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What’s Outside Your Tent While You Sleep in Kruger Park?

Ever since Hal got a camera trap (also knows as a trail camera) for Christmas, we knew we had to take it with us on our next trip to South Africa. We’ve had a great result with it on our own yard. Last time we traveled in Southern Africa we had many types of animals visiting our campsite: owls, jackals, foxes, elephants, hippos, rhinos, and once we even caught a leopard hanging around our site while we were having dinner.

We saw all these animals with our own eyes, but we wondered how many were coming to visit while we were asleep in our tent? Who visits our campsites at night? We wanted to find out, so when packing for our Kruger Park vacation we made room in our luggage for our camera trap.

Our camera trap mounted on a fence post.
Our camera trap mounted on a fence post.

This was my first time in the Kruger Park but Hal had visited twice before and had already told me about all the animals that run around the camps. Hyenas by the fence? During daylight?

Camera Trap Photos at Kruger Park

We weren’t disappointed. After a few nights in Kruger we began to catch images of some of our mysterious night visitors. When we checked our camera trap we were excited to discover that both Genet and African Wild Cat had walked right past our tent in the middle of the night. Both of these animals are rarely seen during daylight (we’ve only seen them on guided night drives) so it was pretty exciting to know they were entering camp and walking right by our heads!

African Wild Cat by our tent
African Wild Cat by our tent
Genet walking by our tent
Genet walking by our tent (just 1 meter from our heads!)

These guys are so silent that we had no idea they were walking right by us in the night.

But my favorite photos are of the hyenas. In two different camps hyenas patrol the fence every evening. Even though I got used to seeing them around it was still kind of creepy to know they were lurking right on the other side of the fence as we slept.

Spotted hyena by the fence at Satara camp
Spotted hyena by the fence at Satara camp
Hyena patrolling the fence
Hyena patrolling the fence
What's creepier than a hyena at night? Two hyenas
What’s creepier than a hyena at night? Two hyenas

A camera trap is a great gadget to take on your safari in Kruger Park. There are many other animals walking around the camps that could end up on your camera including warthogs, black-backed jackals, bushbabies, vervet monkeys, baboons, and civets. And outside the fence you could end up seeing any animal in the park. Perhaps a lion is staring at you while you sleep.

Next time you go on a Kruger Park wildlife safari, get your hands on one of these cameras!

If you enjoyed our article, you may like:

Who’s In Our Yard? The Results of a Camera Trap Experiment


Cristina Garcia

Zoologist and wildlife photographer. She has worked in the field with jackals, wolves, cheetahs, & leopards. She serves on the Board of Directors of SEE Turtles, a non-profit sea turtle conservation organization.

Read her posts at Travel For Wildlife and see more of her work at Truly Wild, & Our Wild Yard.

Alexandra

Thursday 27th of December 2012

Okay so now I'm scared! Planning on sleeping in a tent while we backpack through Africa next spring, Sometimes I think ignorance is bliss ;) Pretty amazing stuff though! Can't wait to see all the animals but I'm just going to pretend they all sleep at night as well.

Cristina Garcia

Saturday 29th of December 2012

...then I'd better not tell you when we had a leopard coming to check out our dinner one night. It was pretty amazing

Cristina Garcia

Monday 29th of October 2012

We also use it on our yard with pretty awesome results! You can check them out at https://www.travel4wildlife.com/camera-trap-experiment/

Tiny Girl with Big Bag

Sunday 28th of October 2012

Wooo, scary stuff! I sleep calmer if I dont have such a camera with me :) but very interesting!!

Cristina Garcia

Monday 29th of October 2012

I know! It was nerve wrecking when it was time to check on the photos.

Bret @ Green Global Travel

Sunday 28th of October 2012

What kind of camera did you use, guys? Would love to try to take one with us if/when we get to Africa next year.

Cristina Garcia

Sunday 28th of October 2012

Hey Bret, We have the Primos TruthCam 35. I would get one that uses higher resolution pictures with infrared so it doesn't disturb the animals. There are some amazing cameras out there that take color pictures but those ones use flash and I guess it disturbs wildlife.