When the relentless heat subsides, the animals venture out of the water and congregate on the riverbank. The row of trees and the hill in the background are on the Botswana side of the border. From there, mainly elephants and Cape buffaloes cross over to drink from this waterhole.
Dirk Heinrich
Namibia's Minister of Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, visited a waterhole in the dried up Chobe River on the border with Botswana at the end of August 2019. 69 hippos were stranded in the waterhole that started to dry out. Next to it,the Ministry of the Environment had drilled a 29-metre borehole and pumped water into the waterhole for eight hours every day. The muddy pool once again turned into a large pond sheltering hippos from the scorching heat during the day.
Fortunately there is still enough dry grazing on the Namibian side of the river for the pachyderms to feed on in the cool of the night. Some ten kilometres east of the borehole there is another small waterhole with three hippos. East of Ngoma Bridge and the border crossing, 25 km further on, the Chobe contains enough water but is very shallow.
For more information about the hippos in the Chobe area please have a look on Namibia Outdoor.
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