Etosha National Park
Etosha was first established in 1907, when Namibia was a German colony known as South West Africa. The Etosha Pan dominates the park. The salt pan desert is roughly 130 km long and as wide as 50 km in places. The salt pan is usually dry, but fills with water briefly in the summer, when it attracts pelicans and flamingos in particular. In the dry season, winds blowing across the Etosha salt pan pick up saline dust and carry it across the country and out over the southern Atlantic. This salt enrichment provides minerals to the soil downwind of the pan on which some wildlife depends, though the salinity also creates challenges to farming. A long fence has been erected along the Etosha National Park's 850 km boundary to control the spreading of disease. The animals concentrate around the new waterholes, resulting in excessive grazing in their vicinity. Fifty waterholes have been constructed to attract animals and so improve the viewing prospect for visitors to Etosha Game Reserve. The surrounding savanna is home to a number of mammals that will visit the pan and surrounding waterholes when there is water, these include quite large numbers of zebra, Blue Wildebeest and springbok as well as white rhinoceros, elephants, hunting dogs, lions, leopards, and antelopes.
