Hwange National Park

[citation needed] In October 2013 it was discovered that poachers killed a large number of African elephants with cyanide after poisoning their waterhole.

[14] This action spurred widespread social media coverage[15] and a petition calling for Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe to outlaw big game hunting permits.

Charges were initially laid against Theo Bronkhorst, Palmer's guide, for "failing to stop an illegal hunt" but these were later thrown out of court.

[28] The population of the Cape wild dogs to be found in Hwange is thought to be of one of the larger surviving groups in Africa today, along with that of Kruger National Park and Selous Game Reserve.

[29][30] Other major predators include the lion, whose distribution and hunting in Hwange is strongly related to the pans and waterholes.

[39] In the north-west there are basalt lava flows of the Batoka Formation, stretching from south of Bumbusi to the Botswana border.

There are no rivers in the rest of the park, although there are fossil drainage channels in the main camp and Linkwasha areas, which form seasonal wetlands.

[47] People have lived in the region for tens of thousands of years, as attested by numerous archaeological sites ranging from early Stone Age to the historic era.

They made engravings of animal hoofprints on sandstone rockshelter walls with some small rock paintings in the park's northwest.

[48] Iron-age people built large and small stone-walling sites in the park, such Mtoa [49] and the Bumbusi National Monument.

Game at a pan in a vlei or seasonal wetland
Lion resting near a termite mound
Elephant at Longone Pan
A southern ground hornbill
Map of Hwange National Park