Articles written by Justin Bell
December 2018 I looked out of the window of the Cessna Caravan 12-seater aircraft as it banked and descended. The aquamarine waters of Lake Tanganyika contrasted with the emerald vegetation of the fields. A couple of days ago Laurence and Alana, my two eldest children, were at university in opposite ...
When I was last in Namibia in January 2018 I was concerned about the chances of survival for the 3 one year old cubs, living along the Hoanib River in the Skeleton Coast National Park. They were the daughters of the desert lioness Margeaux (marked XPL-55 by Desert Lion Research) ...
Africa is still the Dark Continent. It is replete with mysteries, wonders and misconceptions, among other treasures. Consider Rwanda, for example. This is a tiny country in the Great Lakes region of Africa, a little to the west of giant Lake Victoria. Few people outside Africa know where it is, ...
I sit in a mokoro, or African dug-out canoe, my eyes only a metre above the waterline. My feet are stretched out before me, with my camera gear between my knees, and I am resting on a cushion, with the expert poler standing behind me. I have no idea how ...
We were in the Okavango Delta, on the edge of an island of woodland overlooking an open floodplain, sipping cocktails and enjoying the changing sky; the evolving russets, oranges and reds of the sunset. I was with a wonderful family from California - three generations, so there was quite a ...
February 2018 The rich ochre and black ridges and the flat, stony plains of the Skeleton Coast appear to have no life at all, but the Hoanib River wends its way through. The term “river” overflows with optimism, and not water. The Hoanib is actually a dry, sandy, meandering watercourse ...
Ruyard Kipling wrote a wonderful book - Just So Stories explaining various mysteries including how the leopard got his spots, and how the rhino got his skin. However he never dared explain why zebras have stripes. Almost wherever you go on an African safari you will see zebras. They are ...
We reached a ledge where we could rest and have a picnic ¾s of the way up the formidable 3,000 ft high (over 1,000m) Western Breach. The Breach is the steepest and hardest non-technical route up Mount Kilimanjaro. Even though it is hard to breathe (there is nearly half the ...
An essential requirement for a species is that they can reproduce and have fertile offspring. Clearly if they cannot do so, they become extinct. Most hybrids such as a liger, which results when a lion and a tiger mate, are infertile. The same occurs when a horse is cross-bred with ...
Ngorongoro Crater is a marvel of geology. It is a fully intact 280km2 unbroken caldera situated in the heart of the Great Rift Valley. The rim of the caldera is around 1,800m (6,000 ft) above sea level. Standing on the forested and misty slopes of the eastern rim offers astounding ...
Mention Africa and lions, cheetahs, gazelles, elephants, rhinoceroses and leopards come to mind, but none of these animals are uniquely African, as they are also indigenous in Asia. For instance one of the three surviving species of elephant in the world, the Indian elephant, is Asian. So which mammal is ...
Today is World Wildlife Day. Each year the United Nations chooses a different theme to highlight the threat to wildlife on our planet and raise awareness. This year the theme is "The future of elephants is in our hands". Sadly, this statement has never been more true. I was born and ...
