Conservation authorities began to drain the Silolweni Dam on Tuesday to prevent algal poisoning of the wildlife in the area, the Kruger National Park said.
The decision was made after conservation officials and rangers found five zebra carcasses near the Tshokwane picnic site and suspected that blue-green algae was responsible for the deaths.
This was confirmed after full post-mortems were done on two carcasses by state veterinarian Roy Bengis, and water samples from the dam revealed a high concentration of the algae.
”We understand that the large concentration of this algal poison was built up due to the high concentration of hippo currently found in the dam … we have found that the most effective way to discourage the hippos from visiting the dam is to lower the level of the water,” said Freek Venter, the park’s head of conservation management.
The grass around the dam was also burnt, prior to the draining, to discourage animals from grazing near it.
The pump apparatus will be visible from the H1-2 tar road between Skukuza and Tshokwane and the tourist parking area near the dam.
Silolweni Dam is very popular as a game-viewing site and is visited by thousands of tourists every year, the park said.
”A number of options were considered before it was decided to drain the dam using floating pumps set up in the middle of the dam and, as this is the second case in the last 12 months where algal poisoning has caused multiple animal deaths, we are currently looking at permanent solutions to this problem,” said Venter.
The Nhlanganzwane Dam near Crocodile Bridge rest camp was breached in July last year after it was discovered that the same algal poisoning had killed more than 54 animals. — Sapa