pear is spotted, its location is mapped and control measures are taken.

In the pictures:
1 - stand of prickly pear.
2 - plant being injected with a selective systemic herbicide which kills the plant from the edges.
3 - the dark patch you can see is the herbicide in the outer most cladode. The plant circulates the herbicide to its base, effectively spreading it.
4 - 1 week after being injected with herbicide.


**d

10/11/2025

📣Volume Up📣

Sluuuuuurp!

This elephant bull provided some entertainment for the day by showing off his water testing skills!

Watch how he expertly uses his trunk to sample the water at various points of the pan.
💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦

An interesting story has recently come to light, right here on the GMNR!😱 Roughly 6 years ago, a tiny male leopard was b...
24/09/2025

An interesting story has recently come to light, right here on the GMNR!😱

Roughly 6 years ago, a tiny male leopard was born on Kapama Private Game Reserve and was first observed by Ingwe Research Program in January 2023. He goes by the name of Lion Pan Male🐆

He was regularly seen on camera traps until April 2024, when he mysteriously vanished!

15 months later, after the leopard data for July 2025 from the GMNR was submitted to by , the Lion Pan Male revealed himself. He had dispersed from his home ground and traveled a great distance, turning up on the GMNR. As the crow flies, the distance from Kapama PGR to the GMNR is 57kms!😲 This is the longest recorded dispersal track that Ingwe Research has ever recorded.

This discovery was made possible by the ArgusWild AI platform, which processes spot patterns and compares them to existing images on it's database to find potential matches! Incredible right?!

We do hope that Lion Pan Male will settle down and establish a territory here on GMNR so he can contribute towards our leopard genetics and continue to provide valuable data on leopard behavior!

Images:
1| This beautiful image was taken by on Kapama PGR.
2| ArgusWild AI platform matched the image taken on the GMNR to one taken in Kapama PGR.
3| Ingwe Research Program's ID kit for the Lion Pan Male.

Thank you to for the work you do across the lowveld!

🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆

Address

Road D202
Gravelotte
0895

Telephone

+27634587169

Website

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